Uncovering Our History Through The Relics Left Behind
Posted in Art, Black history, collectibles, and history
Every now and then at auction, I’d pick up a box of sundry items and find a few coins in the mix. I know nothing about the value of old coins, but I always hoped…
Posted in Black history, history, and Medicine
First, I saw a dark wooden sign with large white letters that told me I was at the right place: The historic site of Dr. James Still, known as the “Black Doctor of the Pines.”…
Posted in Black history, history, and Signs
My next-door neighbor was the first on my street with a “Black Lives Matter” sign erected in her front yard. She pushed it into the black-mulched ground among her hosta plants not long after the…
Posted in Black history, civil rights movement, and history
The gray metal machine looked innocent enough, but I knew that it was a remnant from an unhinged Jim Crow past. It didn’t have the power to stop anyone from voting, but the people who…
Posted in Black history, Ephemera/Paper/Documents, history, and Military
William S. Powell Jr. must have been mighty proud to be a Tuskegee Airman. He kept his brown leather flight jacket with the 99th Pursuit Squadron patch, his helmet, his graduation diploma, flight wings, training…
Posted in Antiques, collectibles, Culture, Ephemera/Paper/Documents, and history
Have you ever heard of “silent companions?” I hadn’t heard of them until my friend Rebecca mentioned them in light of the move by the Philadelphia Phillies and other baseball teams to fill their stands…
Posted in Black history, civil rights movement, Ephemera/Paper/Documents, and history
You cannot understand the greatness of John Lewis unless you know the struggles that he and other civil rights activists endured during the 1960s. He was in his 20s when he bravely marched and protested…
Posted in Black history, Ephemera/Paper/Documents, and history
Several years ago, I was lucky to find an issue of Ebony magazine from 1965 that was devoted solely to race in America. This was the middle of the civil rights movement, and John…
Posted in Black history, Death, Ephemera/Paper/Documents, and history
I bought the newspaper at auction two years ago, but I just couldn’t bring myself to write about its contents. The stories on the front page were too horrific, too graphic, too painful. Every headline…
Posted in Black history, Books, history, and slavery
I could tell that the book had some years on it because the pages had lost their white edges and the cover was frail. The discolored cover bore no title, just a fancy design in…
