This Week In Black History May 1-7. 2024

MAY 1 1866—The two-day Memphis, Tenn., race riots, one of the most savage events immediately fol­lowing the civil war, begins. When it was over, former Confederate soldiers, angered by the loss of the Civil War and the new status for Blacks, had killed 46 Blacks and two of their White supporters, as well as raped five Black women and torched over 90 homes, schools and churches. In support of the rebel soldiers, local police arrest­ed hundreds of Blacks and not the Whites who were rioting. However, the savage nature of the rioting in Memphis (and a similar disturbance in New Orleans) prompted Con­gress to pass radical Reconstruc­tion to aid Blacks, a Civil Rights bill, and the 14th Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing citizen­ship and equal protection to former slaves. 1950—Brilliant poet Gwendolyn Brooks, the first African-American to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1950 for her second collection, “Annie Al­len,” is born on this day in Topeka, Kan. At 17, she started submitting her work to “Lights and Shadows,” the poetry column of the Chicago Defender, an African American newspaper. Brooks published her first book of poetry, “A Street in Bronzeville” (1945) with Harper and Row, after strong show of support...