Hello and welcome to the 5th annual Black History Spotlight! If you've been here before, welcome back and thank you for remembering my little corner of the internet! As I don't run this blog full-time anymore, I don't have any bits or bobs to catch you up on as I usually would after a break, so we'll keep that part short today.
If you're new here, each day of the week is reserved for a specific topic throughout the month. I always start the month off with a Community Spotlight, so as it relates to this year's series, each Saturday this month will be a Community Spotlight. And what is a Community Spotlight? That is when I put the light on either an individual or organization who has made improving the community their primary focus and has had a longstanding position in the community or has made a big impact. I like focusing on the actual history of Black History, on the organizations and people who came before us, who provided the foundation that today's leaders continue to build on. That brings me to today's entrant, an organization that, unlike my other Community Spotlight organizations, is defunct and has been for over a century. I try to focus on organizations that are still operational so that we can lend our support to them, but I'd like to start introducing organizations that failed or closed because even though they didn't work, they're still important to the history of African-Americans, especially at the turn of the 20th century. Let's get into it!
Name: National Afro-American Council, 1898-1907
Date of establishment and founders: 1898 by T. Thomas Fortune and Bishop Alexander Walters
Purpose of organization: To continue the mission of the defunct National Afro-American League of fixing the growing issue of disfranchisement, the rise of violence, namely lynchings, and overall discrimination of Blacks in America
Why is the Spotlight on it today? For being the second official civil rights organization for Blacks in America, for providing a voice at a crucial time to the previously voiceless, and for providing a foundation that future civil rights leaders were able to use to propel the community forward
Background:
--Prominent officers and members during the organization's heyday included John C. Dancy (who served as vice president), W.E.B. DuBois (who oversaw the business bureau of the organization), Ida B. Wells (who served as secretary and later organizer), and Booker T. Washington
--Was the successor to the also short-lived Afro-American Council and maintained many of its tenets
--Was able to attract the attention of major newspapers, prominent journalists and activists to spread the message and empower the Black community, more specifically said disfranchised Black voters in the South
--Held annual conventions across the South and East Coast during its run in which they discussed the lynchings, racial discrimination and came up with methods to eradicate some of the laws disempowering Blacks in the country
--Was the first Black organization to be able to schedule a recurring collective meeting with the then-President in order to change some of the laws surrounding clauses intended to eliminate the Black vote in Louisiana and to officially introduce anti-lynching laws
--Was one of the first organizations in the country and the first Black organization to accept women as equal members, which was uncommon for the time period
--Provided the foundation and preparation for the civil rights activists who left the AAC to help form the NAACP and the Niagara Movement
--Ultimately failed partially due to internal politicking, primarily between those who were in pro- or anti- Booker T. Washington groups, which weakened the organization and dominated its ability to make any solid decisions
Further reading links:
1 | 2 | 3
Quote of the Day:
"Effective organization is the only supreme power in modern society. The greatest misfortune of the race has been its refusal to recognize and live up to this principle of social security and progress. We have depended too much upon others to do for us what we could and should do for ourselves. Mankind is selfish by nature and the enforced conditions of social life, and the man or men who neglect their own interests will find, to their sorrow, that others are too busy to attend to them, for them. What is everybody's business is nobody's business, is a faithful old saw."
--Excerpt from President Fortune's address to the AAC council, 1902
What does the organization provide? Long-term support, guidance, education and love to youth from the ages of 8 to 22 in an array of areas: leadership development, social justice, the racial history of the Pan-African and Latinx communities, misogyny and sexism, and many other areas. It also provides counseling, educational camps, job and college preparation and study programs abroad to the youth that the organization serves.
This is one of the new additions to this year's series. Every day this month, I want to highlight a charity or organization dedicated to serving the Black community in some way. Some of the organizations have a multi-racial benefit to help all people of color, some are specific to one demographic (women, children, LGBTQ+, etc.), some are national and others are specific to a region. There's a bit of variety in the organizations I chose, but what they all have in common is their service to underserved Black and minority communities. I'll disclose a bit of information about the charity, along with donation or membership links. There's no pressure at all to donate; do it if you can and keep it in mind if you'd like to help at some point but can't right now. Many of the organizations have memberships and pre-set donation amounts, which are quite pricey if you live check to check, but just visiting the website and seeing what it's about are good enough for me.
It should go without saying but I have no connection with any of the organizations I'm going to highlight. I literally just want to showcase Black and minority charitable organizations. I'm not sure if that needed to be said, but with blogger/influencer trust at an all-time low, I wanted to be transparent that I'm not peddling anything or trying to pressure anyone to give any of their coint because I receive some kind of benefit on the side. I don't.
But if you'd like to kick $10 over to my PayPal account so I can buy some Megabites from Church's I won't say boo. LOL
👀
jk.
See you tomorrow!
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