Abstract expressionism is an art movement that originated in New York during the 1940s. The movement encompassed a wide variety of painting styles and techniques that emerged after World War II. Abstract expressionist paintings were non-representational and usually done on large canvases, and artists typically used large, loose brushstrokes and tex [..]

Clara Barton and her associates founded the American Red Cross in Washington, D.C. in 1881. It is an independent, humanitarian, volunteer-led organization that provides emergency relief and assistance to national and international disaster victims. The organization also serves as a medium of communication between members of the United States milita [..]

Noted playwright, poet, music critic, and writer Amiri Baraka (Everett LeRoi Jones) started the black arts movement (BAM) in 1965 as an artistic division of the Black Power movement. BAM encompassed music, literature, and the performing and visual arts. After the assassination of Malcolm X in February 1965, artists, playwrights, poets, writers, and [..]

The black feminism movement emerged in the early 1970s to address the impact of sexism, racism, and classism on the lives of black women and others. Women involved in the movement believed that the efforts of neither the Civil Rights movement nor the women's movement had incorporated the struggles for equality faced by women of color. Black fe [..]

Black nationalism is a social and political movement that promotes black unity and black independence. The roots of black nationalism emerged in the United States during the late eighteenth century when freed African Americans sought to identify with Africa and claim it as their homeland. In the 1920s, Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improveme [..]

Blaxploitation, a blend of the words "black" and "exploitation," describes a controversial film genre that emerged in the United States during the early 1970s. Blaxploitation was the film industry's first effort at targeting an urban African American audience. Films featured soundtracks of funk and soul music and presented [..]

Booker Taliaferro Washington (1856-1915) was an author, educator, and political leader who played a major role in southern race relations in the early part of the twentieth century. Washington was born into slavery in Virginia and worked in the salt furnaces and coal mines in West Virginia after emancipation. He attended Hampton Normal and Agricult [..]

Signed into United States law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in July 1964, the Civil Rights Act was a milestone piece of legislation that banned discriminatory employment practices, outlawed segregation in businesses like hotels and restaurants, ended segregation in public places and facilities, such as swimming pools, schools, and libraries, and m [..]

Signed into United States law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in July 1964, the Civil Rights Act was a milestone piece of legislation that banned discriminatory employment practices, outlawed segregation in businesses like hotels and restaurants, ended segregation in public places and facilities, such as swimming pools, schools, and libraries, and m [..]

Created by the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the United States Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC) was tasked with the mission of eliminating illegal discrimination in the workplace. The EEOC began operating in July 1965, and the understaffed and still developing agency received over 8,000 charges of discrimination during it [..]