On this day in 1862, Mary Jane Patterson made history when she became the first black woman to receive a college degree when she graduated from Oberlin College. She was also the first black principal at America's first public high school for black students. (Preparatory High School for Colored Youth known today as Dunbar High School, Washington, D.C.) —Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, she was the oldest of seven children. In 1856, she and her family moved to Oberlin, Ohio, where they joined a growing community of free Black families who worked to send their children to the college. Her father worked as a master mason. For many years, the family boarded large numbers of Black students in their home. In 1862, Patterson graduated from Oberlin College, earning her historic degree. On September 21, 1864, she applied for a position in Norfolk, Virginia, at a school for Black children. On October 7, 1864, E. H. Fairchild, principal of Oberlin College's preparatory department from 1853 to 1869, wrote a recommendation for an "appointment from the American missionary Association as a ... teacher among freedmen." In this letter, Fairchild described Patterson as "a light quadroon, a graduate of this college, a superior scholar, a good singer, a faithful Christian, and a genteel lady. She had success is teaching and is worthy of the highest ... you pay to ladies." The following year, she became an assistant to Black educator Fanny Jackson in the Female Department of the Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia. In 1869, Patterson accepted a teaching position in Washington, D.C., at the newly organized Preparatory High School for Colored Youth -- later known as Dunbar High School. She served as Dunbar's first Black principal from 1871 to 1874. During Patterson's administration, the name "Preparatory High School" was dropped, high school commencements were initiated, and a teacher-training department was added. Her commitment to thoroughness as well as her personality helped her establish the school's strong intellectual standards. Patterson also devoted time and money to other Black institutions in Washington, especially to industrial schools for young African-American women, as well as to the Home for Aged and Infirm Colored People. Her achievements as a leading Black educator influenced generations of African-American students and paved the way for other Black female educators. if you love our content, please consider supporting our page on AfricanArchives.Support (follow the ko-fi page too for weekly posts roundup)

In 1938, Lloyd Gaines filed a lawsuit after being denied admission to the University of Missouri Law School in 1935 because he was black. The Court ruled in his favor & required Missouri to admit him or set up a black law school. He disappeared 3 months later never to be found. —Lloyd Lionel Gaines was born to the Gaines family in northern Mississippi in 1911. One of eleven children, seven of whom survived illness and accident, he moved with his widowed mother and siblings to St. Louis after the premature death of their father. They found a better, although not easy, life for themselves in Missouri. Gaines excelled in his studies graduating as valedictorian in 1931 from Vashon High School. At Lincoln University in Jefferson City, he graduated with honors and was President of the senior class, while participating in many extra-curricular activities and working to pay for his schooling. Despite his outstanding scholastic record, the University of Missouri School of Law denied Gaines admittance in 1936 solely on the grounds that Missouri's Constitution called for "separate education of the races." By state law, Missouri would have been required to pay for Gaines to attend the Universities in Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska, but Gaines was determined to fight for the right to attend law school in his own state university. He sought legal assistance from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which had been working systematically to overturn the ignominious precedent of "separate but equal" established in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. Together, they challenged the University of Missouri's admissions policies. In 1938, Gaines won his case before the United States Supreme Court in State of Missouri ex rel Gaines v. Canada, paving the way for a series of cases that would lead to Brown v. Board of Education's outlawing segregation in public education. In March 1939, only three months after his Supreme Court victory, Lloyd Gaines was last seen in Chicago. He disappeared at age 28 with his promise of attending law school in Missouri unfilfilled. Lloyd Gaines was never to be seen or heard from again. 🖊️As the only admin behind this page, I try to research to educate. If you appreciate this effort, you can support to help the page thrive on ko-fi.com/africanarchives. Your support is deeply appreciated! (Or just the ko-fi page for articles/posts roundup)

Sally Hemings, the woman Thomas Jefferson enslaved. She was called his "mistress," but how can you be a mistress when you were enslaved, a child, and could not consent? Had absolutely no choice? A THREAD

In 1926, thirteen black men put together their savings and founded Safe Bus Company, making it the largest black owned bus company at that time. It was formed in Winston-Salem to serve the black neighborhoods due to segregation and operated till 1972. Thirteen Black men put together their life-savings and purchasing shares of stock for $100,000; forming Safe Bus Co, Inc. on May 26, 1926, Safe Bus Co became the largest African-American owned bus company in the nation. The company grew large and fast and was at one point named the largest black-owned transportation company in the world. In 1955, Safe Bus grossed $825,000. At it’s prime, the company carried 15,000 fares a day, grossed $18,000 a week and had 75 employees. Fares started at five cents in the early operating days and grew as the company expanded. The number of buses expanded as well, from 35 to 42. Safe Bus operated in 20 percent of the city. Black bus drivers made, around $1.60 to $2.50 an hour. “That was more than school teachers were making then.” By 1968, Safe Bus provided transportation to all city residents. The company took on more routes, but finding drivers proved difficult. Despite more routes, after integration, Safe Bus started to lose money. Old attitudes about segregation made it difficult to make a profit, and the company lost 60 percent of riders, according to the Winston-Salem Transit Authority. “When the whites started riding Safe Bus, they thought they had to go to the back,”. After integration Black people Started riding on white-owned buses so they could sit up front with white people. Stockholders voted to sell the company to the city in 1972. The Winston-Salem Transit Authority became responsible for all public. 🖊️As the only admin behind this page, I try to research to educate. If you appreciate this effort, you can support to help the page thrive on ko-fi.com/africanarchives. Your support is deeply appreciated! Or just follow the page for articles.

George Crum invented the Potato chips. Thanks to him, our mindless television watching became a bit more delicious. —The potato chip was invented in 1853 by George Crum. Crum was a black American chef at the Moon Lake Lodge resort in Saratoga Springs, New York, USA. French fries were popular at the restaurant, and one day a diner complained that the fries were too thick. Although Crum made a thinner batch, the customer was still unsatisfied. Crum finally made fries that were too thin to eat with a fork, hoping to annoy the extremely fussy customer. The customer, surprisingly enough, was happy – and potato chips were invented! Crum’s chips were originally called Saratoga Chips and potato crunches. They were soon packaged and sold in New England – Crum later opened his own restaurant. William Tappendon manufactured and marketed the chips in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1895. In the 1920s, a salesman named Herman Lay sold potato chips to the southern USA (selling the chips from the trunk of his car). In 1926, Laura Scudder (who owned a potato chip factory in Monterey Park, California) invented a wax paper potato chip bag to keep the chips fresh and crunchy. With further technology, innovation, and a countless number of variations and flavors, potato chips have only grown in popularity over the years! 🖋️if you love our content, please consider supporting our page on AfricanArchives.Support (follow the ko-fi page too for weekly posts roundup)

On this day in 1955, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, were aquitted by an all-white jury for the kidnapping and murder of 14 Year old Emmett Louis Till. —On August 28, 1955, at the age of 14 years old while visiting family in Money, Mississippi, 14-year-old Emmett Till, an African American from Chicago, is brutally murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman four days earlier. His assailants—the white woman’s husband and his brother—made Emmett carry a 75-pound cotton gin fan to the bank of the Tallahatchie River and ordered him to take off his clothes. The two men then beat him nearly to death, gouged out his eye, shot him in the head and then threw his body, tied to the cotton gin fan with barbed wire, into the river. Who Was Emmett Till? Till grew up in a working-class neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, and though he had attended a segregated elementary school, he was not prepared for the level of segregation he encountered in Mississippi. His mother warned him to take care because of his race, but Emmett enjoyed pulling pranks…. On August 24, while standing with his cousins and some friends outside a country store in Money, Emmett bragged that his girlfriend back home was white. Emmett’s African American companions, disbelieving him, dared Emmett to ask the white woman sitting behind the store counter for a date. He went in, bought some candy, and on the way out was heard saying, “Bye, baby” to the woman. There were no witnesses in the store, but Carolyn Bryant—the woman behind the counter—later claimed that he grabbed her, made lewd advances and wolf-whistled at her as he sauntered out. Emmett Till Murder Roy Bryant, the proprietor of the store and the woman’s husband, returned from a business trip a few days later and heard how Emmett had allegedly spoken to his wife. Enraged, he went to the home of Till’s great uncle, Mose Wright, with his half-brother J.W. Milam in the early morning hours of August 28. The pair demanded to see the boy. Despite pleas from Wright, they forced Emmett into their car. After driving around in the night, and perhaps beating Till in a toolhouse behind Milam’s residence, they drove him down to the Tallahatchie River. Three days later, his corpse was recovered but was so disfigured that Mose Wright could only identify it by an initialed ring. Authorities wanted to bury the body quickly, but Till’s mother, Mamie Bradley, requested it be sent back to Chicago. Open-Casket Funeral After seeing the mutilated remains, she decided to have an open-casket funeral so that all the world could see what racist murderers had done to her only son. Jet, an African American weekly magazine, published a photo of Emmett’s corpse, and soon the mainstream media picked up on the story. 🖋️if you love our content, please consider supporting our page on AfricanArchives.Support (follow the ko-fi page too for weekly posts roundup newsletter)

In 1938, Lloyd Gaines filed a lawsuit after being denied admission to the University of Missouri Law School in 1935 because he was black. The Court ruled in his favor & required Missouri to admit him or set up a black law school. He disappeared 3 months later never to be found. —Lloyd Lionel Gaines was born to the Gaines family in northern Mississippi in 1911. One of eleven children, seven of whom survived illness and accident, he moved with his widowed mother and siblings to St. Louis after the premature death of their father. They found a better, although not easy, life for themselves in Missouri. Gaines excelled in his studies graduating as valedictorian in 1931 from Vashon High School. At Lincoln University in Jefferson City, he graduated with honors and was President of the senior class, while participating in many extra-curricular activities and working to pay for his schooling. Despite his outstanding scholastic record, the University of Missouri School of Law denied Gaines admittance in 1936 solely on the grounds that Missouri's Constitution called for "separate education of the races." By state law, Missouri would have been required to pay for Gaines to attend the Universities in Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska, but Gaines was determined to fight for the right to attend law school in his own state university. He sought legal assistance from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which had been working systematically to overturn the ignominious precedent of "separate but equal" established in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. Together, they challenged the University of Missouri's admissions policies. In 1938, Gaines won his case before the United States Supreme Court in State of Missouri ex rel Gaines v. Canada, paving the way for a series of cases that would lead to Brown v. Board of Education's outlawing segregation in public education. In March 1939, only three months after his Supreme Court victory, Lloyd Gaines was last seen in Chicago. He disappeared at age 28 with his promise of attending law school in Missouri unfilfilled. Lloyd Gaines was never to be seen or heard from again.