One Mic Black History

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…

25/11/2025

In the 1800s, even food was political.

Thanksgiving was viewed as a Yankee holiday, and pumpkin pie its “indispensable” Northern symbol.

So when Lincoln made Thanksgiving national in 1863, many Southerners, including Black families pushed back.

The divide grew so wide that “pumpkin eater” even became a slur for poor Black farmers.

In response, the South embraced sweet potato pie instead, creating it into its own tradition.

The Black history behind Two Thanksgiving pies

22/11/2025

Happy Birthday, Guion Bluford

Born on this day in 1942, he became the first African American to travel into space.

Before NASA, Bluford was already amazing, a Penn State–trained aerospace engineer, an Air Force officer, and a fighter pilot who flew 144 combat missions in Vietnam.

In 1978, he was selected as one of just 35 astronauts out of 10,000 applicants.

On August 30, 1983, he launched aboard Challenger on STS-8 and made history.

Bluford went on to fly four shuttle missions, work inside Spacelab, deploy satellites, and spend over 28 days in space before continuing his career in engineering and technology.

Guion Bluford is a pioneer whose legacy reaches far beyond the stars.

20/11/2025

A Freedom Library was more than a room full of books.

Created in 1964 during Freedom Summer, these spaces were built in communities where Black folks were denied access to segregated public libraries.

They became hubs for banned books, voter-registration prep, political education, and the knowledge segregation tried to keep out of reach.

That’s why it’s the perfect name for my new book club.

Come join us at the Freedom Library Book Club.

Join Us for Our New Book Club

18/11/2025

In 1952, Jet launched “Beauty of the Week” a full-page photo of an everyday Black woman, often in a swimsuit, with her name, city, job, and interests.

For a country taught to ignore Black beauty, this was a quiet shock.

But even then, people debated it. Some readers loved the spotlight on everyday Black women. Others worried it fed the male gaze or over-sexualizing them.

But how do you feel about the Jet Beauty of the Week?