civil rights

Soul singers have always been a cursed breed. The late Otis Redding died at the age of 26 in a plane crash. Marvin Gaye was shot dead by his father while intervening in a fight between his parents. Then there is Sam Cooke. Cooke died…

The story of the abolition of slavery in America is a long and tortuous one. Like many such stories it has its heroes and its villains. One group that almost always fell on the right side of history was the Society of Friends, better known…

Freedom is a strange thing. Those of us born into it take it for granted. But for those born into slavery freedom is something they would never undervalue. Being a slave is bad enough, but worse is for a slave to see their child born into…

If you’ve heard of Mary Ellen Pleasant before, then chances are that what you’ve heard wasn’t good. “Mammy Pleasant” has often been a favourite of sensational accounts, the “evil Voodoo Queen of San Francisco” who made a good villain to…

Josephine Baker was born in 1906 as Freda Josephine MacDonald in St Louis, Missouri. Her mother Carrie was a washerwoman and ex-vaudeville girl, her father was a drummer named Eddie Carson who ran off when Josephine was only a little girl.…

There was no way Rosa Parks was getting up. She was tired, tired of being pushed around, and she was not going to give up that seat. So when the driver turned around to shoo Rosa and those beside her out of the “reserve white” places on the…

On July 10th, civil rights activist Sandra Bland was pulled over by a state trooper in Prairie View, Texas, for committing a minor traffic violation. Dashcam footage - released by the Texas Department of Public Safety over ten days after…

In South Carolina, the death of 50-year-old Walter Scott has sparked protests in the city of Charleston. He was shot at eight times as he tried to run away from a white police officer, Michael Slager, after being pulled over for a traffic…