Black History

On July 26, 1948, President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9981, mandating the desegregation of the U.S. Armed Forces and ending 170 years of officially sanctioned racial discrimination in the military. Although African Americans had served since the Revolutionary War, they were typically segregated from white troops and often assigned to menial roles. A landmark achievement of both the postwar civil rights movement and Truman’s presidency, the order marked one of the first times a U.S. president used executive authority to advance civil rights. It also helped pave the way for broader desegregation efforts across American society.

Freedom Summer 1964 was a massive voter registration campaign in Mississippi. The first interracial movement of its kind, the project was led by Black southern organizers and staffed by both Black and white volunteers.

From a young age, Coretta Scott King was influenced by music. She spent her youth singing in church choirs and ended up studying at the New England Conservatory, where she met MLK. She earned a degree in voice and music education and studied the violin.

In the 1950s, over 40,000 citizens of Montgomery, Alabama, boycotted the city's segregated bus service for 381 days—a massive undertaking that was funded and fed by a clandestine group of women.

Bayard Rustin was one of Martin Luther King's key advisors who planned the March on Washington in 1963. Yet as a gay man, he forced to work in the shadows.

Colonel Charles Young overcame racism to rise through the ranks and create his legacy in the great outdoors.

Bessie Blount Griffin’s dexterity led her to work as a forensic scientist, where she detected forged documents and became the first African American woman to work at Scotland Yard.