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Ibram X. Kendi Profile picture
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Feb 9 • 6 tweets • 4 min read
Today, the White House Press Secretary is @K_JeanPierre, the first Black and openly queer person to serve in the role. But did you know that today, Feb. 8, is the anniversary of the first Black journalist being allowed into a White House press conference? A #BHM thread 1/
The reporter was Harry McAlpin, who covered a WH press conference on Feb. 8, 1944 for the Atlanta Daily World, thus becoming the first Black American to do so. It happened despite opposition from the then all-White WH Correspondents Association. 2/

blackpast.org/african-americ…
Before going in, the head of the @WHCA again asked McAlpin not to enter, and said the other journalists would share notes with him if he didn't. McAlpin still went. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, for his part, shook McAlpin's hand and said he was "very happy" to have him there. 3/
McAlpin attended the 1944 presser after Negro Newspaper Publishers Association persistently petitioned President Roosevelt. Even still, he was barred from officially joining the @WHCA or attending its famous dinner. 4/
npr.org/sections/codes…
McAlpin did not receive @whca membership. The first African American journalist to join the @whca was Louis Lautier from Louisiana in 1951. In 1953, Lautier also became the first Black journalist to attend the White House Correspondents' Dinner. 5/
After his journalism career, McAlpin put a previously earned law degree to use as an assistant commonwealth attorney in Kentucky. He later led the NAACP chapter in Louisville. He died in 1985 at 79. In 2014, the @whca honored McAlpin by naming a scholarship after him. 6/6

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More from @DrIbram

Ibram X. Kendi Profile picture
Feb 6
Imagine a racist governor w/ a disdain for a proposed Black Studies course or department. Calling it frivolous. Attacking it to possibly further presidential ambitions. Could just as easily be discussing CA Gov Ronald Reagan in the 60s as FL Gov Ronald DeSantis today. A thread 1/ ImageImage
I’m sure that by now we’ve all heard of Florida’s rejection of the pilot AP African American Studies class. In a Jan. 12 letter, the state education department declared the course “inexplicably contrary to Florida law” and devoid of “educational value.” 2/
apnews.com/article/ron-de…
To DeSantis, apparently racial disparities don’t exist. He denies that “there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them." He calls those of us who study the evidence and express this idea as "woke." 3/
washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/…
Read 13 tweets
Ibram X. Kendi Profile picture
Jan 20
I remember six years ago, this January. I traveled to Manhattan to talk to publishers about what became How to Be an Antiracist. All nervous. 1/ Image
It was unnerving me: my proposal to be vulnerable and share my intellectual journey, especially my ideas as a teenager when I blamed Black people—and not racism—for racial disparities. But all my nerves—and shame, really—six years ago are now all this eagerness. 2/
I am eager to provide all that I did not have as a teenager. Clarity. Clarity about racism. Clarity that there’s nothing wrong or right, better or worse about people who do and don’t look like me. Clarity about how to create a just society. 3/ Image
Read 5 tweets
Ibram X. Kendi Profile picture
Jan 18
On Jan. 17, 1893, 130 years ago, the Native government of the Kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown by European and American settler colonialists. How did it happen, and how did this lead to the US annexation of Hawaii? A thread. 🧵 1/
The coup happened close to the anniversary of the arrival of the first Europeans in Hawaii. The British Captain James Cook reached the islands on Jan. 20, 1778, beginning their long-term colonization. Cook himself was killed after attempting to kidnap an Indigenous leader. 2/
Still, his voyage attracted many from the U.S. and Europe to come to Hawaii over the next century, especially to spread Christianity to Native Hawaiians or enter the lucrative sugar business. By the late 1880s, White immigrants and their descendants had amassed a lot of power. 3/
Read 12 tweets
Ibram X. Kendi Profile picture
Dec 2, 2022
Yesterday was #WorldAIDSDay, established by the United Nations in 1988 to raise awareness about the AIDS epidemic. Since the early 1980s, over 80 million people have contracted HIV, the virus that can cause AIDS. About 40 million have died from it. 1/
who.int/data/gho/data/…
Here in the U.S., about 1.2 million people are currently living with HIV. It's estimated that around 13% of them--156,000 people--don't know that they have it, and require testing to learn that they do. 2/

hiv.gov/hiv-basics/ove…
About 40% of cases are among Black people, and nearly 25% are among Latinx people--despite those groups making up 31% of the total population. Indeed, it seems that "prevention and treatment are not adequately reaching people who could benefit most." 3/

hiv.gov/hiv-basics/ove…
Read 11 tweets
Ibram X. Kendi Profile picture
Dec 1, 2022
I am pleased to announce that a revised and updated edition of How to Be an Antiracist will be available in paperback on January 31, 2023. And, I must say I’m glad I had the opportunity to update it. 1/

penguinrandomhouse.com/books/564299/h…
Because being antiracist is a journey to transform ourselves as we transform society. And my journey, as a human being and scholar, did not end when the hardcover arrived in 2019. . . 2/
. . .and the @nytimes called it “the most courageous book to date on the problem of race in the Western mind.” My journey did not end when millions of people demonstrated against racism and police violence in the summer of 2020. 3/
Read 7 tweets
Ibram X. Kendi Profile picture
Nov 11, 2022
As I reflect on how these midterm elections brought a number of Black firsts, I couldn’t help but think about the meaning of Black firsts and Senator Carol Moseley Braun. Thirty years ago, she became the first Black woman in history to be elected to the U.S. Senate. A thread 1/
Moseley Braun witnessed U.S. Senators question Anita Hill during the confirmation hearings of Justice Clarence Thomas in 1991. Hill said that Thomas had sexually harassed her. Illinois's senator, Alan John Dixon, supported Thomas anyway. 2/
In this year's midterm elections, countless women rushed to the polls indignant about GOP efforts to snatch their abortion rights. Thirty years before, Moseley Braun decided to run for office in part because she was indignant at Hill's mistreatment. 3/

nytimes.com/2022/11/10/us/…
Read 13 tweets

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