Skills of Enslaved Africans The state of Florida ignited a controversy when it released a set of 2023 academic standards that requires students to be taught that enslaved Black people in the U.S. “developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” As a researcher who specializes in the history of race and racism in the U.S. , I – like a growing chorus of critics – see that education standard as flawed and misleading. Whereas Florida would have students believe that enslaved Black people “benefited” by developing skills during slavery, the reality is that enslaved Africans contributed to the nation’s social, cultural and economic well-being by plying skills that they had already developed prior to captivity. What follows are examples of the skills that the Africans brought with them as they entered the Americas as enslaved. These skills were evident in the first group of enslaved that came into what w...
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THE HISTORY OF THE CINCINNATI ALUMNI CHAPTER - A GEM IN THE QUEEN CITY The Cincinnati Alumni Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi was chartered approximately twelve years after Kappa Alpha Psi was incorporated as a National Greek Letter College Fraternity. The Brothers who facilitated this were: Geo F. David, L.R. Breedlove, Ray Clark, Ned Dunham, H.L. Hunter, and James Ross. It was through their dedication that the Cincinnati Alumni Chapter (CAC) attained its charter and was incorporated under the laws of the state of Ohio on December 18, 1923 The racial and social climate in Cincinnati in the 1920s CAC came into being during an intense racial and social climate in the city of Cincinnati in the 1920s. At this time, t he Cincinnati Real Estate Board issued a mandate to real estate agents: "No agent shall rent or sell property to colored people in an established white section or neighborhood and this inhibition shall be particularly applicable to the h...