Posts by Ben Dawson

  • Remembering Selma

    Sixty years ago, on Sunday, March 7, 1965, John Lewis and Reverend Hosea Williams set out on a nonviolent march with a group of 600 men, women, young people, and children headed from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital in Montgomery.

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  • Dr. Alvin Poussaint

    Harvard Medical School scholar Dr. Alvin Poussaint, who passed away February 24, was a renowned psychiatrist and educator whose research included studying the ways racism and discrimination impact African Americans’ self-esteem and mental health, including Black children and young people.

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  • Examples to Embrace

    As a child, the great theologian Howard Thurman treasured spending time alone under a beloved oak tree in his yard: “I could sit my back against its trunk, and feel the same peace that would come to me in my bed at night.

  • Teaching Black History

    Dr. Carter G. Woodson, “the Father of Black History,” was born in Virginia in 1875 to parents who had both formerly been enslaved. When his family moved to Huntington, West Virginia, they were close to Frederick Douglass High School, one of the rare high schools open for Black students, but he remained largely self-taught while working in the local coal mines to help support his family first.

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  • Black Workers, Black History

    Every February, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), the organization established in 1915 by “the Founder of Black History” Dr. Carter G. Woodson, designates a theme for the observance of Black History Month.

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  • Writing the Next Chapter

    In the days following President Barack Obama’s first inauguration, the preparations for Black History Month felt especially joyful. That was a moment when the entire nation could see Black history and American history being written at the same time.

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  • A Lesson from Dr. King

    The week honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in our nation ended under a barrage of threats to Dr. King’s vision and values and attacks on long-deserved, hard-earned protections and progress for millions of people.

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  • A Definition of Greatness

    As we celebrate the national holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., which coincides with Inauguration Day in Washington, D.C., this year, it is an opportune moment to return to Dr. King’s definition of greatness.

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