One Mic Black History

06/01/2026

Mamie Till-Mobley died today in 2003 without ever seeing justice for Emmett.

The system did exactly what it was designed to do: It killed her child. Protected his killers. Expected silence.

But Mamie refused the script.

She opened the casket. She invited Jet. She forced the world to stare at the brutality until they couldn't look away.

“I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby.”

She didn't get the conviction, but she sparked the movement. Justice isn't always a gavel. Sometimes, it’s the truth.

Rest in Power.

05/01/2026

New Episode! "The Town Where White People Were Illegal"

In 1904 Mississippi, a white man stepped off a train and made a dangerous mistake: he thought the law was on his side. He didn't realize he had just walked into Mound Bayou, the only town in the South where Jim Crow had no ju...

The Town Where White People Were Illegal page for One Mic: Black History

03/01/2026

We are discussing "Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power."
Most people know the story of non-violent resistance, but that isn't the whole picture. Robert F. Williams challenged the K*K, debated the NAACP, was hunted by the FBI and exiled in Cuba.

01/01/2026

For many Americans the New Year as a fresh start.

Before the Civil War, for enslaved people, it was often the worst day of the year.

January 1 was known as “Hiring Day” or “Heartbreak Day.” Enslaved men, women, and children waited in fear to learn whether they would be rented out for the year separating families without warning.

Formerly enslaved people remembered the terror vividly. In 1842, Lewis Clarke wrote:

“Of all days in the year, the slaves dread New Year’s Day the worst of any.”

30/12/2025

The “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” campaigns exploded in the 1930s, during the Great Depression.

White-owned stores made fortunes in Black neighborhoods while refusing to hire Black people beyond janitorial labor.

The message was simple: no jobs, no money.

Boycotts were timed around Christmas and peak shopping seasons to hit profits when it hurt the most

In Harlem, Rev. John H. Johnson’s Citizens League for Fair Play shut down Blumstein’s Department Store until it hired Black clerks and managers, one of the earliest affirmative hiring agreements in U.S. history.

By the 1960s, Operation Breadbasket scaled the strategy nationwide, turning boycotts into millions of dollars in new jobs and income.

This wasn’t symbolism, it was Black communities weaponizing their buying power and forcing business to negotiate.

27/12/2025

The FBI watched Jackie Ormes for nearly a decade.

From 1948 to 1958, federal agents surveilled comic artist Jackie Ormes not for crimes, but for her politics.

Her “offenses” included NAACP membership, public support for Paul Robeson, and being a Black woman who refused to behave.

Her FBI file swelled to 287 pages. Agents couldn’t even agree on who she was, whether she was “well-read and intelligent” or “flighty.”

But she was dangerous enough for the government to watch.

27/12/2025

Since Christmas is over, let’s talk about Black folks who didn’t celebrate it.

Frederick Douglass hated Christmas.

In some of his writings and speeches, Douglass explained that slaveholders used Christmas as psychological control, a brief release valve.

Enslaved people were given food, drink, and “rest” not out of kindness, but to drain resistance and prevent rebellion the rest of the year.

Christmas wasn’t mercy. It was management.

Malcolm X rejected Christmas too

Malcolm called it cultural conditioning. He argued Christmas had nothing to do with Jesus and everything to do with forcing Black people to embrace white imagery, white traditions, and consumer habits.

A white Santa. A white Jesus. A holiday that trained Black people to celebrate values that weren’t theirs.

25/12/2025

Before Barbie, there was Patty-Jo.

In 1947, legendary cartoonist Jackie Ormes created the Patty-Jo doll, the first nationally marketed Black doll modeled after a Black comic character.

Patty-Jo came straight from Ormes’s comic strip Patty-Jo and Ginger. Patty-Jo was the sharp-tongued Black child who said what adults wouldn’t.

This wasn’t a toy about fantasy. It was about representation and changed how little black kids saw themselves in a segregated America filled with racist dolls

22/12/2025

Happy birthday, Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Before galleries and auction houses, he was SAMO© the mysterious graffiti artist tagging downtown Manhattan with cryptic lines.

SAMO started as a private joke between friends, short for “Same Old Sh*t,” a phrase they used while smoking and talking about art, life, and capitalism. Adding the copyright symbol was the end was a comment on consumer culture.

Before Basquiat became a brand, he was already mocking the idea of one.

19/12/2025

Happy birthday, Carter G. Woodson.

Born in 1875, Woodson was one of the first professionally trained Black historians and the architect of Black History Month, originally launched in 1926 as Negro History Week.

18/12/2025

The Green Book was the bible of every Negro highway traveler, you didn’t dare leave home without it.”

But what if you did forget it? Then you relied on something else:

Black community knowledge.

Civil rights activist Jerome Gray once found himself stranded late at night in segregated Montgomery without this guide.

Remembering advice from his parents, he called a Black funeral home. He explained he was a Black teacher. The owner invited him to stay.

Even when the book failed, the network didn’t.

How Black businesses turned a travel guide into a nationwide safety net

08/12/2025

New Episode! "How Ebony Exposed the White Beauty Lie"

Two magazines changed the mirror. Ebony and Jet put everyday Black life on the cover, turned a touring fashion show into a cosmetics empire, and forced Madison Avenue to see—then spend. This episode shows how pictures became ...

Two magazines changed the mirror. Ebony and Jet put everyday Black life on the cover, turned a touring fashion show into a cosmetics empire, and forced Madison Aven…