DeSantis, Here's 28 Black History Moments You Won't Sweep Under the Rug

In October of 1958, a little white girl, Sissy Marcus, allegedly told her mother she kissed 7-year-old David Simpson and 9-year-old James Thompson on the cheek at the playground. In response, her mother washed her mouth with lye and called the police accusing the boys of raping her daughter - the classic racist trope of a Black man preying on an innocent white women.

Thompson and Simpson were arrested and the police refused to allow them to see an attorney or even their parents. The two were charged with molestation and were immediately imprisoned and beaten. They were hen sent to reform school where they were kept until they turned 21 years old. No trial, no jury. Why? They were Black.

On October 16, 1968, Tommie Smith won a gold medal and John Carlos, a bronze, in the men’s 200-meter race. As they took their place on the podium with their awards, they lowered their heads and raised a Black Power fist in the hair, donned with a black glove. They also wore black socks with no shoes to nod to poverty and beads around their necks to protest lynchings.

Their demonstration, though simple, was a powerful sign of solidarity with the fight for racial equality... which pissed off a lot of white folks.

Following this moment, the audience immediately spat racist comments and insults. The two were later expelled from the Games at the request of the International Olympic Committee president.

In October 1953, Jackie Robinson organized an All-Star baseball game which followed his integration of Major League Baseball. However, Birmingham Police Commissioner Eugene Connor cancelled the game. Why? Only because Black people and white people would be playing together.

Connor then threatened to ban the event altogether based on a city ordinance that forbade “mixed athletic events.” This man, for context, had strong ties to the KKK and promoted segregation. Not even a basic baseball game would fly if it wasn’t whites-only.

In September 1963, right before Youth Sunday service, 14-year-olds Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carol Robertson and 11-year-old Denise McNair were in the basement of 16th Birmingham Baptist Church getting ready. Unbeknownst to them, the Ku Klux Klan planted dynamite under the staircase of the church. The impact of the explosion completely obliterated the women’s restroom in the basement where the four girls were and killed them. A fifth girl, the sister of Ms. Collins, was discovered still alive in the rubble but suffered permanent injuries to both her eyes.

The motive for the bombing was none other than the fact the church was a common gathering place for Black people to organize demonstrations and plan strategies to fight for their civil rights. As a result of racist hate, four innocent lives were taken.

One of the most violent demonstrations in American history was the result of Black folks being sick and tired of being sick and tired. In the overpopulated neighborhood of Virginia Park, police were consistently bothering Black people and racially profiling them as criminals. One night, the cops escorted 85 patrons out of a club when suddenly a crowd of 200 onlookers gathered.

Within one hour, bottle throwing turned into a full fledged riot. The National Guard was called and two thousand army paratroopers arrived in the city riding in tanks that weekend. Majority of fatalities and injuries were that of Black people. The unrest sent a signal of how severe the racial tensions were in America.

In the world’s first broadcasted glimpse of the racist violence Black people face, a peaceful protest turned into a nightmare. Over 1,000 students gathered at Sixth Street Baptist Church to embark on a day of marching and sit-ins when they were met by a crowd of Birmingham police.

Their way of detaining the peaceful demonstrators were releasing K-9's and launching water hoses at the youths. Over 2,000 kids were arrested. The images of the children being bitten and thrown against the brick walls of stores by water prompted President John F. Kennedy to demand a solution to desegregate private and public businesses.

Before this case, it was illegal to marry the one you loved if they didn’t have the same skin color. Why? Because the thought of Black people mixing in with white people was shunned. Interracial couples were often looked down upon or attacked.

Though, Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving took their fight for their marriage to the courthouse. The Supreme Court ruled in 1967 that any state laws banning interracial marriage would be struck down and are unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection and Due Process Clause.

Here’s another Florida fact for you: On June 18, 1964, a group of white and Black protestors defied the rules of segregation and jumped into a whites-only pool at the Monson Motor Lodge in St. Augustine. To get them to leave, the white owner did more than shout and wave his finger. He poured acid into the pool.

This protest was part of the larger movement of sit-ins that were led by Martin Luther King Jr. After word of the acid incident got back to President Lyndon B. Johnson, the Civil Rights Act was approved bringing an end to an 83-day Senate filibuster.

In 1971, in one of the most infamous prisons for abusive and detrimental treatment of Black people, over 2,000 inmates protested the way their conditions in a violent revolt. Up to 42 guards were held hostage and the inmates took over the facility causing a standoff. Inmates invited the presence of the news to spread the word about their demands: the removal of the superintendent and immunity from criminal prosecution for their rebellion.

However, five days into it, the governor sent a group of state and local officers to regain control of the facility. A slew of both hostages and inmates were shot and killed. As a consequence, the prisoners were forced to strip naked, crawl through the communal outhouse and to run down hallways in between lines of guards who beat them and spat racial slurs.

In 1930, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith were abducted from jail and lynched after being brutally beaten by an angry white mob. The two were accused of shooting and injuring a white man and then later accused of raping the man’s fiancee. That claim was later recanted but it was already too late.

The mob showed up outside the local jail and demanded the two men be turned over to them. Eventually, someone broke in, dragged them out and nooses were placed on their necks. Smith was killed at the jail after being stabbed and having his arms broken. His body was hung next to Shipp an a photographer was invited to take images of the scene.

Look at the smiles...

The violent lynching led legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday to pen the song “Strange Fruit.”

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,

Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Holiday’s song resulted in a warning from the Federal Bureau of Narcotics to permanently remove it from her setlist as it fueled a desire for justice against racist violence. FBN Commissioner Harry Anslinger launched a campaign targeting Holiday by sending agents to her shows to make sure she didn’t sing the song. She continued, risking her career and nearly her life. However, Anslinger latched onto her addition to drugs and used that as a way to arrest her... on her hospital bed.

Almost every kid in school should learn about this old ass piece of paper just as they do with the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. However, President Abraham Lincoln’s executive order on January 1, 1863 proclaimed that all the enslaved individuals in the “rebellious states” (or Confederate states that endorsed slavery) were considered free. That’s HUGE.

Now... this didn’t immediately go into effect. In fact, many enslaved people were hidden from the news of the proclamation by their masters. If you leave this out the history lesson, you’ll never know how Black people in the South became free.

Speaking of fighting for freedom, the Nat Turner slave rebellion of Southampton, Virginia adds some context to how slavery wasn’t “desirable” as Florida’s curriculum wants to make it. Turner, an educated preacher, was one of the few enslaved people who dared to go against the white man and try to claim his freedom through an insurrection. That did end up in the slaughter of over 60 white folks. However, the fear of Black people overpowering their masters led to a counter-attack, claiming the lives of innocent enslaved people. That’s how bad they wanted to keep Black people bound.

Not to mention, the state legislature responded by trying to send freed Black people to Africa, denied them their right to a jury trial and passed anti-literacy laws making it against the law to teach reading and writing to any Black person, freed or enslaved - or potentially produce Nat Turner #2.

You can’t talk about Harriet without acknowledging the reason we know her name... leading people out of slavery. She wasn’t nicknamed “Moses” for no reason. This woman single handedly devised a plan to help up to 70 enslaved people escape captivity including her own family by creating an undercover system of routes and places of refuge to guide them to freedom.

She also served as a scout and spy for the Civil War against the Confederate forces and was also a force in the women’s suffrage movement up until the day she died. It’s safe to say this woman was gangsta.

Lacks is the reason why we have most of our vaccines and medical treatments. In 1951, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer at John Hopkins - the only big hospital at the time that took Black patients. While being treated, doctors took samples of her DNA and discovered the HeLa “immortal” cell line - the first cell that could duplicate itself over and over.

Lacks died in the hospital the same year and her cells grew in demand as they went into further medical research. Her family’s blood samples were even collected. Her cells were used to develop everything from polio to COVID-19 vaccines. Yet, her family received none of the profits and Lacks died never knowing her body was being used to change the medical field forever.

On March 25, 1931, a fight broke out on a train headed to Memphis. On that train was a group of teenagers who were kicked off the car by an angry white mob. After getting off, they were immediately approached by police and told they were accused of raping two white women.

They were rushed into trial with an all-white jury and sentenced to the death penalty with no evidence to prove they touched those girls. Instead, a reporter found out later the two girls lied. It wasn’t until decades later that the men were able to fight for their freedom.

It’s ignorant to water down the impact of racist violence, especially when it claimed the lives of innocent people like Emmett Till. He was only 14 years old, visiting family in Mississippi when he was accused of making inappropriate advances on Carolyn Bryant. She lied to her husband and his brother claiming Till whistled at her.

As a result, the two men kidnapped Till from his family’s house, tortured him to death and mutilated his body. He was unrecognizable when his body was discovered floating down the Tallahatchie River. For that reason, his mother left his body the way it was and had an open casket funeral for the world to see what racist hate did to her boy.

Twenty-five-year-old John Lewis led a peaceful march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery to advocate for Black people to have the right to vote. Why couldn’t they vote? Racism. However, as Lewis and the other demonstrators reached the top of the bridge, a group of state troopers were waiting for them on the other side backed by other white spectators waving Confederate flags.

The marchers ended up being accused of unlawful assembly and were ambushed with batons, clubs and whips... just fighting for the right to cast their ballot as a Black American. The violence that erupted against the peaceful protest is why this day is often remembered as “Bloody Sunday.”

Before they even reached peaked power, our greatest civil rights leaders including Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Fred Hampton of the Black Panther Party were assassinated. Hundreds of blacked out FBI documents detail the investigations behind the killings. However, it was speculated (and sometimes proven) that law enforcement and government agencies played a role in their sudden death.

It’s not a mistake that as they were educating and advocating for the Black community (and succeeding) that they wound up dead.

Ruby Bridges was born just days after the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Brown v Board of Education of Topeka that racial segregation of children in public school was unconstitutional. Therefore, Black kids can’t be banned from schools because of their color. Some states, like Louisiana, really wanted to hang onto their “whites only” education facilities until Ms. Bridges got accepted as one of the six Black kids to integrate a school in New Orleans.

Bridges, just six years old, was escorted to the school by federal marshals while white residents and parents screamed, spat and threw things at her. White parents pulled their children from the school for this simple act.

While we’re on the topic of the Sundown State, let’s take a trip back to 1923 when an angry mob of 200 white men stormed the Black community of Rosewood, Florida slaughtering over 30 Black families and burning the town to the ground. Why? You guessed it. Racism.

A white woman claimed she was assaulted by a Black man and without any evidence, a manhunt was launched for the culprit in question. The whole town was held accountable for protecting an alleged refugee, subject to the reign of racist violence. Turns out the woman lied about the assault in order to cover up her affair with another white man. The slaughter was for nothing.

In 1960, four freshmen from North Carolina A&T walked into F.W. Woolworth store and sat at the lunch counter. They were refused service because of their color but they stayed until the place closed. For the next few days, more and more students came including white students.

By day five, over 100 demonstrators were there demanding service. This triggered a city-wide boycott of stores with segregated sitting counters, crippling the revenue for those establishments. Only six months after the first sit-in were the original four freshmen served when they returned to the counter.

In 1921, the Black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma was attacked. They had a city full of Black-owned business, libraries, churches, shops and schools. However, all of it came burning down after an angry white mob stormed the town in search of Dick Rowland, a Black man arrested for... well, we still don’t know. History says he rode an elevator with a white woman and throughout the day, the rumor of what happened (or didn’t) between the two grew more intense.

The town was looted, homes were burned to the ground and families were killed. The governor declared martial law and sent National Guard Troops to Tulsa to assist in salvaging what was left of the city.

The first state to issue “Black Codes” into legislature following the Emancipation was Mississippi in 1865. This law required all freed Black people to carry papers proving that they had a job. If not, they would be arrested or more often than not, sent to a plantation to be enslaved again.

That wasn’t all. The law also forbid Black people to serve as witnesses against white people in court, only allowed Black people to marry within their race and restricted their ability to own property outside of towns and cities. The codes also opened the door for the state to adopt the 13th Amendment: the slavery loophole.

You can’t teach a classroom about Rosa Parks without acknowledging why we know her name in the first place. Though she wasn’t the first, she was the most sensationalized Black person to resist the laws of segregated buses. In 1955, she sat herself in the front of the bus designated for white people.

After refusing to get up and move to the “Colored” section in the back, she was arrested and put in jail for violating the segregation laws. The white community saw her as a rebel but Black people remember her as serving a pivotal role in sparking a states-wide bus boycott against segregational seating.

The following year after Ms. Parks refused to move to the back of the bus, a movement was birthed to protest segregation on transportation. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and a group of volunteers planned a citywide boycott in Montgomery, Al. demanding proper treatment from bus drivers, seating on a first-come, first-serve basis and job opportunities for Black people.

The Black community across the South ditched buses for carpooling, driving one another and other forms of getting around. In response, the transportation services experiences an economic decline and the White Citizen’s Council violently targeted the boycott leaders, including setting fire to Dr. King’s home. In the end, the Supreme Court ruled in Browder v Gayle that the segregation of buses was unconstitutional.

Three activists, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, volunteered to work with the Freedom Summer campaign advocating for Black people to register to vote in Mississippi in 1964. The three were pulled over while leaving town and were abducted to a remote location by members of the Ku Klux Klan, Neshoba County Sheriff’s Office and Philadelphia Police Department.

They were each fatally shot and their bodies were burned after being buried in a dam in a racially motivated conspiracy to murder. The FBI led the investigation to find their remains which were discovered seven weeks later. The state refused to prosecute the eight men involved but they all were convicted on federal civil rights violations. The outrage surrounding the murders pushed the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

On August 28, 1963, over a quarter million people marched to the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument to advocate for racial equality. This march was one of the largest political rallies for human rights in the country’s history. It was also on this day that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.

While students may be given out of context exerpts from his speech, the purpose of his message was that Black people deserve to live and participate in American society without being judged by the color of their skin and plagued by racism.