Tag: african american history
-
The Inevitable: Cemetery Hunting
Now, I am at a standstill in my research. Next year will mark the centennial of Rachel Flowers’ enrollment at Messiah Missionary School and Training Home, known today as Messiah College, my alma mater. If you are new to my blog, welcome! To give you a brief background about Rachel, please read the bio marquee…
-
Protected: The Murder of Helen Thomas, My Grandmother
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
-
What Does A Researcher Do on Her Birthday?
Personally, I think I am my mother’s easiest child. I never asked for much and spent much of my childhood as I preferred it–alone and with a book in my hand. I tended to my little sister’s every need, skipped out on prom, never failed a course, and always prided myself on my independence. No…
-
Frederick Douglass: The Black O’Connell
“Instead of the bright, blue sky of America, I am covered with the soft, grey fog of the Emerald Isle. I breathe, and lo! the chattel becomes a man.” Frederick Douglass, letter to William Lloyd Garrison, 1845 “When we strove to blot out the stain of slavery and advance the rights of man, we…
-
Happy Memorial Day: A Tribute to the Flowers Family
Memorial Day, Owen Freeman War kills people and destroys human creation; but as though mocking war’s devastation, flowers inevitably bloom through its ruins. After a long siege, a prolonged bombardment for months from all around the harbor, and numerous fires, the beautiful port city of Charleston, South Carolina, where the war had begun in April,…
-
Part Three: The Flowers Family and The Black Church
Harry Flowers —-/—-Nancy Sawyer | ———————————————————————————— Chauncey Fred John Rachel Theodore Vincent Gladyce Hilda Philadelphia In West Philadelphia born and raised…perhaps not the best introduction; however, the young women of the Flowers family did call Philadelphia home following their father’s death. For Rachel and Gladyce, Wesley AME Zion became their spiritual home during the late 1920s.…
-
In Other News
Life update: Applied to my first Ph.D. program and did not get in. I was upset for about 0.34 seconds, but got over it. In all honesty, I knew after I paid that damn application fee that I was not going to get in. Eh, it happens. I did; however, receive admissions into another M.A. program…
-
From Mother to Daughter: “What Do I Tell My Children Who Are Black?”
History helps us to understand who we are and how deep our roots have grown. It teaches us that we are a people with a glorious past that had its beginning in the dark corners of African civilizations centuries ago and spread to the lighted civilizations of today. In the following pages you will discover…
-
A Race Against Time: The Quest for a Living Descendant
Vincent Flowers at Messiah Academy, Courtesy of Messiah College Archives Vincent Flowers, Rachel’s brother passed away in 2002. Edna Wiggins, Rachel’s sister-in-law, died in 2004. About seven years later, Paul Stevenson passed away in 2011. He was Rachel’s nephew. A great amount of history is lost with each death that occurs within the Flowers’ family. I…
-
Victims of Hate: Geraldine’s Newspaper Collection During the 1960s
Read Geraldine’s biography here. Image taken from the Geraldine Wilson Papers Collection at the Schomburg Center During her time with Freedom Summer, Geraldine kept record of the events occurring in the South involving missing and murdered blacks and civil rights activists. Most of the newspaper articles within her private archival collection were from The Student Voice,…
Diary of a Historian 