Slavery

Brittney M. Walker  |   OW Staff Writer
May 26 2011

A look-back to the African way

There was a time when racism and segregation arguably brought out the best in Black people in America. From owning small businesses and farms to building hospitals and small towns, African Americans demonstrated a knack for survival and self-reliance despite the various obstacles they faced.

But some argue that was just the beginning of something that could have been greater. Others suggest there is still an opportunity to gain a strong Black economy, but only with the effort of a Pan African union.

May 18 2011

Original Frederick Douglass work

CHICAGO, Ill.—Celebrated matrimonial attorney and historian Jeffery M. Leving will be donating an original 1855 first edition of My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass to Chicago State University Foundation at Chicago’s Union League Club on May 19. Frederick Douglass’ great great grandson Gordon Bell will be in attendance for the book donation.

Apr 18 2011

Begins at sundown

LOS ANGELES, Calif.—Passover, which celebrates what the Old Testament describes as God's deliverance of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt, begins at sundown today with observant Jews in the Southland and around the world gathering for a feast called a Seder.

Seders feature six symbolic foods, including matzo, a cracker-like unleavened bread symbolizing the Exodus from the land of pharaoh, when there was not enough time to let the bread rise. Jews are not supposed to eat anything leavened during the holiday period.

Brittney M. Walker  |   OW Staff Writer
Apr 14 2011

Grandma Moses

On April 20, 1853, fearless leader, Harriet Tubman, began her work on the Underground Railroad.
She took her sister and her sister’s two children to Maryland on her first trip to freedom. A year later, she rescued her brother and then her aged parents. Over the period of ten years, Tubman made an estimated 19 trips into and out of the South, freeing at least 300 enslaved Africans.

Stanley O. Williford  |   OW Editor
Mar 17 2011

From slavery to canonization?

Augustus Tolton, a former slave and considered the first African American to become a Roman Catholic priest, is now on the path to becoming the first African American to be canonized, almost 114 years after his death.

He may, at the same time, become the first Civil War-era U.S. saint.

Last Wednesday, during a public gathering in St. James Chapel at Chicago’s Quigley Center, Cardinal Francis E. George, and commission members, took an oath to carry out their duties for the cause of Tolton’s sainthood.

Across Black America

Here’s a look at African American people and issues making headlines throughout the country.
 

Alabama
Freeman A. Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, will address the annual African American Business Council luncheon on June 28. Hrabowski, who is chairman of President Barack Obama’s Advisory Commission on Education Excellence for African Americans, has a national reputation for his work studying the performance of minority students in math and science. Hrabowski, named one of the 10 best college presidents in the country by Time magazine, was a child leader in the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham in the 1960s.
 

Arkansas
The Liberty Counsel filed a motion and a brief in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas seeking to intervene on behalf of a Concepts of Life crisis pregnancy center to defend against a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Reproductive Rights. The groups seek to impose a permanent injunction before the Human Heartbeat Protection Act goes into effect July 18. Liberty Counsel also filed a brief opposing the ACLU’s request for an injunction. The “Heartbeat” bill states that when a woman seeks an abortion at or after the 12th week, doctors must test for a fetal heartbeat before an abortion is performed and inform the pregnant mother that the child in her womb has a heartbeat. If a heartbeat is detected, a woman cannot have an abortion, except in cases of rape, incest, and if a mother’s life is in danger. “As we promised when the legislation was introduced, Liberty Counsel will defend this law without reservation for the people of Arkansas, born and pre-born,” said Matt Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. “No right is more foundational than the right to life. Without life, all other rights are irrelevant,” concluded Staver.