Kari-Lynn Wirth

The American Negro Exhibit was created by W.E.B. Dubois and first appeared in the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle, where it received seventeen awards. It presented a collection of materials to illustrate the progress of the Negro race in the United States since emancipation from slavery in 1863.

The Darkest Africa exhibit at Buffalo’s 1901 Pan American Exposition consisted of 62 people representing a variety of African tribes. They were transported to Buffalo to demonstrate weaponry, handicrafts, songs, and dances.

From 1915 onward, large numbers of African-Americans left agriculture areas in the South to seek better paying jobs in the industrial cities of the North. The industrial boom stimulated by World War 1 and the steel plant in Lackawanna drew African-Americans to Western New York in large numbers.

On September 6, 1901, James B. Parker, a waiter at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, stood in line to shake President William McKinley’s hand. He emerged from this event as a hero when he tackled the anarchist Leon Czolgosz after the assassin shot the president twice in the stomach.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Mary Morris Burnett Talbert was an educator, women’s rights advocate and a civil rights crusader.

Rev. Nash, was pastor of Michigan Avenue Baptist Church for 61 years, and was Mary B. Talbert’s minister. Nash was a dynamic leader who built a community on Buffalo’s east side.

W.E.B Du Bois was born in Massachusetts and was the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

In honor of Black History Month, The Westminster Community Charter School will be presenting, “Submerged in Perception Emerging in Truth: I Am Not My Hair,” Friday, February 17 at 9:15 a.m. in the school auditorium.

Booker T. Washington was an ex-slave and founder of the Tuskegee Institute--the largest and best supported black college of the time.

In honor of Black History Month, WBLK's DJ Supreme and DJ Ed-Nice paid a visit to Sweet Home High School to talk with members of the S.O.U.L organization.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a debate raged between African Americans who believed that they should temporarily accept inferior social and political status while building economic power, and those who believed that their political rights should be granted immediately.

On August 9, 1848, the Free Soil Party, an anti-slavery political party, held a national convention in Buffalo. It was attended by no less than twenty thousand men.