In 2015, Chicago received its first National Park Monument when President Obama granted the title to the Chicago neighborhood of Pullman. This neighborhood is historically significant because it was once the home of the Pullman Car Company, which created the first sleeping cars for trains. George Pullman founded both the Company and the Pullman neighborhood…
Tag: African-American
Marion, Indiana: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Marion is a city near the center of the state of Indiana with a population of approximately 27,000 people. Founded in 1831, it was named after Francis Marion (the “Swamp Fox)”, a man who fought the British during the American Revolutionary War. James Dean, the American actor, and Jim Davis, the creator of the cartoon…
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birth Home
Since it is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in the United States this coming Monday, and since it is his birthday, I wanted to write about his birth home. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. He lived in the home of his birth for the first twelve years…
The Henry Ford Museum
The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan (part of metropolitan Detroit) probably ranks among the best history museums in the United States. I have not been there since 2006, so it may have changed a bit since then. Born in 1863, Henry Ford became famous for pioneering the concept of an assembly line. Using this…
Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago
One of the oldest cemeteries in Chicago is Oak Woods Cemetery, which was founded in 1854, but started burying people in 1860. Located in the South Side of Chicago, it used to be outside of Chicago’s boundaries, but that changed as the city grew. What I enjoyed most about my visit there was discovering the…
Sheldon Peck Homestead and the Underground Railroad
In United States history, a person became a member of the “Underground Railroad” if he or she assisted slaves from the Southern states to escape to free areas where slavery was illegal (often the Northern states or Canada). Nobody had to formally join an organization called the Underground Railroad to become a member. The phrase…
National Museum of African American History and Culture
The Smithsonian is a network of 20 museums (as of January, 2020), that are run by the U.S. government. The newest museum on the list opened in 2016, and is the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Like most of the Smithsonian museums, it is located in the Nation’s capital, Washington D.C. Since…
DuSable Museum of African American History
After the American Civil War, freed slaves began migrating to the northern United States. This trend continued into the beginning of the twentieth century, as the Ku Klux Klan revived in 1915, and as African Americans in the South sought better job opportunities in the North. The migration of African Americans to the North between…
Bet Arkeh 