African American History

In 1963, school children from Birmingham, Alabama skipped class to demonstrate for racial equality. Met with police violence, they helped to bring about significant change. The Birmingham Children's Crusade, as it was known, has gone down in history as a turning point in the fight for Civil Rights.

In 1970s New York, 16-year-old Jamaican immigrant Clive Campbell (aka DJ Kool Herc) used his trusty turntables to loop funk records and bring the beat. In the process he helped create one of America's true art forms: hip hop.

Like much of American in the early 19th century, sports were segregated. But with the newly established Negro Baseball League, African American baseball players overcame racial segregation to claim the national pastime as their own.

How did a hardworking nurse from New York City invent the world's first home security system? When a burglar tried to break into her apartment in the 1960s, this kickass crimefighter went where no-one had gone before.

America has always been captivated by crime and the sharp-dressed, trigger happy men who dominate the underworld. But one story remains criminally neglected, that of gambling kingpin Stephanie St. Clair, aka Madame Queenie - the Robin Hood of Harlem.

You know the story of David and Goliath, right? Well, America has its own version. Only our hero is 15-year-old African-American, school girl Claudette Colvin and in 1955, she took on the State of Alabama for real. The original Rosa Parks!

Investigative journalist Ida B. Wells made it her mission to exposing the horrors of racism in the American South, but it wasn't easy.

Elizabeth Freeman played a critical role in the fight to end slavery in the United States.

Designed in 1972, the raised fist Afro Comb combines function with meaning to create a grooming tool that symbolises African-American history, culture and pride.

Linda Brown was just 9-years-old when she was thrust into the national spotlight, as she fought - and won - against racial segregation in the American school system.

Kentucky-born Garrett Morgan invented life saving gadgets, but despite facing racial prejudice all his life, Morgan was recognised as one of America’s most prolific and socially conscious inventors

How free Black women in Spanish Louisiana turned an oppressive headscarf law into a celebration of individuality and culture.

The Harlem Renaissance was an explosion of African American culture and creativity that began in 1920s New York.

As the First Lady of the Black Press, Ethel Payne wielded her first amendment right to ask the tough questions and hold those in power to account.

It was one of the deadliest terror attacks in US history. So why wasn’t the Tulsa Race Massacre properly taught in US schools until 2019?

The stereotypical image of a White cowboy dominates popular culture – but in the 19th century, a quarter of ranch hands were Black!

James Hemings was an enslaved man and the first American to learn classic French cuisine. He helped popularise many of the dishes you know and love today.