History Articles - The Scramble for Africa

The Scramble for Africa

Here is a fun way to study European imperialism in Africa in the 1800s. It is in a game format and includes the game, cards, etc. and it is free.

African American Women in the Civil Rights Movement

African American women have played a key role in the American Civil Rights Movement. Without their struggle for freedom from racial abuse, it wouldn’t have been possible for Americans to achieve racial justice. African American women like Rosa Parks, Jo Ann Gibson Robinson and Ella Baker were a few, who led the front. Know more...
African American Women in the Civil Rights Movement
Although, women played a significant role in the Civil Rights Movement, they were not given the necessary attention they deserved. Their names are lost in the pages of history. People all over US celebrate Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday, but little do they know that Martin Luther King, without the support, hard work and help from African American women, particularly Rosa Parks, Ella Baker and Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, would not have achieved as much as he did. In fact, it was Rosa Parks’ act of defiance that ignited the national Civil Rights Movement. Let us learn more about these women.

Rosa Parks

Called as ‘Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement’, Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an African American civil rights activist. According to the Montgomery law in 1955, if the bus was crowded, no passenger would require to stand up and give up their seat. However, bus conductors at the time had acquired a practice of making black people give up their seats, in case a white was left standing. On December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks broke this law – she refused to obey the order of bus driver James Blake to give her seat to a white man. This led the conductor to call police and she was arrested. She was the first black who had resisted giving up her seat. Her act of defiance became a national symbol and many more followed her by not giving up their seats. This event led to Montgomery Bus Boycott, igniting the Civil Rights movement.

She later, helped Martin Luther King launch national Civil Rights Movement. Recalling her act of defiance years later, she said, "When that white driver stepped back toward us, when he waved his hand and ordered us up and out of our seats, I felt a determination cover my body like a quilt on a winter night."

Jo Ann Robinson

Jo Ann Gibson Robinson (1912 - 1992) was a civil rights activist and educator in Montgomery, Alabama, who helped Rosa Parks fight for the racial justice in 1955. Back in 1949, she herself had been a victim of racial abuse when she was verbally accused by a bus driver. In 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man and was arrested, Robinson, with permission from Parks, mimeographed 35,000 handbills and called for a boycott of Montgomery buses. The boycott continued for a year and Montgomery Improvement Association was established. Martin Luther king became the president of the association and Robinson served its executive board.

Ella Baker

Ella Josephine Parker (December 13, 1903 – December 13, 1986) was one of the first African American civil and human rights activist in 1930s. She mentored young civil rights leaders such as Rosa Parks, Diane Nash, Bob Mosses, etc. She worked for about 5 decades but, we do not know much about her, because she was a behind-the-scenes activist. She worked with civil rights activist like Martin Luther king and Thurgood Marshall in Civil Rights Movement. Her words, "Remember, we are not fighting for the freedom of the Negro alone, but for the freedom of the human spirit a larger freedom that encompasses all mankind.", will always be remembered.

Had it not been the efforts of these African American women, Martin Luther King would never had made the achievements he has and blacks would not have gained the racial justice. Hats off to these women who despite myriad hurdles, made it happen.

By Sourabh Gupta

Hatshepsut v. Tuthmosis: A Royal Feud?

With permission, I am republishing the post A royal feud? written by Jennie Weber. I think it is interesting and worth publishing again.

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This is an interesting article on the "feud" that has often been put forth as why many of Hatshepsut's monuments were destroyed. This is a major issue for Ancient Egyptians as they believed that this is how the Pharoah lived on in etnerity and to destroy their statues and writings (so their memory) was to destroy their soul in the afterlife. The bulk of the destruction was done during her stepson, Tuthmosis' reign, and so many assumed that he hated his stepmother for taking some of his power (as she ruled as co-regent). Dr. Joyce Tyldesley has this to say on Tuthmosis:

It is undeniable that someone attacked Hatshepsut's monuments after her death. Archaeology indicates that the bulk of the vandalism occurred during Tuthmosis' reign. Why would he do this? At first it was imagined that this was the new king's immediate revenge against his stepmother; he was indeed cursing her with permanent death. The image of the young Tuthmosis seething with impotent rage as Hatshepsut ruled in his place is one which has attracted amateur psychologists for many years. However, it does not entirely fit with the known facts.

Tuthmosis was to prove himself a calm and prudent general, a brave man not given to hasty or irrational actions. He did not start his solo reign with an assault on Hatshepsut's memory; indeed, he allowed her a traditional funeral, and waited until it was convenient to fit the desecration into his schedule. Some of the destruction was even carried out by his son, after his death, when most of those who remembered Hatshepsut had also died. It is a remote, rather than an immediate, attack.

Furthermore the attack is not a thorough one. Enough remained of Hatshepsut to allow us to recreate her reign in some detail. Her tomb, the most obvious place to start the attack, still housed her name. Hatshepsut may have been erased from Egypt's official record, but she was never hated as Akhenaten 'The Great Criminal' would later be.

So what does she think happened?

What can we conclude from this tangled tale? We should perhaps rethink our assumptions. Hatshepsut did not fear Tuthmosis; instead of killing him, she raised him as her successor. Tuthmosis may not have hated Hatshepsut. Initially he may even have been grateful to her, as she had protected his land while training him for greatness. But, as he grew older and looked back over his life, his perspective would shift. Would Egypt's most successful general, a stickler for tradition, have wished to be associated with a woman co-regent, even a woman as strong as Hatshepsut?

By removing all obvious references to his co-ruler Tuthmosis could incorporate her reign into his own. He would then become Egypt's greatest pharaoh; the only successor to Tuthmosis II. Hatshepsut would become the unfortunate victim, not of a personal attack, but of an impersonal attempt at retrospective political correctness.

Tuthmosis set his masons to re-write history. Their labours would last well into the reign of his successor, Amenhotep II, a king who could not remember Hatshepsut, and who had no reason to respect her memory. Meanwhile, hidden in the Valley of the Kings, Hatshepsut still rested in her coffin. Tuthmosis I had been taken from their joint tomb and re-buried, but she had been left alone. Tuthmosis knew that as long as her body survived, Hatshepsut was ensured eternal life.

I find this story - that Tuthmosis was trying to improve his image - as more pausible. It makes sense with the partial destruction and shows that while he was trying to negate her role, he wasn't trying to kill her memory - merely change it to suit himself.