Pharoah Narmer was the Egyptian monarch credited with uniting Upper and Lower Egypt in 3100 BCE and thus creating the beginning of the powerful Egyptian state and sophisticated civilization. Narmer’s birth date and earlier life are unknown. Many Egyptologists scholars debate whether Narmer and Pharoah Menes were the same person. Upper Egypt, originally under Narmer, was urbanized along the Nile […]

The Trans-Saharan Salt and Gold Trade was the major economic and cultural exchange between North Africa and West Africa, beginning around 500 BCE and continuing until the 1800s. The trade involved camel caravans transporting goods across the Sahara Desert and in the process helped spread Islam from North Africa to West Africa as well as ideas that influenced art and […]

Africa, the cradle of humanity, is significant in our collective history. It was here that Homo sapiens first evolved, and from this ancient land, our ancestors embarked on a journey that would eventually lead to the population of the entire globe. The earliest known human ancestor lived in Ethiopia between 520 million and 580 million years ago. Over a span […]

Childhood English actress, singer and songwriter Cynthia Onyedinamanasu Chinasaokwu Erivo was born in Stockwell, London, England, on January 8, 1987. Both of her parents were immigrants from Nigeria and separated when Erivo was very young. Her mother, Edith, worked as a nurse and raised Erivo and her sister, Nicolette, in a single-parent home. Erivo performed for the first time at […]

Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. founded in 1906 on the campus of campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, is the first Greek letter collegiate fraternity established by African American men. The fraternity’s major nonpartisan think tank, The World Policy Council (WPC), was established in 1996 at Howard University. The non-profit Council applies sustained intellectual energy to explore alternative […]

Scott Turner is the 19th Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. He is the first African American to hold a cabinet position in the Administration of the 47th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump. Eric Scott Turner was born on February 26, 1972, in Richardson, Texas. He is a fourth generation Texan. Turner’s parents divorced when he was […]

In the article below, Quintard Taylor, the founder of BlackPast.org, describes the recent attempts to marginalize African American history and why he believes those attempts will fail. On March 27, President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” The order, which targeted what the President called “anti-American ideology,” described the “concerted and widespread […]

Saartjie (Sara) Baartman was one of the first black women known to be subjugated to human sexual trafficking. She was derisively named the “Hottentot Venus” by Europeans as her body would be publicly examined and exposed inhumanly throughout her young life.  Moreover, her experience reinforced the already existing and extremely negative sexual fascination with African women’s bodies by the people […]

Mississippi State Penitentiary, or Parchman Prison, has long influenced the Mississippi cultural landscape, functioning as a literary setting in many iconic works. Stretching from the early 1900s to the contemporary era, Parchman has loomed over Mississippi culture. The prison has been an important motif in iconic works of fiction, from Mary Hamilton’s pioneer biography, Trial of the Earth, to William […]

Dingane ka Senzangakhona, a Zulu prince became the second king of the Zulu Kingdom after the death of its founder, Shaka Zulu. Dingane was born in 1795 in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. His parents were Chief Senzangakhona and Mpikase kaMlilela Ngobese, Senzangakhona’s sixth and “great wife.” Dingane had 14 siblings. In 1828, Dingane became king of the Zulu Kingdom with the […]