The post What Does Labor Day Mean When America Still Owes a Debt for Centuries of Stolen Black Labor? appeared first on America's Black Holocaust Museum.
]]>America celebrates the dignity of work every Labor Day, but its debt to generations of Black workers remains unsettled.
Labor Day was never simply a day off for me. I grew up in a household where my mother made sure I was thoroughly educated about Black American history. So even as a child, when America celebrated Labor Day, I wondered where Black people fit into the story. How could I think about labor in America without thinking about slavery? How could I think about workers demanding fair wages without thinking about the Black people who worked for generations without wages at all?
Today, I find myself asking an even more uncomfortable question: What does it mean for America to celebrate Labor Day while the debt for centuries of stolen Black labor remains unpaid and Black labor remains undervalued today?
Before there was a Labor Day, generations of enslaved Africans and their descendants were forced to toil on American soil. They planted and harvested cotton, sugar, tobacco and rice. They cooked and cleaned. They raised other people’s children. They worked as carpenters, blacksmiths, craftsmen and builders. Enslaved Black people even helped build the White House and U.S. Capitol. The federal government hired enslaved workers from their enslavers, who collected the wages generated by their labor.
Black people did the work. Someone else got paid.
America exploited the hell out of Black people because it understood the economic engine Black labor could produce. Black human beings were made into commodities precisely because our labor had value. Our labor had value when there were fields to harvest, sugar to process, clothes to wash and a nation’s capital to build. Yet America refused to place that same value on the Black people performing the work.
Then came emancipation. Freedom arrived. The paycheck never did.
The undervaluing of Black labor didn’t disappear with slavery. It took new forms. Black Americans entered an economic order shaped by sharecropping, debt peonage, convict leasing, Jim Crow and employment discrimination. Even as organized labor gained power, Black workers often faced discrimination and exclusion within the labor movement itself.
Discover Black history in our virtual galleries.
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]]>The post Africa’s mother tongues are finding new life as youth connect with roots and relatives appeared first on America's Black Holocaust Museum.
]]>Growing interest in African languages is creating new business opportunities as people in the diaspora seek to connect with their relatives and roots.
HARARE, Zimbabwe(AP) — A television game show in Nigeria’s commercial hub of Lagos has an unforgiving rule: Speak English and you lose. For a U.S.-born millennial in the audience and a student of her parents’ mother tongue, the high-stakes setting is a perfect classroom.
Meanwhile, a 15-year-old Canadian speaks to a teacher about 13,000 kilometers (8,000 miles) away in Zimbabwe, learning a language her parents feared she would never speak.
“Mhoroi,” Nyashadzashe Machingura says cheerfully with a pronounced Canadian accent while greeting in Zimbabwe’s vernacular Shona.
The scenes capture a new generation of interest and entrepreneurship around African languages once pushed to the margins by decades of colonialism. Often seen as secondary to English, French and Portuguese, they are enjoying a renaissance that is also creating business opportunities.
Read more about this special form of connection.
Many Black Americans cannot connect to their ancestry because of being kidnapped and forced to endure the Middle Passage.
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]]>The post How an Air Force veteran discovered his new house was the seat of a plantation where his ancestors were enslaved appeared first on America's Black Holocaust Museum.
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When Fred Miller, an Air Force veteran, purchased the white, Gothic Revival-style house with the green roof near his childhood home in southern Virginia, he wanted a large space to host gatherings for his close extended family. He was not expecting to unlock hidden chapters from his family’s past.
Miller did not know it at the time, but his new property was once a plantation. Named Sharswood, it was built in the 1850s by a slave-owning uncle and nephew who shared his last name.
“If I had known there was a ‘Miller Plantation,’ I maybe could have… put a connection with the last name Miller and that plantation,” Miller told 60 Minutes in 2022. “But I’d never heard of a ‘Miller Plantation’ or a ‘Miller’ anything.”
This Sunday on 60 Minutes, correspondent Lesley Stahl interviewed Fred Miller and members of his family at Sharswood, speaking about what they unearthed about the property and its past inhabitants.
Fred Miller’s sister Karen Dixon-Rexroth, who initially convinced her older brother to buy the property, and their cousins Dexter Miller and Sonya Womack-Miranda, did most of the research into Sharswood’s past.
“Something drew me to knowing the history of this place,” Dixon-Rexroth told Stahl. “I knew it was an old place from the 1800s, so I started from there, as far as looking at the previous owners, and also any records that were available online.”
With time and the help of Karice Luck-Brimmer, a local historian and genealogist, the Millers were able to uncover documents that proved that their own ancestors were once enslaved at Sharswood.
“Since the revelation… I know that when the slaves brought food into the main house, they came up through the basement stairs,” Fred Miller told 60 Minutes. “And there’s a distinct wear on the basement stairs from years and years of traffic, of people walking up those stairs, I’m thinking, ‘Wow, these are my people.'”
Keep reading this powerful story.
Sometimes people find skeletons in the closets of their family homes.
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]]>The post When Memphis went dark, community members brought the light: ‘We keep ourselves safe’ appeared first on America's Black Holocaust Museum.
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The storm that hit the Memphis, Tennessee, area on 22 August lingered for only about half an hour. But the destruction it left was lasting: $18m in damages, fallen trees and more than 100,000 people without power.
Amber Sherman was one of the east Memphis residents who lost power, but her first thoughts were of her neighbors. “My main thought was that the power’s going to be out for a while and people aren’t prepared for that and it’s very hot outside,” Sherman, a coordinator for Black Voters Matter (BVM) in Memphis, said. Days after the storm, a series of rain showers and thunderstorms known as a bow echo storm, the high in Memphis was 91F (32.8C). Tens of thousands of households were still without power.
As an organizer, Sherman knows how to connect with people. She contacted her boss at BVM, as well as other partner organizations, to talk about what relief efforts could look like. She checked on neighbors and helped with meal distributions. She also used her social media platform to update people on the situation.
“I think a lot of times, people outside of Memphis don’t know what’s happening here, and I thought it was really important because of what was happening in Gary, too,” Sherman said. Shortly before Memphis was without power, Gary, Indiana, a majority-Black city more than 500 miles to its north, lost power. Gary residents were without power for two weeks. Both storms came near the 21st anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which prompted some people to draw comparisons between the majority-Black cities and what’s viewed as an inadequate governmental response. “Highlighting that this issue with infrastructure in Black cities is not a new problem, but a consistent problem that we really need to address.”
Learn more about the problem and how the community is facing it.
Read more about the power outages Black communites experience.
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]]>The post Williams sisters reunite their iconic doubles team, losing narrowly but thrilling the New York crowd appeared first on America's Black Holocaust Museum.
]]>Serena and Venus Williams reunited as a doubles team at the 2026 U.S. Open, thrilling a packed Arthur Ashe Stadium despite narrowly losing a three-set match. The sisters’ return celebrated their enduring legacy and Serena’s message that athletes can pursue their goals at any age.
NEW YORK (AP) — “Welcome to the Williams Show,” read one fan’s sign in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Friday night, as Venus and Serena Williams took the court for their doubles match, a quarter-century after first facing each other in the 2001 U.S. Open final.
A quarter-century of playing pro tennis at a top level — at any level — is not a very common thing. And even more incredibly, the Williams sisters, now ages 46 and 44, showed they can still come agonizingly close to beating a top team that is cumulatively around half their age. In a three-set thriller that delighted a packed and vocal evening crowd, the sisters fell short only at the end, blowing a 5-0 lead in the final 10-point tiebreak to lose to Hao-Ching Chan of Taiwan and Maya Joint of Australia, 6-3, 6-7 (6), 7-6 (10-7).
So it was indeed quite a thrilling show — even the sisters themselves, narrowly defeated, walked off with smiles on their faces, though they declined to speak to the media afterward.
“It was an amazing match,” Joint said. “They played really well, and I think just the atmosphere on the court … I don’t think either of us has experienced quite like that before. And playing two legends of the game is just a super special moment that we might not get again.”
Follow more Black athletes in our breaking news.
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]]>The post Police chief in Mississippi town where 1-year-old was killed has been fired appeared first on America's Black Holocaust Museum.
]]>Senatobia, where white officer shot and killed Kohen Wiley, terminates chief who reportedly used racist slurs in texts.
Late Tuesday, the city of Senatobia, Mississippi fired its police chief, Harold Vanderford, after it was reported that Vanderford regularly used racist slurs against Black people in his text messages. The town, which is about 40% Black, made national news earlier this year after a white officer fatally shot and killed Kohen Wiley, a one-year-old Black baby, while responding to a shoplifting call at Walmart. Officers fired into a vehicle, shooting the driver and killing the toddler, who was being held in his mother’s arms.
Though Vanderford submitted a resignation letter earlier on 1 September, the city’s board of aldermen unanimously voted to reject it and to terminate the officer instead. Vanderford’s firing came just under a week after the city wrote in a statement that, despite the messages, he would “continue to serve the City with the confidence that was placed in him at the time that he was appointed as Chief”
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Senatobia has been embroiled in recent controversies involving police and Black residents, specifically children. In 2023, Senatobia made national news after an officer arrested and placed in a cell a 10-year-old Black boy who had urinated in public. The child was later sentenced to three months’ probation.
Read more about the details of Vanderford’s termination here.
Explore our virtual exhibit, Black Lives Matter.
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]]>The post Charlotte transplant works to build a Black tech pipeline appeared first on America's Black Holocaust Museum.
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Brandon Barnes knows what it feels like to have the skills, the idea and the determination and still not get the opportunity.
That experience forms the basis of his work in Charlotte, where he established the Black Tech Initiative (BTI), a nonprofit creating pathways into the technology field for Black professionals and HBCU graduates through certifications, mentorship and structural access.
BTI addresses this through practical programming, including IBM SkillsBuild AI training, digital networking and AI-driven interview preparation matched to active job postings.
Barnes’ work raises a bigger question: who gets to participate in Charlotte’s expanding tech economy? He worries AI could widen existing gaps in access to training and networks. The issue, he argues, was never whether Black professionals can compete; it’s whether they’ll get the same chance.Article text here.
Read the original article.
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]]>The post Halyard Park residents gather to preserve their neighborhood’s history, one memory at a time appeared first on America's Black Holocaust Museum.
]]>Their items were digitized to help preserve the North Side neighborhood’s history as its residents prepare to celebrate its 50th anniversary.
On a mezzanine overlooking the first floor of ThriveOn King, residents of Halyard Park gathered to reminisce and share memories of the original residents of the historic Black neighborhood on Milwaukee’s North Side.
Community members brought personal photographs and ephemera to a Memory Lounge event on Aug. 28 at ThriveOn King, 2153 N. Martin Luther King Drive, a community hub located at the nexus of the Halyard Park, Brewers Hill and Harambee neighborhoods. Residents brought their items there to be digitized to help preserve the neighborhood’s history.
“This event today is for the neighbors to come together, reminisce and share memories of their time in the neighborhood,” said Cydney Key, senior director of ThriveOn guest experience and strategic partnerships.
Key said they are digitizing some of the residents’ special memories, like photos and booklets, collected from past decades, in preparation for Halyard Park’s 50th anniversary celebration on Sept. 19.
The redevelopment of the Halyard Park neighborhood began in 1976 under the leadership of Beechie O. Brooks, a Black real estate broker and developer from Milwaukee who passed away in 2017.
Brooks envisioned a suburban-style subdivision for Milwaukee’s Black middle class. The development created over 40 single-family homes across several city blocks.
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The 50th anniversary celebration for Halyard Park is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 19. It will include the unveiling of a statue honoring Brooks at Gaines Triangle, 2043 N. 6th St., followed by a community gathering at ThriveOn King.
Read more about the redevelopment in the Milwaukee Independent.
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]]>The post Jerome Smith, Freedom Rider Who Challenged Robert Kennedy, Dies at 87 appeared first on America's Black Holocaust Museum.
]]>He castigated Robert F. Kennedy for failing to protect civil rights activists, forcing the attorney general to reckon with the depth of Black anger.
Jerome Smith, who as a young Freedom Rider in 1961 was jailed and beaten for his efforts to desegregate transportation in the South, and who excoriated Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy for not doing enough to protect him and the other riders during that harrowing year, died on Aug. 21 at his home in New Orleans. He was 87.
His daughter Farin Smith said the cause was cancer.
When the first Freedom Riders set forth in early May 1961, Mr. Smith was 21 and had dropped out of Southern University in Baton Rouge, La., to devote himself to the Congress of Racial Equality, the civil rights organization known as CORE.
It had been 15 years since the Supreme Court had ruled that segregated seating on interstate buses was unconstitutional. Yet the Southern states had largely ignored the decision. CORE organized a series of Freedom Rides — beginning with teams of Black and white activists who would travel by bus from Washington to New Orleans — to put the ruling to the test, challenging the federal government to finally enforce it.
Mr. Smith — who was stuck in jail in New Orleans, having been arrested after participating in a lunch-counter sit-in — was unable to join the first ride.
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On May 24, Mr. Smith, finally released from jail, boarded a Greyhound bus in Montgomery, Ala., for a ride to Jackson, Miss., where he was promptly arrested.
Continue reading about Smith’s life.
Learn more about other activists and organizations who fought for equal rights.
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]]>The post A Data Center Promises Jobs in This Black Town, but Residents Aren’t Convinced appeared first on America's Black Holocaust Museum.
]]>At the center of the debate in Clarksdale, Mississippi, one question lingers: What’s the right development for a dying town?
CLARKSDALE, Mississippi — Rumors of a potential data center had loomed over Voneshay Walker like a cloud for months. She’d heard the whispers and seen reports of other centers popping up in small towns across the South.
She didn’t expect it to hit so close to home.
Walker is a native of Tutwiler, Mississippi, a small town of 2,000. Years ago, she moved to Clarksdale for economic opportunity. Unfortunately, the promise of more jobs, an influx of investment, and food options disappeared. But the city’s latest solution to its problems — a data center — has her troubled.
While there’s currently no agreement in place to build a data center in Clarksdale, the city projects a hyperscale data center could bring in millions in local tax revenue. Such a project could take up to six years to complete, but could create 1,000 temporary jobs and between 200 to 300 permanent positions.
Still, Walker said she’s worried a data center would strain Clarksdale’s water, electricity, add pollution, and further burden a community whose resources are already stretched thin. Moreover, her home is only 3 miles away from the proposed development site, and she’s concerned about the impact it could have on her family, including her children.
Follow more stories involving the impact of technology on the Black community in our breaking news.
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