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Black Heritage Cache

@blackheritagecache.bsky.social
83 followers 40 following 162 posts

Curated by @k-wangking.bsky.social Here to unearth truth, while preserving the treasure trove that is #Blackhistory & the richness of its heritage. If trauma can be passed down, so can joy. www.instagram.com/blackheritagecache

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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
Here are the identities of 46 Black men drafted during #WWI in 1918. Little did they know that they’d be fighting more than an international war. Just a few weeks into their training, the Spanish flu would hit Camp Greene in waves, forcing a 2-week quarantine. 🗃️ Rockingham post-dispatch 8/29/1918
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 07/11/2025
Lobby Cards from Black films (referred to as Race Films during the time) from the 1920s & 1930s: Lying Lips, 1939 Temptation, 1935 Life Goes On, 1938 Straight to Heaven, 1939
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 05/10/2025
Looking for some Black literature for your Sunday read? Read Zora Neale Hurston's short story "Sweat" --
buff.ly
Zora Neale Hurston's Short Story: "SWEAT"
“Sweat stood out both for its artistic accomplishment and its exploration of rural Southern Black life, introducing themes of marital conflict and spiritual consciousness that animate Hurston’s mature fiction”
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 19/09/2025
Browse through the pages of an original Negro Motorist #GreenBook from 1946. Just imagine how many people who found protection in these pages because of the Black businesses, schools, restaurants, and lodging recorded during travel.
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 18/08/2025
An advertisement from the 1972 Black Community Survival Conference Source: NMAAHC
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 14/08/2025
Between 1894 and 1900, Black men regained political influence in North Carolina when Populists & Republicans formed the integrated Fusionist coalition. It led to the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898, the only successful coup of an elected government in U.S. history. American Coup: Wilmington 1898
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 03/08/2025
The Shearer Cottage was the oldest Black-owned inn on the island. The Shearers operated the twelve-room seasonal inn, creating a space of belonging and fellowship for multiple generations of the Black community of Martha's Vineyard. Ralp Lauren's A Portrait of the American Dream: Oak Bluffs (2025)
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 28/07/2025
The production competed directly with the most popular and well-funded Broadway shows of its time. We could see ourselves on stage and contribute to its success. Its lasting legacy would build the careers of millions of Black performers and crew members, & foster imaginations through representations
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 28/07/2025
A 16-year-old Josephine Baker also made history as a performer on the first all-female chorus line on Broadway, through her role in the original run of the musical. This musical helped launch the careers of legends like Hal Johnson, William Grant Still, Florence Mills, Paul Robeson, & Bessie Allison
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 28/07/2025
Black Love had finally been portrayed on the stage. The production desegregated Broadway audiences. Diverse audiences surged into theaters. The set was minimal, the costumes were hand-me-downs, and it even portrayed negative stereotypes alongside its positive depiction of our community.
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 28/07/2025
Black Broadway was the catalyst for one of the most historically significant and defining eras in Black creativity. Written by Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyle, with music and lyrics by Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, Shuffle Along debuted on May 23, 1921, at the 63rd Street Music Hall.
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
It’s exciting to see the past and the present connect. While we’re holding companies accountable for their DEI dissolutions, Ruggles would boycotted the sale of food products made without slave labor through the Quakers' Free Produce Movement at his grocery store in the 1800s
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
The destruction of the bookstore wouldn’t stop Ruggles or weaken his role in the antislavery movement. It actually pushed him in further. His writing and publishing continued and he used his home as a station on the early days of the Underground Railroad. He even helped Frederick Douglass escape!
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
David Ruggles opened the 1st Black-owned bookstore in America 191 years ago. This entrepreneur carried abolitionist books & pamphlets, in addition to printing and selling his own. He later added a reading room & a lending library. A mob would destroy the bookstore the following year by arson fire.
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
Swarthmore College’s Black Studies Program in 1969
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
Archibald Motley (1891-1981) painting Chicago’s Black culture and nightlife during the 1930s & 1940s. You’ll see that Motley incorporates the different skin tones in his artwork to show that all shades of Black makeup our community.
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 19/06/2025
Group portraits of the ancestors at the Emancipation Day Celebration on June 19, 1900, held in "East Woods" on East 24th Street in Austin, Texas. #Juneteenth 🗃️ Austin History Center
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 15/06/2025
Lena Horne and her father, Teddy Horne in 1944
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 13/06/2025
Completely Random #BlackHistory Fact: Crispus Attucks was 6’2, mulatto, and had knock knees.
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
We must document our own stories to see past the spectrum of triumph and defeat.
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
Between 1924 and 1928, Rev. Solomon Sir Jones carried a 16mm camera in his hand, capturing the daily life and experience of over 30 Black towns in Oklahoma. When exploring history, we often focus on historical events and overlook the everyday lives of our ancestors.
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
RIP the innovating and majestic funk-rock pioneer Sylvester Stewart b.k.a Sly Stone, co-founder and frontman of Sly and the Family Stone. 🕊️
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 20/04/2025
Happy Easter! 📷 Charles" Teenie" Harris 🗃️ Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 30/03/2025
89 of those African American medical officers went and served in France during the war.
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 30/03/2025
These HBCUs were actively recruiting alumni to volunteer their medical services. Because of segregation, a new Medical Officers Training Camp needed to be created specifically for us out in Des Moines, Iowa.
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 30/03/2025
Of the 104 African American medical officers serving in WWI, 60% came from medical schools at 3 HBCUs: Meharry Medical College (34), Howard University Medical School (16), and Leonard Medical School (13). #BlackHistory
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
In the Fall of 1917, months after the US entered WWI, the army had 639 combat officers, 104 medical officers, and 12 dental officers.
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
Army officers of African American descent were almost non-existent in the regular army until WWI, even though we’ve participated in every major American war since the 1700s.
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
Often described as the “Doorway to Freedom,” the city of Detroit was an active destination for those seeking easy transport to Canada, located just across the mile-wide river. The town was a beacon of hope for many, representing the last hurdle before reaching true freedom.
Gateway to Freedom International Memorial to the Underground RailroadGateway to Freedom International Memorial to the Underground Railroad facing CanadaDetroit's Gateway to Freedom International Memorial to the Underground Railroad
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
Detroit's Second Baptist Church, founded by 13 formerly enslaved people (1836), was also an active underground railroad station utilized by the group. The church offered food, clothing, and shelter to over 5,000 runaways, serving as the last station of the #undergroundrailroad before entry to Canada
Second Baptist ChurchSecret basement of the Second Baptist Church, serving as the infamous "last" station before CanadaCurrent photo of Second Baptist Church
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
Conductors traveled South to transport fugitive slaves to Detroit stations, using large dray wagons with false bottoms, boats hidden under docks, and employing secret passwords. The society allied with white abolitionists like John Brown & Seymour Finney, who used his hotel’s barn for sheltering.
Seymour Finney's Brick Barn behind his hotel in DetroitFinney BarnDray wagon with a false bottom
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
George DeBaptiste, a society member and former presidential valet, became a successful Detroit barber who owned a steamboat he used to transport runaways. His ship’s “cargo” was often noted as Black wool, a code name on the ship for the transport of those seeking freedom. #BlackHistory
George DeBaptiste
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
The society was comprised primarily of Black Detroit residents, agents, status holders, & business owners. Lambert, an established activist, operated a successful dry cleaning and tailoring business.
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
Detroit's local anti-slavery groups excluded Black members. The Black residents of Detroit wanted to help the enslaved of the South as a trusted collective. Each joining member underwent rituals that served as rites of passage through different membership tiers, from assisting to conducting runaways
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
On January 17, 1886, William Lambert revealed that the Order of the Man of Oppression was a secret society of free-born Blacks that contributed to the #undergroundrailroad, specific to Detroit. Lambert created the society in 1850 and has credited it for helping thousands of runaways escape to Canada
William Lambert
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
The "hows” of escaping enslavement have many gray areas. The Underground Railroad’s network relied on organizations to aid enslaved individuals. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 made helping the enslaved who fled from the South illegal, which demanded more covert methods.
Hand-drawn map of the Underground Railroad routes
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
Have you ever heard of The Order of the Man of Oppression? The Colored Vigilant Committee of Detroit? Probably because you weren't supposed to. Quiet as it's kept...there was a secret society a part of the Underground Railroad created by free-born African Americans #BlackHistory
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
You've got to applaud how the ancestors possessed a sense of direction. Check out these maps of #UndergroundRailroad routes.
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
Celebrating Black Love Today 🫶🏾 #BlackLove 📷 Davis & J.C., circa 1951 📷 Beth Chandler &Theodore John Warren Wedding, circa 1964 📷 Benjamin E. Mays and Sadie Gray Mays, August 9, 1951 📷 Priscilla & Regina, circa 1979
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
[3/3] In the 1920s, the company began building truck & bus bodies to be fitted on chassis made by other manufacturers. The company suffered and would close after Frederick's death during the Great Depression, which had a lasting impact. After several attempts at revival, the company closed in 1939.
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
[2/3] After his death, his son, Fredrick Douglas Patterson, took over the company and turned it into an automobile manufacturer. It would become the only African American-owned and operated automobile company. The company competed with other manufacturers who utilized assembly lines.
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
🧵 African Americans and Labor: Transportation [1/3] C.R. Patterson & Sons Company was a successful carriage-building business founded by Charles Richard Patterson, a “fugitive slave” who escaped Virginia in 1861 and settled in Ohio to establish a family and business. #BlackHistory
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
Poro College was self-sufficient and housed several facilities, including Poro product offices, classrooms, a laboratory, and a parlor. The college would eventually expand to other cities in the country, including Chicago, expanding the opportunity for Black women to dominate the beauty industry.
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
The Poro College, a beauty school by Annie Turnbo Malone, was created to “contribute to the economic betterment of Race Women.” The institution opened its doors in 1917 in St. Louis to train African American women in cosmetology, recruit agents, and provide them with business skills. #BlackHistory
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 01/02/2025
We’ll be celebrating this #BlackHistory Month by continuing to sort through the archive of memories passed down by our ancestors about the unyielding contributions of African American labor.
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 01/02/2025
“We cannot be erased. America would not be America without the contributions, work, significance, and labor of Black People.” - Dr. Kaye Wise Whitehead, ASALH President
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 26/01/2025
Then unearth the truth! Maybe the Air Force needs to reasses & reconstruct the narrative of their public history records. Don’t just acknowledge the “Black pilots” incorporate them into the teachings of the missions, historical events and hidden figures. 🗣️ #Blackhistory IS STILL history.
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 25/01/2025
Civic leaders understood that these dollars deserved to circulate in our own community more than in others. Their efforts compelled businesses to reassess their discriminatory practices and influence public opinion. They succeeded through persistence, patience, and further acts of Black resistance.
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 25/01/2025
Boycotting and picketing were the most well-known strategies for fighting these systems. These efforts forced businesses to re-evaluate their discriminatory practices and shift public opinion. We know white supremacy is tolerable of racial equality as long as it’s subservient.
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Black Heritage Cache @blackheritagecache.bsky.social · 25/01/2025
BSCP was instrumental in framing this slogan. The slogan was part of a broader economic justice movement highlighting the significance of Black purchasing power and labor systems of racial oppression. Black economic influence held power, and white businesses were surviving off the Black dollar.
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