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6 interesting facts about Black History Month that are worth knowing

February 13, 2021

Circa 1955: Portrait of Billie Holiday (1915 - 1959) singing into a microphone, wearing a strapless gown.

Photo by Bill Spilka/Getty Images

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Breanna Robinson

In February 1970, the first Black History Month celebration began. Six years later, it was recognized as a national holiday to appreciate, reflect, and honor the African Americans' plight and triumphs that have paved the way for generations to come.

Now more than 50 years later, we continue to celebrate and give thanks.

Indeed, there is so much more to history than one can fit into a month. Many contributions aren't discussed as much as we realize when we talk about the key figures in Black history.

So without further adieu, in honor of the African American women and men who trailblazed and worked hard to better society, check out this list of facts that you may not know.

Before Rosa Parks, there was Claudette Colvin

In December 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on public transportation. Her protest sparked interest in the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Civil Rights Movement. However, she was not the only African American in Montgomery, Alabama to do this.

In March 1955, A 15-year-old girl named Claudette Colvin was riding the bus home from school when she was asked to give up her seat. Colvin was opposed to this request and ended up getting briefly arrested for it. She was studying about Black leaders and the injustices that the community was facing.

Regarding that, she said, " It felt like Sojourner Truth was on one side pushing me down, and Harriet Tubman was on the other side of me pushing me down. I couldn't get up."

The NAACP and other civil rights groups considered rallying with Colvin to fight against Alabama's segregation laws. Still, nine months later, they ended up giving their attention to Rosa Park's case.

Moreover, Colvin was one of the four plaintiffs in the Browder v. Gayle case in 1956. They made the ruling that segregation laws are unconstitutional in Alabama and the city of Montgomery.

READ: The significance behind Black History Month and why we celebrate it throughout February

The significance behind Black History Month and why we celebrate it throughout Februaryconversations.indy100.com

Not only are there Valentine's Day festivities, but the month also celebrates Black history, a dedication to commemorate and honor the African Americans who have worked hard and made sacrifices for the nation.

Matthew Henson was a key member in voyages to the arctic

Matthew Henson was an African American explorer known as the North Pole co-discoverer alongside Robert Edwin Peary in 1909. After they made it, they went on to explore the arctic for another two decades.

Because it was the early 1900s, when they returned home from the arctic, Peary was met with praise and recognition, while Hensen was disregarded.

Furthermore, Henson published a memoir titled A Negro Explorer in the North Pole,whichchronicled his arctic adventures. He gained some notoriety for his accomplishments but not enough. In the late 1930s, Henson received proper recognition as he was asked to join the New York Explorer's Club.

Decades later, after he passed away in 2000, Henson got the National Geographic Hubbard Medal.

Ida B. Wells pioneered a new wave of journalism

In the 20th century, journalists began to write vivid things, such as what was happening in the nation and the world. Despite Ida Tarbell's classic pamphlet, The History of the Standard Oil Company,Well's Southern Horrorspamphlet was revolutionary. The pamphlet—which paved the way for investigative journalism—detailed the horrific lynchings throughout the U.S. and how they were a means to reprimand Black people.

Moreover, Wells traveled abroad, shedding light on the lynches in America to foreign audiences. She also confronted white women in the suffrage movement who didn't consider the terrors of lynching. Due to her conviction and belief in spreading awareness of this heinous act, she was often cast aside by women's suffrage organizations across the nation.

Billie Holiday's song "Strange Fruit" was a poem written by a school teacher

There was an anti-lynching poem by Lewis Allan that came out in 1936 titled "Strange Fruit." Allan created the poem as a reaction to a photograph he saw of a lynching. Allan was a code name for Abel Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx. When American lynches were running rampant, nearly 2,000 people died from lynches a year.

Meeropol ended up putting the poem to music. Other young artists picked up the song, but it was Holiday that brought attention to the song. Her raw emotion and singing abilities within the song got her inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Both Holiday and Meeropol were praised.

Today, "Strange Fruit" is still revered as one of the most pivotal Civil Rights Movement songs.

John Mercer Langston, the great-uncle to Langston Hughes, was the first Black man to pass the bar in Ohio

That's right, both intellect and creativity run in the family! John Mercer Langston had longed to become a lawyer. When he was denied law school admission, he began to study under abolitionist lawyers. Eventually, he passed the bar, and he faced racist comments. Langston became the first Black man elected to Virginia states' House of Representatives.

Lincoln University granted degrees to Black people in the United States

In 1854 when the university was called The Ashmun Institute, it became the first historically Black public university. Many trailblazers, creators, and intellectuals attended, such as Langston Hughes, who graduated in 1929, and Justice Thurgood Marshall graduated in 1930. The university is still around to this day.

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From Your Site Articles

Can tech help female entrepreneurs break the bias?

Women founders continue to come up against common challenges and biases

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

Written by Kelly Devine, Division President UK & Ireland, Mastercard

Starting a business may have historically been perceived as a man’s game, but this couldn’t be further from reality. Research shows women are actually more likely than men to actively choose to start their own business – often motivated by the desire to be their own boss or to have a better work-life balance and spend more time with their family.

The recently published Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurship 2021 found that in the category of 'Aspiration Driven Entrepreneurship’ – capturing those who actively choose to start their own business – women in the UK surpass men: 60% vs 56%. And Mastercard research from February 2022 found 10% of female business owners started their business in the past two years compared to 6% of men – meaning women were 67% more likely to have started a business during the pandemic.

Yet, there are common challenges that women founders continue to come up against - not least the gender imbalance in the household and long-held biases which are still prevalent.

In the UK, women are almost three times more likely to be balancing care and home commitments than men, and this was exacerbated during the pandemic as the additional barriers of school closures and lockdowns meant that the care time of dependents rose significantly on a day-to-day level for women. In addition, women were less likely to have access to a home office, greatly impacting the work they were able to accomplish when working from home was the only option.

It's also widely known that female business owners are still more likely to struggle to access funding for their business ideas. According to Dealroom, all-women founding teams received just 1.4% of the €23.7bn invested into UK start-ups in 2021, while all-male leadership teams have taken almost 90% of the available capital.

Without financial support, and when juggling significant time pressures both at home and at work, how can women grow their companies and #BreaktheBias (as this year’s International Women’s Day termed it)? What tools or support can save them time and money, and give them the headspace they need to focus on building their business?

With female owned businesses collectively estimating revenue growth of £120 billion over the next five years, solving this problem is bigger than supporting women – it’s about supporting the national economy.

Using tech to level the playing field

There are clearly societal issues at play that need to be resolved. But when we look at the rise in technology businesses during the pandemic, we can plainly see an alternative source of support critical for business growth: digital tools.

A third of female business owners say new technologies will be crucial to the success of their business in the future and one in five say it is the most important thing for business growth.

With new technology comes new ways to pay, create, and work. And yet there are barriers that prevent business owners accessing this technology. Women are significantly more likely to say they want to use more digital tools but don’t know what is best for their business and also more concerned about the security of digital tools.

When technology is adopted by businesses – whether using online accounting solutions or messenger services for communicating with staff – it saves them time, allows them to maintain and grow their customer base, and ultimately increases cost savings and profit.

By drastically improving the training and support that is available to women-owned business to access and utilise technology we will allow these businesses to grow and succeed. And we know there is demand for it.

Research done by the IFC and Dalberg shows that female entrepreneurs are more likely to invest time and money in business development. This includes product development, customer base expansion, and digital tools and training and there are plenty of services available offering this type of support – many of them for free.

One such programme is Strive UK – an initiative of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth – which aims to reach 650,000 micro and small business owners across the UK and empower them with the tools they need to thrive in the digital economy through free guidance, helpful tools and one-to-one mentoring.

Working together with small business experts – Enterprise Nation, Be the Business and Digital Boost – we hope to ensure hundreds of thousands of UK female business owners have the tools they need to succeed and reach their ambitious goals. Because this ambition remains strong in the UK, with female business owners largely optimistic about the future despite the multitude of challenges they are facing. Four in ten say they will grow their business in the next five years – compared to only a third of male business owners – and they’re also 35% less likely than men to say they plan to downsize or close the business.

But if we do not empower female entrepreneurs to access the tools and technology they need to grow, there is a risk this optimism could be misplaced. Support programmes that provide business owners with guidance and mentorship can help ensure this isn’t the case, allowing female entrepreneurs to not only survive but thrive in the months and years ahead.