Black History Month

Black History Month

Black History Month celebrates the notable impact on society and contributions made to the world by those African descendants that made a difference. Americans have recognized black history annually since 1926, first as "Negro History Week" and later as "Black History Month". I am going to talk about Afro-American life over history and then about some people who made a difference in society, especially, from the Afro- American community.

During colonial times, the treatment of slaves was often different depending in which colony they lived. Slaves in the middle and New England colonies had more freedom, and were often treated more humanely than slaves in southern colonies that usually worked under severe labor conditions. Pre-modern slave treatment in the Americas was that slaves were not treated just as servants, but were enslaved based on race. They had no education opportunities and were treated inhumanity.

Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in Atlanta, Georgia. On April 4, 1968, he was shot and killed as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel (since 1991 a civil-rights museum). In the late 1950s and 1960s King was an important leader of the civil-rights movement. Martin Luther King, Jr. played an important role in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the most comprehensive civil-rights legislation to date.

This legislation prohibits discrimination for reason of color, race, religion, or national origin in places of public accommodation covered by interstate commerce, i.e., restaurants, hotels, motels, and theaters. Besides dealing with the desegregation of public schools, the act, in Title VII, forbade discrimination in employment. Title VII also prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex.

Coretta Scott King, wife of Martin Luther King Jr., died at age 78. Coretta Scott King created the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. She traveled the world making speeches and carrying Luther King's civil-rights work legacy of equality, peace, nonviolence, and justice by her commitment to these ideals.

Rosa Parks was born on Feb. 4, 1913, and died on Oct. 24, 2005, in Detroit. She was the woman known as the "mother of the civil rights movement," In 1955 Parks turned the course of American history by refusing to give up her seat on a bus for a white man.

Thurgood