The Sad, Hilarious, Lunacy of Race Prejudice

I just saw a headline in a WW2-era Southern newspaper that caught my attention. It was carried in the November 16, 1945 edition of the San Antonio Register, and said:

Mob Threatens White Officer for Blocking J. Crow

Major Insists All GIs Be Fed Together in Mississippi Cafe

To me, the account that followed illustrates the utter irrationality of racial prejudice...

Continue reading on blackhistory.ronelfran.com

Photo credit: Ben Shahn, FSA/OWI via  loc.gov (public domain)
Interestingly this 1938 photo was not taken in the segregated South, but in Lancaster, Ohio

© 2015 Ronald E. Franklin

The Black Man Who Looked Too Much Like Abraham Lincoln

 African American Thomas Bomar as Abraham Lincoln

The name of Abraham Lincoln, 16^th president of the United States, is inextricably linked with African Americans...

But in 1940, in the nation’s capital, some influential people hadn’t quite figured out the connection between Abraham Lincoln and African Americans. For them, the idea that Lincoln and his legacy might be represented by a black man was something they just couldn’t stomach.

Continue reading on blackhistory.ronelfran.com

© 2015 Ronald E. Franklin

Roger C. Terry: A Tuskegee Airman Sacrifices His Career For Justice

Roger C. Terry (1921-2009) was a U. S. Army Air Forces officer in World War II. In his short military career, Terry compiled a record most people would classify as miserable: he was court-martialed for shoving a superior officer, convicted, fined, reduced in rank, and kicked out of the service with a dishonorable discharge. But Roger Terry was proud of what he accomplished in his short military career for the rest of his life.

Roger C. "Bill" Terry (center) at Tuskegee Army Air Field, Alabama, December 1944
Source: National Archives

Continue reading on blackhistory.ronelfran.com

You can read the full story of the Freeman Field Mutiny at

Tuskegee Airmen History: The Freeman Field Mutiny

© 2015 Ronald E. Franklin

A social club of young women who made good for African Americans

A social club of self-supporting young women (teachers, stenographers, bookkeepers) who have made good. This picture is eight years old. One of the group is dead, eleven are married and four are successful "bachelor maids." While the club is still intact, the original  membership here presented is scattered from New England to Panama and from Georgia to Colorado. [Original caption]

I have always been fascinated by this photograph. It shows a group of young ladies who banded together to help one another make something extraordinary of their lives at a time when doing so was a daunting task for American Americans. But with all the difficult obstacles they knew would be unjustly thrown in their way, they still seem, to my eye, to be determined, serene, and confident as they look to the future. I wish I could have known them.

Continue reading on blackhistory.ronelfran.com

More Black History 

Anita Florence Hemmings: Passing For White At Vassar

First Black Female Naval Officers: Frances Wills, Harriet Pickens 

The Jackie Robinson Court Martial

© 2015 Ronald E. Franklin