Black History Month begins

From Wichita Peace and Freedom Party Examiner;

 

This is the month we honor those Afro-American people who have played a role in our history. This month we look at many men and women who contributed to equal rights for all people. Some are well known, such as Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcolm X. In the 1960s there were also the Black Panthers who, unlike King, armed themselves for self protection.  

But there are many black folks who contributed in one way or another to equal rights. There was Rosa Parks the first black person to defy the ban on black folks riding in the front of the bus. She went on to become major civil rights activist. There was Stokely Carmichael, a believer in the Pan-Africanist movement. He eventually changed his name to Kwame Ture and moved to Africa. During the 1960s and 1970s he was an activist with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

A lot of people are unaware of the many blacks who worked to kill slavery during the Civil War. Many were nurses or soldiers in the Union Army. Harriet Tubman worked on the Underground Railroad, helping slaves escape from the North. Rebellions were staged by such men as Nat Turner. There were other slave revolts, but Turner’s is the best known. Sojourner Truth was another anti-slave worker in the South, before and during the Civil War.

That is just a few of the black historians this article looked at. During the month I will look for more.