This Week In Black History May 29 – June 4, 2024

ANGELA DAVIS raises her fist in a Black Power salute after being introduced by Rev. Ralph Abernathy, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, in Dallas, Texas, Aug. 17, 1972. (AP Photo/Charles Bennett) MAY 29 1854—Escaped slave and aboli­tionist Sojourner Truth delivers her famous “Ain’t I a Woman” speech at the Ohio Women’s Rights Conven­tion in Akron. Truth, born Isabella Baumfree, had been physically and sexually abused by various slave owners and their wives in New York. She sought refuge in religion. She finally escaped after her last slave owner reneged on a promise to free her. She became the leading female abolitionist of the period giving pow­erful speeches. She traveled widely in her anti-slavery mission telling friends “The spirit calls me and I must go.” 1865—President Andrew Johnson announces his Reconstruction pro­gram after the Civil War. However, Johnson was one of the greatest betrayers of Blacks in American his­tory. He went back on many of the promises made to the former slaves by the recently assassinated Abra­ham Lincoln. Indeed, Johnson’s Re­construction program was more fa­vorable to the former slave owners and Confederate soldiers than it was to the ex-slaves. Johnson even op­posed granting Blacks voting rights. MAY 30 1822—What...