The Charleston Hospital Strike (1969)

The Charleston Hospital Strike occurred between March 19, 1969, and June 27, 1969, in Charleston, South Carolina. The leading causes of the strike were pay inequality based on race, racial discrimination, and racial segregation of African American hospital workers. On March 17, 1969, a group of African American employees at Medical College Hospital (Now Medical University of South Carolina) met […]

Louis-Benoit Zamor (1762-1820)

Louis-Benoit Zamor is best known for helping to send French Aristocrat Madame Jeanne du Barry to the guillotine during the French Revolution (1789-1794). Born in Chittagong, India (present-day Bengal), probably of Siddi ancestry (the Siddi were Indians of African descent), Zamor’s birth year is generally accepted as 1762. Some accounts report he was purchased by the Prince de Conti; others […]

Memphis Sanitation Strike (1968)

The Memphis Sanitation Strike occurred between February 12 and April 16, 1968. The sanitation strike was called in response to the deaths of sanitation workers Echol Cole and Robert Walker and in response to the racial discrimination that Black sanitation workers experienced. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, who was organizing the Poor People’s Campaign at the time, came to Memphis […]

Kelley V. Board of Education (1955-1957)

Kelley V. Board of Education was a lawsuit filed in 1955 by several Black families to desegregate Nashville public schools. Zephaniah Alexander Looby, a prominent Nashville Black attorney, joined Thurgood Marshall, Director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Legal and Educational Fund, to file suit against Nashville public schools in federal district court to bring […]