Tag Archives: united states history

Frederick Douglass on Power

Posted on February 21, 2025 | Leave a comment

“Power never concedes anything without a demand. It never did and never will.”

Frederick Douglass

Speech, Canandaigua, N.Y. 4 Aug. 1857

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

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Carter G. Woodson on the Deliberate Act of Limiting Horizons

Posted on February 21, 2025 | Leave a comment

“Negroes, then, learned from their oppressors to say to their children that there were certain spheres into which they should not go because they would have no chance therein for development. In a number of places young men were discouraged and frightened away from certain professions by the poor showing made by those trying to function in them. Few had the courage to face this ordeal; and some professional schools in institutions for Negroes were closed about thirty or forty years ago, partly on this account.

This was especially true of the law schools, closed during the wave of legislation against the Negro, at the very time of the largest possible number of Negroes needed to know the law for the protection of their civil and political rights. In other words, the thing which the patient needed most to pass the crisis was taken from him that he might more easily die. This one act among many others is an outstanding monument to the stupidity or malevolence of those in charge of the Negro schools, and it serves as a striking demonstration of the mis-education of the race.

Almost any observer remembers distinctly the hard trials of the Negro lawyers. A striking example of their difficulties was supplied by the case of the first to be permanently established in Huntington, West Virginia. The author had entrusted to him the matter of correcting an error in the transfer of some property purchased from one of the most popular white attorneys in the state. For six months this simple transaction was delayed, and the Negro lawyer could not induce the white attorney to act. The author finally went to the office himself to complain of the delay. The white attorney frankly declared that he had not taken up the matter because he did not care to treat with a Negro attorney; but he would deal with the author, who happened to be at that time the teacher of a Negro school, and was, therefore, in his place.”

Excerpted/Adapted from: Woodson, Carter G. The Mis-education of the Negro. Eastford, CT: Martino Fine Books, 2018.

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Cultural Literacy: Joe Louis

Posted on February 21, 2025 | Leave a comment

OK, as long as we’re on the topic this morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Joe Louis. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences and three comprehension questions. This is a more basic introduction to the Brown Bomber than the post just below.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Joe Louis

Posted on February 21, 2025 | Leave a comment

“Joe Louis (originally Joseph Louis Barrow): (1914-1981) U.S. heavyweight boxing champion. He was born into a sharecropper’s family in Lexington, Alabama. He began boxing after his family moved to Detroit. He won the U.S. Amateur Athletic Union titles in 1934 and turned professional that year. On the road to his first title bout he defeated six previous or subsequent champions, including Max Baer, Jack Sharkey, James J. Braddock, Max Schmeling, and Jersey Joe Walcott. Nicknamed ‘the Brown Bomber,’ he gained the title by defeating Braddock in 1937, and held it until 1949. He lost to Schmeling in 1936 but defeated him in one round in 1938. He successfully defended his title 25 times (21 by knockout) before retiring in 1949. He made unsuccessful comeback attempts against Ezzard Charles in 1950 and Rocky Marciano in 1951.”

Excerpted/Adapted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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The Weekly Text, 21 February 2025, Black History Month Week III: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on 2Pac and Biggie

Posted on February 21, 2025 | Leave a comment

For the third week of Black History Month 2025 here is a reading on 2pac and Biggie along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

At this point, this blog is heavily stocked with materials excerpted and adapted from David S. Kidder and Noah Oppenheim’s series of books under the title of The Intellectual Devotional. There are five in all of these books: the first one, simply called The Intellectual Devotional, then one volume each (under the title The Intellectual Devotional) on American History, Biographies, Health, and Modern Culture. All of this is a long way of explaining that some readings repeat, with only slight variations, in more than one volume of this series; there is, ergo, another version of this material on this blog that I published back in 2018.

It goes without saying that in some places, this will particularly high-interest material. Thus, I have tagged it as such.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Paul Robeson on Patriotism and Service

Posted on February 14, 2025 | Leave a comment

“It is unthinkable [that American Negroes] would go to war on behalf of those who have oppressed us for generations against a country [the Soviet Union] which in one generation has raised our people to the full dignity of mankind.”

Paul Robeson

Speech at World Peace Conference, Paris, 20 Apr. 1949

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

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Cultural Literacy: George Washington Carver

Posted on February 14, 2025 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on George Washington Carver. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences and three comprehension questions. I had learned, I suppose in elementary school, to associate George Washington Carver with developing a plethora of uses for the peanut; as it happens, he did the same thing with the sweet potato.

All of this was done, interestingly, because Carver recognized the deleterious toll cotton production takes on the soil. This makes him, as his Wikipedia page observes, an early leader in environmentalism.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Booker T(aliaferro) Washington

Posted on February 14, 2025 | Leave a comment

“Booker T(aliaferro) Washington: 1856-1915) U.S. educator and black-rights leader. Born into slavery in Franklin County, Virginia, he moved with his family to West Virginia after emancipation. He worked from age 9, then attended (1872-75) and joined the staff of the Hampton (Virginia) Normal and Agricultural Institute. In 1881 he was selected to head the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, a new teacher-training school for blacks, and he successfully transformed it into a thriving institution (later Tuskegee University). He became perhaps the most prominent black leader of his time. His controversial conviction that blacks could best gain equality in the U.S. by improving their economic situation through education rather than by demanding equal rights was termed the Atlanta Compromise. His books include Up from Slavery (1901).”

Excerpted/Adapted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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The Weekly Text, 14 February 2025, Black History Month Week II: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on the Harlem Renaissance

Posted on February 14, 2025 | Leave a comment

For the second month of Black History Month 2025, here is a reading on the Harlem Renaissance with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. This is a useful, one-page survey of key events and personalities of the Harlem Renaissance. In the end, however, it is only an introduction to one of the most fertile and consequential periods in American cultural history.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Dick Gregory on Perspective

Posted on February 7, 2025 | Leave a comment

“You gotta say this for the white race—its self-confidence knows no bounds. Who else would go to a small island in the South Pacific where there’s no poverty, no crime, no unemployment, no war and no worry—and call it a ‘primitive society.’”

Dick Gregory

Excerpted from: Sherrin, Ned, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations. New York: Oxford University Press. 1996.

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