These amazing and powerful books will hopefully inspire you to do something about discrimination.

5 Important African American Icons

Read about 5 prominent Black Americans in honor of Black History Month.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
(January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968)

Well known for his “I Have a Dream” speech which he gave on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. in August 28, 1963, King was a Baptist minister and political activist. He organized and carried out several marches and protests in order to gain various rights for African Americans. His tireless work contributed to the United States Government passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination based on race, ethnicity, gender, color, or sex, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed required literacy tests in order for voters to register. In 1964, King became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for his dedicated work in the field of equality. On April 4, 1968, King was assassinated by gunshot on the balcony of a hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. Posthumously, King was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 by President Carter.

Source: www.wikipedia.org

Harriet Tubman
(1820 - 1913)

Born a slave in Maryland, Harriet Tubman eventually found her way to freedom and continued to help slaves escape the oppressive South via the Underground Railroad. She first orchestrated her own escape, finding a safe haven in Philadelphia, working and saving money. The next year she returned to help her sister and her sister’s children escape, and returned again to help her brother and two other men. After that, Tubman continued to make the trek from the south up to the north, an estimated 19 times over a 10 year period, helping over 300 slaves escape to freedom. Her capture would have yielded a $40,000 reward from the South; luckily, she evaded capture. Once settled in the North, Tubman became an abolitionist, frequenting antislavery meetings. After the war until the time of her death in 1913, Tubman lived in Auburn, New York.

Source: www.pbs.org

Booker T. Washington
(April 5, 1856 - November 14, 1915)

Born into slavery by a white father and a black slave mother, Booker T. Washington was freed in 1865, and proceeded to do manual labor jobs for several years until he decided to pursue a higher education. After completing schooling at what is now Hampton University and Wayland Seminary, Washington was named the first leader of what is now known as Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Alabama. From 1890 to 1915, Washington was one of the most prominent faces in the African American community, winning widespread fame for his Atlanta Address of 1895, which addressed inequality and, being that the address was given to a predominantly white audience, called for businesses to provide work to African Americans as opposed to immigrants. Washington’s work in providing education to blacks may his most well-known work, establishing over 5,000 schools for blacks in the South.

Source: www.wikipedia.org

James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens
(September 12, 1913 – March 31, 1980)

“James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens was a popular American athlete and civic leader. He participated in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany where he achieved international fame by winning four gold medals; one each in the 100 meters, the 200 meters, the long jump, and for being part of the 4x100 meter relay team.”
Despite his color, and the hardships associated with participating in the Olympics under oppressive Nazi propaganda, which depicted ethnic Africans and inferior, Owens gained international fame, and was approached for autographs by Germans. Despite his celebrity status, Owens was still required to ride in a freight elevator in order to attend a reception for him at the Waldorf-Astoria, highlighting the severe inequality still plaguing the United States.
.”Jesse Owens was awarded the Presidential of Freedom in 1976 by Gerald Ford, and (posthumously) the Congressional Gold Medal by George H. W. Bush on Mary 28, 1990. In 1984, a street in Berlin was renamed for him and the Jesse Owens Realschule/Oberschule (a secondary school) is in Berlin-Lichtenberg.”

Source: www.wikipedia.org

George Washington Carver
( 1864?–1943)

“Born a slave, he later, as a free man, earned his college degree. In 1896 he joined the staff of Tuskegee Institute as director of the department of agricultural research, retaining that post the rest of his life. His work won him international repute. Carver's efforts to improve the economy of the South (he dedicated himself especially to bettering the position of African Americans) included the teaching of soil improvement and of diversification of crops. He discovered hundreds of uses for the peanut, the sweet potato, and the soybean and thus stimulated the culture of these crops. He devised many products from cotton waste and extracted blue, purple, and red pigments from local clay. From 1935 he was a collaborator of the Bureau of Plant Industry. Carver contributed his life savings to a foundation for research at Tuskegee. In 1953 his birthplace was made a national monument.”

Source: www.infoplease.com

Uncovering your Inner-Biases

We all may feel like we view everyone around us as equal, but where we grew up, the people we've encountered and the media all influence the way we view other people, groups, and religions. There is nothing wrong with these underlying emotions as long as we recognize how they may have an effect on the way we treat and react to others. It is important to identify these implicit biases and address them with other people. Once you know what you may be actually thinking beneath the surface, it can lead to greater awareness and future change. So, talk to your friends or family about taking time out to uncovering your implicit biases and discuss the findings. Here's how to do something!

What is an Implicit Bias?

Implicit bias is the idea that regardless of whether or not an individual believes that they are biased in some way or another, people often have a great deal of subconscious (implicit) feelings of bias. Recent scientific research has discovered that biases thought to be extinguished from people or consciously worked against, are still within each of us. People still hold hidden negative stereotypes and prejudices regardless of how much they commit themselves to equality. So even though we believe we see and treat people as equals, hidden biases may still influence our perceptions and actions. Psychologists at Harvard, the University of Virginia and the University of Washington created "Project Implicit" to develop Hidden Bias Tests to discover unconscious biases.

Talk it Over With Your Friends or Parents:

Bring up the subject with your friends or parents. They might be interested in taking the test and seeing what they think of the results. As the do something generation, you and your friends can take a stand against discrimination by taking responsibility for your own biases. If your friends aren't interested in the idea, or if you just want to spread the dialogue, you can talk to your parents about having the family take the test and have a special dinner discussion about each other's findings. Together you can decide on what the best ways to combat discrimination are and what you can help others to do as well.

Test Yourself:

You can test implicit biases for a bunch of different situations or groups with this Harvard University Study at Project Implicit. There are a number of types of tests to take, so decide beforehand with your friends or family on which subject would be most interesting to talk over. When taking the test, remember to take it by yourself and not to let people or things around you be a distraction. Be honest with the questions; there is no one judging your answers and you will only get something valuable out of the experiment if you are truthful about your actions and opinions.

Discuss the Findings and What They Mean:

Set up a specific time with your friends or family to talk about what the test informed you of about yourself and your biases. People can, of course, choose not to be a part of the discussion, but you should try to stress the importance of open dialogue about issues such as discrimination in working to dissolve race, ethnicity, and religious tensions. Allow everyone to express the feelings and thoughts they had behind the questions. You will probably have both very different and very similar thoughts about the findings as your friends and family, and the best way to learn about differences is to discuss them openly. You should facilitate positive conversation and be sure not to allow offensive comments or judgment. Make sure to remind everyone to respect each other's opinions and that other people's experiences have given them a different point of view when it comes to certain topics and situations.

Once you've discussed the class findings, talk about how you can work as a group in your school and community to lessen tensions between groups. You can think of ideas such as watching gender, race, or culturally specific movies, having parties with particular cultural themes and food, or even presentations that will help to teach each other about different ethnicities, races, genders, religions, etc. Tolerance comes from understanding and appreciating the uniqueness that each individual group has to offer.

Beyond the findings...

The whole purpose of the test is to help make you aware of any underlying biases you may have, so take this information and stay conscious of how you may be acting in specific situations or toward different groups. The only way to end discrimination is make everyone aware of the fact that we are all different and that these differences must be acknowledged and appreciated. So share what you found and let other people know about this way to uncover their true feelings about discrimination.

Somewhere in America hate crimes are being committed as you read this. A hate crime is defined as a violent crimes, hate speech or vandalism, motivated by feelings of enmity against an identifiable social group. Here are just a few statistics about hate crimes and other forms of discrimination around the United States.

Fact 1

Every hour a hate crime is committed.

Fact 2

Everyday at least eight blacks, three whites, three homosexuals, three Jews, and one Latino become the victim of a hate crime.

Fact 3

Every week a cross is burned somewhere in the US.

Fact 4

Every year more than half a million college students are targets of bias-driven slurs or physical assaults.

Fact 5

Every day at least one hate crime occurs on a college campus.

Fact 6

Every minute a college student somewhere sees or hears racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise biased words or images.

Fact 7

Across the globe, the racial income and education gap keeps minority groups from achieving the same levels of success that majority members of society are largely achieving.

Fact 8

45% of black children are living below the poverty line, compared with 16% of white children.

Fact 9

For many years black unemployment rates have been and continue to be at least twice that of white unemployment rates.

Fact 10

Black college-educated men end up just a few dollars ahead of whites who went no further than high school.

Fact 11

Black college professors hold less than 5% of faculty positions. Less than 5% of the K-12 teaching force is black. About 85% of this group is centered in urban areas.

Fact 12

While black students represent 16 % of all public school students, they make up nearly 40% of those categorized as learning disabled.

Fact 13

There are more black men in jail than in college.

Sources:
http://www.tolerance.org/