Harlem, New York (1935)

Age of Lino Rivera, the black Puerto Rican young man at the center of this event. On March 19, 1935, Mr. Rivera shoplifted a pen knife from a five and dime store. He was chased and caught by store employees. Rivera didn’t take being caught calmly. He severely bit the hands of store employees who detained […]

In a peevish open letter to her son,

“You consistently wait until I clean up an area and then proceed to take up the entire area. This makes me angry every time. I tell you about this. And this is why when you wake up, having slept on the couch, that you are going to find a pile of your crap directly in […]

Opelousas, Louisiana (1868)

September 29, 1868. Emerson Bentley was a teacher and newspaper editor. He was the English editor of the St. Landry Progress, a Republican paper. This paper supported universal suffrage and equal rights for the recently freed black population. The white population of St. Landry Parish was overwhelmingly Democratic; as a result Bentley, his writing and even his […]