Scholars for Black Lives

Scholars for Black Lives A collective of scholars and movement workers intellectually and politically committed to improving the material conditions of everyday Black people.

“What is the revolution? Why, it is the very breath of life, that stupendous struggle for relief.  I hear … that voice i...
02/28/2022

“What is the revolution? Why, it is the very breath of life, that stupendous struggle for relief.  I hear … that voice in the prison of Joliet, in the state of Illinois–wherever there is a man or woman beneath the sun who wants better homes, better clothes, better food … The world and its wealth and its treasures and its happiness should, like the air and the sunshine, belong to all mankind, and not to the few.” —Lucy Parsons

Lucy Parsons (1851-1942) was a labor organizer, radical socialist, and anarchist. While Parsons vehemently declared she was not Black, but instead a ’Spanish-Indian maiden’, Jacquline Jones’ biography “Goddess of Anarchy” has presented evidence that she was born into slavery in Virginia and later taken to Texas as a teenager. It was not uncommon for Black people of this era thought to have been the descendants of enslavers to create new origin stories to explain their phenotypical differences.

Described by the Chicago Police Department as "more dangerous than a thousand rioters,” Parsons is remembered as a powerful orator and an effective organizer. She moved with her husband, Albert Parsons, from Texas to Chicago where she contributed to The Alarm newspaper he edited. She championed the rights of women, children, political prisoners, people of color, unhoused people, and s*x workers. She advocated free access to birth control and the right of women to seek divorce. Parsons' feminism, which analyzed women's oppression as a function of capitalism, was founded on working class values. 

Following her husband's state ex*****on in conjunction with the Haymarket Riot, she helped found the Industrial Workers of the World. Parsons continued to give fiery speeches in Bughouse Square into her 80s. In 1942, at the age of 90, Parsons died in a house fire in Chicago; she was blind and couldn’t escape the building. Her immense library (letters, manuscripts, and thousands of books) was barely damaged, but was confiscated (and presumably destroyed) by police and the FBI. 

We honor Lucy Parsons’ steadfast commitment to liberation.

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On August 21, 1831, after hearing the voice of God telling him to rise up against any man who dare call himself the “mas...
02/28/2022

On August 21, 1831, after hearing the voice of God telling him to rise up against any man who dare call himself the “master” of others, Nat Turner led one of the most successful rebellions in American history launched in Southampton and Jerusalem, Virginia.

Born in 1800 to a mother who had lived free on the continent of Africa, was captured and enslaved, survived the middle passage and the most brutal form of chattel slavery, Nat Turner’s mother instilled in her son that he had the right and duty to be free…a message he preached to others.

The planned insurrection successfully pulled together nearly 100 enslaved people, who liberated themselves and others from the hold of brutal “owners,” who were conquered in the process. The uprising struck fear into the hearts of whites throughout the south.

While the planned taking of a Virginia armory was not realized, Nat Turner eluded capture for nearly two months.

Upon capture Turner stood firm in the righteousness of the cause. He was hanged for his actions and his head placed on a stake as a warning to other enslaved Africans. Through coded language, the legend of the fearless Nat Turner was shared throughout Black America, where he was honored as a hero.

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Many of us were introduced to “Stagecoach” Mary Fields through the film “The Harder They Fall,” where she was played by ...
02/28/2022

Many of us were introduced to “Stagecoach” Mary Fields through the film “The Harder They Fall,” where she was played by Zazie Beetz. Stagecoach Mary was a powerful figure, who was born into chattel slavery in Tennessee around 1832. Following emancipation, she worked as a domestic and laundress…first on riverboats and then in the Ursuline convent, in Ohio.

Even as a “servant,”
Mary challenged gender norms, doing “men’s work” and becoming a forewoman known for her strength, the respect she commanded, and her gunfighting skills, as well as a little drinking and cussing to go along with it.
It was following her move westward to Montana at age 63 that she became a legend. She had a short stint as a saloon owner, but closed quickly because she fed patrons regardless of their ability to pay. Mary would secure a post as an independent contractor with the U.S. Postal Service on a “star route,” becoming the first Black woman and the second woman of any race to work for the postal service. She delivered mail and packages by stagecoach, wearing mens clothing (they were more practical) and carrying two guns. She traversed torrential weather and terrain and beat back thieves and bandits for eight years.

Mary was beloved for her fearless work, her care for the people, especially children, and the authenticity of her character. She finally retired in 1903 at age 71. The people of her town lovingly cared for Mary until her death, ensuring that she was well fed and housed, enjoyed an active social life, and making her birthday a town holiday. When she passed, her funeral was one of the largest the region had ever seen.

Long live the adventurous and loving spirit of Stagecoach Mary Fields!

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Josephine Baker, born Freda Josephine McDonald, was born June 3, 1906 in St. Louis, Missouri and grew up in the Mill Cre...
02/25/2022

Josephine Baker, born Freda Josephine McDonald, was born June 3, 1906 in St. Louis, Missouri and grew up in the Mill Creek Valley neighborhood, a low-income area near Union Station. By the time she was eight, Baker had begun working as a domestic for white families, an experience that included abuse masquerading as discipline. By age 11, Baker had witnessed the burning of Black family homes in East St. Louis, Illinois, an experience she said left her "frightened to death."

Soon after, Baker dropped out of school and began working as a waitress at Old Chauffeur's Club on Pine Street while effectively homeless. Following a brief marriage at age 13, Baker began street performing as a vaudeville entertainer. By 1921, Baker began performing in New York City where her entertainment career became increasingly successful. And, by 1925, having again married and divorced one William Baker, she set sail for France while continuing to use his last name as a performer.

Baker's erotic style earned her near-instant notoriety in France. Baker's "Dance Sauvage" is best remembered for her (in)famous banana skirt costume, an early precedent for her later use of a pet cheetah, "Chiquita," adorned with a diamond necklace in other performances. In the 1930s, Baker traveled throughout Europe and had become deeply connected to French popular culture, starring in four films including Zouzou (1934) and Princesse Tam Tam (1935) that were quite successful.

In 1939, as World War I ensued, Baker's fame allowed her unique cover and was recruited to serve as an "honorable correspondent" for French military intelligence. Throughout the war, Baker would conduct reconnaissance as well as communication transmissions ultimately earning the Resistance Medal from the French Committee of National Liberation and the Croix de Guerre from the French military.

She would not see similar embrace in America until the 1950s, recognized by the NAACP as 'Woman of the Year' for her activism to desegregate night clubs. Her 1973 performance at Carnegie Hall, two years before her death, ended with a standing ovation.





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The Deacons for Defense and Justice were dedicated to the protection of the Black communities, its leadership, and insti...
02/24/2022

The Deacons for Defense and Justice were dedicated to the protection of the Black communities, its leadership, and institutions. The Deacons, primarily operated in the states of Louisiana and Mississippi. They started in 1964 in the northern Louisiana town of Jonesboro after local police provided protection for a K*K contingent that came in the Black community one weekend to terrorize the residents. Twelve men and two women assembled to organize Jonesboro’s Black community to stop K*K invasions, which they did. The successes of the Deacons protection of Black Jonesboro led to other Louisiana towns forming their chapters, the most publicized one located in the southeastern Louisiana town of Bogalusa. After an assassination attempt on George Metcalf, a NAACP leader in Natchez, Mississippi in August 1965, local Black men announced the organization an armed group named the Deacons for Defense. The Natchez Deacons organized other chapters in the state, particularly to support boycotts of white commercial districts in Mississippi towns. The organization of the Deacons was a part of the formula for a series of successful boycotts that enhanced Black representation and rights in Mississippi.

The K*K and other white supremacist feared the Deacons. The FBI and local police were also concerned about the Black self-defense group since they did not know how large its membership was. The Deacons did not share the internal information outside the group.

The group patrolled southern Black communities and provided personal security for Black leaders. The Deacons ceased operation once Blacks began to be elected to local and state government and joining law enforcement.

The Deacons inspired and were a model for armed self-defense for Black Power movement groups like the Black Panther Party, the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika, and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers.

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Ernestine Eckstein—born Ernestine Delois Eppenger in 1941—was a le***an activist who encouraged and modeled self-accepta...
02/23/2022

Ernestine Eckstein—born Ernestine Delois Eppenger in 1941—was a le***an activist who encouraged and modeled self-acceptance and direct action engagement for liberation of Q***r-identified and marginalized people.

Most of what is known about Ernestine and her role in the pre-Stonewall gay rights movement comes from an interview for the June 1966 issue of the The Ladder, a New York based le***an magazine. She was a bold twenty-four year old at the time of the interview, nearly three years shy of graduating from Indiana University with a degree in Magazine Journalism and minor in Russian. Ernestine was Vice President of the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), one of few le***an organizations at the time. The DOB was a conservative organization focused on negotiation with psychologists for the removal of homos*xuality as a mental illness in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Influenced by the Civil Rights Movement, Ernestine pushed the DOB to help le***ans build self-love through eduction and direct action toward establishing legal rights through the courts. It is suggested that Ernestine may have been first to use the phrase “come out” and is credited with embracing commonalities and intersecting identities for building a broad le***an, gay, bis*xual, trans, q***r, Inters*x and as*xual (LGBTQIA+) rights movement. In 1965 she was the only women and Black participants in the July 4th “Annual Reminders,” a picket line for gay and le***an rights at the White House. Her hand-printed sign with bold lettering in all caps read: “Denial of Equality of Opportunity is Immoral.”

By the time of the magazine publication, Ernestine had tired of the mostly white and conservative Daughters of Bilitis and their reluctance to see the benefit of aligning with the broader call for civil rights and to engage publicly in protest for Q***r liberation. Her politics lead her to Black feminism and eventually to relocate to the San Francisco Bay area where she became active with Black Women Organized for Political Action (BWOPA).

Written by Audrena Redmond




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Born in April 1890, Benjamin Harrison Fletcher was a revolutionary Black worker, orator, and militant labor organizer in...
02/22/2022

Born in April 1890, Benjamin Harrison Fletcher was a revolutionary Black worker, orator, and militant labor organizer in the early 1900s. Having migrated with his parents to Philadelphia from post-Reconstruction Virginia, Fletcher's first job was working as a general laborer. He later became a longshoreman at the Philadelphia docks and joined the Socialist Party and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The IWW’s revolutionary advocacy of direct action, industrial unionism, anti-capitalism, and anti-racism attracted Fletcher and thousands of other Black workers. Fletcher frequently spoke at rallies sponsored by IWW, worked as secretary of IWW Local 57, and wrote articles for IWW’s publication "Solidarity."

In May 1913, Fletcher led 4,000 longshoremen on strike for raises, an end to the practice of racially segregating workers into “gangs,” and recognition of Local 8 of the Maritime Transit Workers (MTW). He traveled to Baltimore and other port cities on the eastern seaboard to build solidarity for the longshoremen strike in Philadelphia. Following the successful two-week strike, he and the majority-Black Local 8 continued to employ direct action tactics to increase their gains and push for greater worker power on the docks.

As the U.S. entered World War I in 1917, the federal government sought to destroy the national power of the IWW by imprisoning 166 labor leaders for espionage, conspiring to strike, and mail fraud. Because the Philadelphia docks were strategically important to the war effort, Fletcher became the only Black labor leader indicted, convicted, and ultimately sentenced to 10 years in prison. He eventually served three years in Leavenworth Prison before being released on bail in 1920 and returning to organize with Local 8.

In the early 1930s, Fletcher relocated to the Brooklyn where he worked as a cigar roller and building superintendent until his passing in 1949. Although not as well remembered as many of his contemporaries, Fletcher remains one of the foremost radical Black labor organizers in the United States.

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Chinua Achebe, the great Nigerian novelist, poet, critic, and educator, was born in Ogidi, British Nigeria on November 1...
02/21/2022

Chinua Achebe, the great Nigerian novelist, poet, critic, and educator, was born in Ogidi, British Nigeria on November 16, 1930. Achebe was influenced by Ibo cultural and spiritual traditions and postcolonial Christianity, which preceded and coincided with his education in Christian schools. Although he earned a scholarship to University College to study medicine, Achebe grew critical of racist depictions of Africa and Nigerians within European literature and, instead, decided to pursue studies in history, English, and writing.

A writer for the university magazine, Achebe published works exploring tensions between tradition and Christianity’s presence in modern Nigerian life. After graduating in 1953, Achebe briefly became a teacher in Oba before moving to Lagos to join the Nigerian Broadcasting Service as a script writer. His experiences in Lagos’ social and political life led to his critically acclaimed first novel, “Things Fall Apart” (1958) and the subsequent sequels “No Longer at Ease” (1960) and “Arrow of God"" (1964). The Nigerian civil war forced Achebe and his family into exile during the late 1960’s. It was during this period he wrote poetry later published in the 1971 collection “Beware, Soul Brother.”

Although many earlier writings were in English, Achebe also centered African languages with the bold claim, ""Africans must tell the story of Africa!” In 1987, Achebe published his final novel “Anthills of the Savannah,” which explored the corrosive after-effects of colonialism and assimilation as blueprints of life, leadership, and power. In 2017, the book was adapted for the stage by Staci Mitchell at California State University, Los Angeles under the title “Holy, Seductive, Dance."" In 1990, despite becoming partially paralyzed due to a car accident, Achebe continued his work as an educator at Bard College where he served as the Stevenson Professor of Languages and Literature, a position he held for fifteen years. In 2009, Achebe became a professor of African Studies at Brown University, where he taught until his passing in 2013.

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Willi Ninja, aka the “self described butch queen,” was born in Queens, New York as William Roscoe Leake, April 12, 1961....
02/20/2022

Willi Ninja, aka the “self described butch queen,” was born in Queens, New York as William Roscoe Leake, April 12, 1961. Willi is hailed as a dancer, choreographer, and the godfather of Voguing, a style of dance that would eventually become so popular it would influence other cultural and musical icons like Madonna. Willi was the central star in “Paris is burning,” the award-winning 1990 documentary about New York’s drag vogue-ball scene. In this documentary, Willi talks about how voguing was created, noting “Vogue,” magazine as an inspiration; “Some of the movements in the dance are also the poses from inside the magazine…“The name is a statement in itself.” Willi goes on to say that “Vogueing is a safe form of throwing shade,” the directed movements towards others in performance, as a practice of rebuke. Willi was “Mother” of The House of Ninja, and a NY celebrity, particularly amongst Harlem’s drag ball community. Willi taught vogueing throughout Europe and Japan, and modeled for Jean Paul Gaultier and Thierry Mugler. In 2004, he opened a modeling agency, EON (Elements of Ninja). Willi transitioned at the age of 45, September 2nd, 2006.

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On September 1, 1663, a group of enslaved Africans united forces with European and Indigenous servants to rebel against ...
02/19/2022

On September 1, 1663, a group of enslaved Africans united forces with European and Indigenous servants to rebel against developing Virginia "establishment.” They gathered together and hatched a plan to attack Lt. Col. Francis Willis and gather up as many weapons as they could. Their next stop was to be the house of Sir William Berkeley, then governor of Virginia, to demand everyone be freed. The nine men met that day and planned to meet again a few days later. In the interim, they focused on gathering weapons and more allies; they wanted to build a small militia of at least thirty men.

However, their plan was foiled when an enslaved man named Birkenhead revealed the plans to the governor. For his betrayal, he was granted freedom and give 5,000 pounds of to***co, the king crop at the time. The men were tried with treason and attempting to wage war against the state of Virginia. Four of the men were hanged as a result of being found guilty.

It is unclear how many of the rebels were enslaved, but this rebellion set a strong precedent for future uprisings against American slavery. This would be one of the first documented among MANY to come and serves as a testament to resistance against colonization and enslavement from the earliest days.

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Charles Wade Mills, Ph.D. (1951 - 2021) was a professor, educator, and trailblazing philosopher. Born in England and rai...
02/19/2022

Charles Wade Mills, Ph.D. (1951 - 2021) was a professor, educator, and trailblazing philosopher.

Born in England and raised in Jamaica, Dr. Mills earned a bachelor’s degree in physics at the University of the West Indies. He went on to earn a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Toronto. After teaching in Jamaica, Dr. Mills joined the faculty at the University of Oklahoma in 1987. He then taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago for 17 years before being named the John Evans Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He joined the faculty of the City University of New York in 2016.

Dr. Mills’ philosophy covered areas of philosophy of race, political theory, and epistemology. His most notable works are The Racial Contract (1997), Blackness Visible (1998), and Black Rights/White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism (2017). Before Dr. Mills transitioned in 2021, he was working on a manuscript on the concept of racial justice. He was trying to bring out its complexities and urging a greater engagement from everyone.

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Althea Gibson was born on August 25, 1927, in the small town of Silver, South Carolina. As the Great Depression had a de...
02/17/2022

Althea Gibson was born on August 25, 1927, in the small town of Silver, South Carolina. As the Great Depression had a deleterious impact on rural workers and farmers, Gibson’s family decided to migrate north in the early 1930’s to Harlem, New York. As an adolescent, Gibson was identified as a natural athletic talent—length, quickness, and an unmatched competitive spirit. As an early paddle tennis champion, Gibson innately made the transition to tennis, where she won her first tournament in 1941 (the American Tennis Association, New York State Championship). After winning her first tournament, Gibson was inevitably considered an elite-level player and impeccably build a laudable career as an amateur.

Although Gibson’s accomplishments were met with racial discrimination, inequality, and frequent cases of prejudice, she became the first African American to win a Grand Slam title (the French Championships). The following year she won Wimbledon and the US Nationals (present day US Open). Gibson’s body of work included 11 Grand Slam tournaments: five single titles, five doubles titles, and one mixed double.

In 1964, the indomitable Gibson became the first African American to compete in the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA). As her confidence and popularity in golf elevated, racial discrimination in the sport was ever-present. Country clubs and noteworthy tournaments refused to allow her to compete. Notwithstanding Gibson being viewed as a pariah on the gold circuit, her unrelenting resolve enabled her to earn an astonishing professional ranking was 27th in 1966. Gibson retired from professional gold in 1978.

Gibson’s legacy is undoubtedly rooted in being a trailblazer for future champions, most notably Arthur Ashe who became the first African American man to win a Grand Slam singles title at the 1968 US Open. For her indelible achievements within the sport, the United States Tennis Association (UTSA) erected a statue of Gibson celebrating her prowess, courage, and determination as a pioneer of tennis.

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