Today, February 14, is not only #ValentinesDay. It is the day one of the most eminent abolitionists and orators in U.S. history *chose* to celebrate his birthday. Like many Black people born into slavery, Frederick Douglass did not know his birthday. A thread 1/
Douglass was born into slavery on a Maryland plantation around 1818. He did not know the exact date of his birth. Douglass chose February 14 because of a tender memory he had of his mother, Harriet Bailey, which was also the last memory he had of her. 2/
In "My Bondage and My Freedom," Douglass writes of his mother making him a ginger cake "in the shape of a heart, with a rich, dark ring glazed upon the edge of it." As historian Dickson J. Preston notes, Douglass also said that his mother called him her "Little Valentine." 3/
Douglass held this memory close to his heart, especially since enslavers stole him away from his mother shortly after his birth. He only saw his mother sporadically before she died when he was about 7 years old. No doubt this love sustained him as he worked toward abolition. 4/
Love sustains the striving to be antiracist, to build an equitable and just society. This was true of Douglass's life. It must be true of our lives as we celebrate Douglass’s birthday on this #ValentinesDay during this #BlackHistoryMonth. 5/5
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In my latest @TheAtlantic, I opened with a story relayed to me by Professor @jarvisrgivens. When a Black Oklahoma high school assigned Carter G. Woodson’s The Negro in Our History, White segregationists on the school board sprang into action in 1925. 1/ theatlantic.com/books/archive/…
White segregationists banned The Negro in Our History. Confiscated all its copies. Punished the teachers. Forced the resignation of the principal. “It’s striking how similar that feels and sounds to the contemporary moment,” @jarvisrgivens told me. 2/ theatlantic.com/books/archive/…
Woodson wrote The Negro in Our History in 1922. He wrote this "history of the United States as it has been influenced by the presence of the Negro" to supply the "need of schools long since desiring such a work," as he wrote in the book's preface. 3/ theatlantic.com/books/archive/…
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/
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/
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/
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/…
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/
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/
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/
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/
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/