Black Americans Should Celebrate 250th America!
by Steven Rogers
My Country, Tis of Thee, Sweet land of liberty, to thee we sing.”
These are the opening lyrics of the song performed on Easter Sunday in 1939 by Black opera star Marian Anderson. She sang these words — she changed the last four words from “of thee I sing” — and the entire song to an audience of more than 70,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial. That live crowd, plus millions more listening on the radio, heard Anderson’s beautiful contralto voice proudly proclaim ownership of the United States of America.
Aunt Lottie’s Memory and Juneteenth!
by Steven Rogers
On June 19, 1865, 2,000 Union soldiers, after defeating Confederate soldiers in the Civil War, marched into Galveston, Texas, and informed Black people that they were free men and women. Gen. Gordan Granger announced that the four-year war, fought over slavery, was officially over and as a result of the Emancipation Proclamation, an executive order issued by President Lincoln in 1863, all Black people in the state of Texas and the other 10 former Confederate states were no longer enslaved.
A little boy named Ishmael and Juneteenth
Ishmael probably never believed that a day like Juneteenth, a national holiday, recognizing and celebrating the end of slavery in America, would ever happen.
By Steven Rogers
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STEVEN S. ROGERS’S work uniquely focuses on entrepreneurship, finance, and race. He is a retired Senior Lecturer of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Previously the Gordon and Llura Gund Family Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship at Kellogg, School of Management, Northwestern University, he has been selected by Ernst & Young as “Entrepreneur of the Year” and named one of the top 150 influential people in America by Ebony magazine. Read more ->