Monthly Archives: February 2024

~ Culture & History, ~ In the Library

Black History Month: The Need Remains … a repost

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Lonnie Bunch, museum director, historian, lecturer, and author, is proud to present A Page from Our American Story, a regular on-line series for Museum supporters. It will showcase individuals and events in the African American experience, placing these stories in the context of a larger story — our American story.A Page From Our American StoryEditor’s Note: This edition of A Page from Our American Story was originally a speech made by Lonnie Bunch. It is reprinted here in its entirety.Knowing the Past Opens the Door to the Future
The Continuing Importance of Black History Month

Carter Woodson,
father of Black
History Month,
was commemorated
by the United States
Postal Service with
a stamp in his
image on
February 1, 1984.

No one has played a greater role in helping all Americans know the black past than Carter G. Woodson, the individual who created Negro History Week in Washington, D.C., in February 1926.

Woodson was the second black American to receive a PhD in history from Harvard — following W.E.B. DuBois by a few years. To Woodson, the black experience was too important simply to be left to a small group of academics. Woodson believed that his role was to use black history and culture as a weapon in the struggle for racial uplift. By 1916, Woodson had moved to DC and established the “Association for the Study of Negro Life and Culture,” an organization whose goal was to make black history accessible to a wider audience. Woodson was a strange and driven man whose only passion was history, and he expected everyone to share his passion.

This impatience led Woodson to create Negro History Week in 1926, to ensure that school children be exposed to black history. Woodson chose the second week of February in order to celebrate the birthday of Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. It is important to realize that Negro History Week was not born in a vacuum. The 1920s saw the rise in interest in African American culture that was represented by the Harlem Renaissance where writers like Langston Hughes, Georgia Douglass Johnson, Claude McKay — wrote about the joys and sorrows of blackness, and musicians like Louie Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Jimmy Lunceford captured the new rhythms of the cities created in part by the thousands of southern blacks who migrated to urban centers like Chicago. And artists like Aaron Douglass, Richard Barthe, and Lois Jones created images that celebrated blackness and provided more positive images of the African American experience.

Woodson hoped to build upon this creativity and further stimulate interest through Negro History Week. Woodson had two goals. One was to use history to prove to white America that blacks had played important roles in the creation of America and thereby deserve to be treated equally as citizens. In essence, Woodson — by celebrating heroic black figures — be they inventors, entertainers, or soldiers — hoped to prove our worth, and by proving our worth — he believed that equality would soon follow. His other goal was to increase the visibility of black life and history, at a time when few newspapers, books, and universities took notice of the black community, except to dwell upon the negative. Ultimately Woodson believed Negro History Week — which became Black History Month in 1976 — would be a vehicle for racial transformation forever.  Read the full speech now…

All the best,
Lonnie Bunch
Director

 
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1812 – Earthquake cause fluvial tsunami in the Mississippi River


On February 7, 1812, the most violent of a series of earthquakes near Missouri caused a so-called fluvial tsunami in the Mississippi River, actually making the river run backward for several hours. The series of tremors, which took place between December 1811 and March 1812, were the most powerful in the history of the United States.

The unusual seismic activity began at about 2 a.m. on December 16, 1811, when a strong tremor rocked the New Madrid region. The city of New Madrid, located near the Mississippi River in present-day Missouri, had about 1,000 residents at the time, mostly farmers, hunters and fur trappers. At 7:15 a.m., an even more powerful quake erupted, now estimated to have had a magnitude of 8.6. This tremor literally knocked people off their feet and many people experienced nausea from the extensive rolling of the earth. Given that the area was sparsely populated and there weren’t many multi-story structures, the death toll was relatively low. However, the quake did cause landslides that destroyed several communities, including Little Prairie, Missouri.

for the complete article

Source: history.com

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1795 – The 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified.


The Eleventh Amendment (Amendment XI) to the United States Constitution, which was passed by the Congress on March 4, 1794 and was ratified on February 7, 1795, deals with each state’s sovereign immunity from being sued in federal court by someone of another state or country. This amendment was adopted in response to, and in order to overrule, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. 419 (1793).

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1812 – The Fluvial Tsunami


The 1812 New Madrid earthquakes, which included the violent tremor on February 7, 1812, had significant effects on the Native American populations in the region near the Mississippi River. Here are some of the impacts:

  1. Displacement and Destruction:
    • The epicenter of the earthquakes was near the city of New Madrid, which was located close to the Mississippi River in present-day Missouri.
    • Although the area was sparsely populated, the quakes caused landslides that destroyed several communities, including Little Prairie, Missouri.
    • Native American tribes living in the affected regions faced displacement due to the destruction of their settlements.
  2. River Changes:
    • The powerful tremors caused fissures to open on the earth’s surface, and large trees were snapped in two.
    • The Mississippi River experienced dramatic changes:
      • The water turned brown, and whirlpools developed suddenly from depressions created in the riverbed.
      • Waterfalls were formed instantly, leading to the tragic loss of life. In one report, 30 boats were helplessly thrown over falls, resulting in fatalities.
      • Many small islands in the middle of the river, often used as bases by river pirates, permanently disappeared due to the seismic activity.
      • Large lakes, such as Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee and Big Lake at the Arkansas-Missouri border, were created as river water poured into new depressions.
  3. Human Toll:
    • Approximately 1,000 people are believed to have died because of the earthquakes.
    • However, determining an accurate count is challenging due to the lack of precise records of the Native American population in the area at that time.