Tumblr Staff

[Tumblr Staff]

Continuing our Black History Month celebrations with…

Add Oil Comics (@addoilcomics​)

Originally posted by addoilcomics

Add Oil Comics explores social justice issues through the use of, well, comics. Some reblogged, some original, some inspired by submitted or found text. The one above illustrates a passage taken from Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me. See the full comic here.

CFBG Tips (@cfbgtips​)

Originally posted by cfbgtips

One part young woman’s journey on how to find her “mystical Carefree Black Girl essence,” one part tips on how you can do the same. Wholly good.

The Revolutionary Times (@therevtimes​)

Originally posted by therevtimes

The Revolutionary Times features two dudes discussing the things we all talk about with our friends: gentrification, worry and anger regarding the current presidential administration, Star Wars. Sometimes they’re time travelers, but usually they’re not. It’s a good read, and we suggest you start with their comics on Tumblr tag.

Follow these too:

• Black Comics Chat (@blackcomicschat​)—Not just comics (though they do have that), but also a space for Black people to talk with others about Black comics.
  
• Black Action Figures and Comics (@blactionfiguresandcomics​)—Fan art, action figures, movie stills, and more. Heavy on the reblogs, it’s a good reminder of the power of a curatorial Tumblr.

Thanks for celebrating Black History Month with us, Tumblr. Everything we’ve been highlighting here on the staff blog ultimately comes from you all. We couldn’t ask for better users.

[Tumblr Staff]

[action]

Black excellence means luxuriating in your Blackness. Just bathing in it. In a world that has told you forever that it’s not ok to be Black and you’re like “No, yes it is. I’m going to be Black as possible. And crush it while doing so.”

Here’s Tracy Clayton and Heben Nigatu from Buzzfeed’s “Another Round” on what Black excellence means to them.

[Tumblr Staff]

A few literary suggestions for Black History Month

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Originally posted by imnot12

Maybe you know Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie from when Beyoncé sampled her TEDx talk, “We should all be feminists,” or maybe you’ve been following her emergence as one of the most prominent voices of African literature over the last two decades. Her latest novel, Americanah, was selected by The New York Times as one of the 10 Best Books of 2013.

Edna Lewis

Originally posted by robtrujilloart

Edna Lewis had a hell of a career. She worked her way up as a seamstress, eventually fashioning a dress for Marilyn Monroe. Then she became the first African-American celebrity chef. Then she broke her leg, so she wrote a cookbook. The Taste of Country Cooking was interspersed with personal stories of growing up in a freed-slave settled town in Virginia, and redefined what many thought of Southern food.  

Roxane Gay

Originally posted by lastnightsreading

Roxane Gay (@roxanegay), famed author of Bad Feminist, is a Tumblr favorite, and not just because you can follow her. She writes about what it means to be a woman of color. She’s the first Black woman to write for Marvel, and she’s writing queer WOC into their storylines. She pulled her unreleased book from publishers Simon & Schuster after their deal with Milo Yiannopoulos was announced. It’s easy to admire her actions as much as her writing. 

Follow these too:

• Afro Editions (@afroeditions) posts and reblogs all things Black lit, including this bell hooks Valentine’s Day card and these suggestions for Black sci-fi.
  
• The Center for African-American Poetry and Poetics (@caapoetryandpoetics) highlights exactly what you think it will.
• Bonus: We highlighted it last year, but Black Children’s Books and Authors (@blackchildrensbooksandauthors) deserves a spotlight on it again. 
  

Don’t miss our upcoming BHM Answer Times. This week and next week, we have:

• 2/21—Angelica Ross (@missrosscreative), transgender rights advocate.
  
• 2/22—Actress Amandla Stenberg (@amandla)
  
• 2/23—Comedian and actor Andrew Bachelor, better known as King Bach (@kingbach).
  
• 2/24—Washington Post (@washingtonpost) editorial board member and MSNBC contributor Jonathan Capehart.

[Tumblr Staff]

[thirteenwnet]

THIRTEEN’s The Talk – Race in America Tackles the Issue of Young People of Color and Their Uneasy Encounters With Law Enforcement. It premieres Monday, February 20, 9 p.m. on PBS. In anticipation of that premiere Tumblr and THIRTEEN  have convened officers, advocates and policy experts to discuss the state of community policing in the United States. 

Dr. Bryant T. Marks is a National Trainer on Implicit Bias and Community Policing. He has trained over 1,000 police chiefs via a series of White House briefings, and several thousand patrol officers through small group workshops in police departments across the country. He is a professor of psychology at Morehouse College and also serves as a Senior Research Fellow with the Campaign for Black Male Achievement.

John Matthews is the Executive Director of the Community Safety Institute (CSI) and a former Chief of Police. John developed and implemented community policing for the Dallas Police Department in the 1990’s and has worked nationally on scores of COPS Office initiatives over the past twenty years developing over 100 community policing training programs. John also serves as the Director of Federal Partnerships for the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund and was a member of the White House 21st Century Policing team.

Bakari Kitwana is the executive director of Rap Sessions, which is currently touring the nation leading town hall discussions on the theme “Run Toward Fear: Millennial Activists and Social Justice in the Trump Era” He is the author of The Hip-Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African-American Culture the forthcoming Hip-Hop Activism in the Obama Era.

Trevena Garel is a retired New York City Police Sergeant. During her 21-year career Trevena served as both an undercover and an investigator in the NYPD’s Chief of Patrol’s Investigation and Evaluation Section, investigating allegations of misconduct involving both uniformed and/or civilian members of the NYPD. Trevena has had “The Talk” with her three children and her two oldest grandchildren.

Chief Michael Koval began his career with the Madison Police Department in 1983. Before becoming the Chief in 2014 he was the Sergeant of Recruitment and Training for 17 years. He has a law degree from William Mitchell College of Law.

The Ask Box is now open.  Ask our panelists a question!

Our panelists will start responding on Saturday, February 18. 

[Tumblr Staff]

Let’s take a minute to talk about

Septima Poinsette Clark (May 3, 1898—December 15, 1987)

Originally posted by roricomics

Septima Poinsette Clark was a civil rights and education activist. Originally barred from teaching in Charleston, SC schools because she was Black, Clark petitioned for that right in 1920. She won. And she did it while teaching children during the day and adults at night in a nearby town. MLK Jr. refers to her as “The Mother of the Movement”. 

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Mae C. Jemison (October 17, 1956)

Originally posted by francavillarts

Mae C. Jemison was not only the first Black woman in space, she was the first Black female astronaut for NASA ever. She launched in the Endeavor in 1992, just 25 years ago. 

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Maria Weems (1840—?)

Originally posted by smithsonianlibraries

Above is Anna Maria Weems, a woman who escaped slavery by posing as a male. With a $500 reward for her capture, Weems spent over two months on the road until she found freedom in Canada. This art comes courtesy of the Smithsonian Libraries’ (@smithsonianlibraries) yearly celebration of BHM, which includes stories, art, personal histories, and lots more from their massive collection.

Follow these too:

• Black Women Art (@fyblackwomenart​) has been around since 2012 (!), giving anyone who follows them a regular dose of art featuring Black women.
  
• Badass Black Women History Month (@bbwhm​) is a brand new Tumblr celebrating badass Black women every day for Black History Month. Hell yeah.
  

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There are more in the search results, of course. More Black women in STEM, in music, in sports, standing up for their rights, and have you read up on the Motorcycle Queen of Miami? One thing to note: some of these posts aren’t just highlighting women from 10, 20, 30, 100 years ago. They’re also highlighting Black women today, because Black women are still making history. 

[Tumblr Staff]

Contemporary Black Artists on Tumblr

Have you popped into the Black artists on Tumblr tag yet? It’s an endless scroll of GIFs, photography, paintings, illustrations, and more, more, more. Here’s a small collection of Tumblrs you can follow to get you started:

The Artist Akuji (@theartistakuji​)

Originally posted by theartistakuji

Beautiful digital art that just feels clean, fresh, and pleasing to look at. The artist’s Jamaican-American background shines through in a lot of her work, like this West Indie piece.

Maya Ajani (@mayaajani​)

Originally posted by mayaajani

Gritty, detailed, cool as hell marker art. Everything is a little bit gnarled up and raw and, just to repeat with deserved emphasis, cool as hell.

Liam Gavyn Salt (@liamgavynsalt​)

Originally posted by liamgavynsalt

Liam Salt dabbles in seemingly all things visual art: painting, digital, photography, illustration. He does it all well, but It’s his GIFed up self-portraits that we wanted to showcase. Those are some finely tuned, well-thought-out scribbles up there.

Into this stuff? Want more of it? Right over here. 

Don’t miss our upcoming BHM Answer Times. Next week we’ll have:

• 2/6—The activists behind the TheBlackout movement (@theblackoutofficial) are already taking your questions. Ask them about the second anniversary of #blackout, the current goals and future of their mission, or anything else you find relevant. 
  
• 2/7—Fashion designer Jerome Lamaar (@531jerome).
  
• 2/8—Emil Wilbekin (@worldofwilbekin), fashion journalist and LGBTQ rights activist.

[Tumblr Staff]

Tumblr! Black History Month is here, and we have some stuff in store to celebrate and honor the achievements of the Black community past and present. There are Answer Times to celebrate Black voices in entertainment and modern civil rights, weekly themed round-up posts to showcase Black excellence found everywhere, video interviews with celebrities and activists, a special Black History Month explore page updated daily with the best BHM posts from all of you, and custom stickers based on the top tags surrounding Black culture on Tumblr in 2016. Take a peek:

Here’s a look at our scheduled Answer Times:

• 2/6—The activists behind the Blackout movement (@theblackoutofficial).
  
• 2/7—Fashion designer Jerome Lamaar (@531jerome).
  
• 2/8—Emil Wilbekin (@worldofwilbekin), fashion journalist and LGBTQ rights activist.
  
• 2/16—The cast of VH1′s (@vh1) The Breaks.
  
• 2/21—Angelica Ross (@missrosscreative), transgender rights advocate.
  
• 2/22—Actress Amandla Stenberg (@amandla)
  
• 2/23—Comedian and actor Andrew Bachelor, better known as King Bach (@kingbach).
  
• 2/24—Washington Post (@washingtonpost) editorial board member and MSNBC contributor Jonathan Capehart.
  
• 2/27—Christian hip-hop artist Lecrae.
• 2/28—Black-ish actor Anthony Anderson.

And the video interviews will launch on Action (@action):

• 2/1—Octavia Spencer, co-star of Hidden Figures (@hiddenfiguresmovie).
• 2/6—The people behind Blackout (@theblackoutofficial).
• 2/13—Heben and Tracy (@brokeymcpoverty) from the Buzzfeed (@buzzfeed) podcast, Another Round.
  

We’ll be rolling this stuff out all over the place on Tumblr, but the Black History Month explore page is live right now. It’s filled with stuff made by all of you, and it’s already pretty great on day one. Happy Black History Month, Tumblr.

[Tumblr Staff]

[whitehouse]

This is one dance party 106-year-old Virginia McLaurin will never forget. To celebrate Black History Month, watch her fulfill her dream of visiting the White House and meeting President Obama.

[Tumblr Staff]

Can we take a minute to interrupt your dashboard with some really great stuff? The number of Tumblrs that are celebrating black excellence through portraiture is astounding. Creating it, collecting it, painting it, sketching it, Illustrator-ing it, daguerrotyping it, everythinging-it.

A small sample of the gorgeousness above, much more over on our special explore page.

Gold and black portrait by @spacemetal, Georgia Douglas Johnson by @illustratedwomeninhistory, Young woman illustration by Judy Osman Khieri via @fyblackwomenart, Arthur Cooper via @askhistorians.

[Tumblr Staff]

Black LBGTQ History Icons

[lgbtq-history]

Marsha P. Johnson

• A leader of the Stonewall Riots. According to several eyewitnesses, Marsha was the one who “really started it”. She was “in the middle of the whole thing, screaming and yelling and throwing rocks and almost like Molly Pitcher in the Revolution or something”
  
• Dedicated her life to activism:
• Co-founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (later renamed Street Transgender Action Revolutionaries)
• Ensured that the young drag queens, trans women and other street kids on Christopher Street were fed and clothed. Marsha also housed them whenever she could. 
• In the 1980s, she was an activist and organizer in ACT UP. 
  
  

Stormé DeLarverie

• Also a leader in the Stonewall Riots - has been identified as the “butch lesbian that threw the first punch” against the police officers.
  
• Several eye-witnesses recollections also recognize her as the cross-dressing lesbian that yelled “why don’t you guys do something” at the bystanders that evoked the reaction from them that helped make Stonewall a defining moment in history.
  
• Unofficially worked at gay bars who otherwise couldn’t afford security.
  
  

Bayard Rustin

• Was a leading strategist of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement between 1955-1968:
  
• The formidable behind the scenes figure of the civil rights movement who organized the March on Washington
  
• Through his influence, the civil rights leadership adopted a non-violent stance.
  
• Is and was often overlooked in African-American history because of the public’s discomfort with his sexual orientation.
• Supported LGBTQ rights and movements.
• Was posthumously awarded Rustin the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.
  
  

Miss Major Griffin-Gracy

• Another leader in the Stonewall Riots.
  
• Has been involved in community efforts since 1978. She has worked at local food banks, provide services for trans women suffering from addiction or homelessness. During the AIDS epidemic she also provided healthcare and funeral services.
  
• Is currently serving as the Executive Director for the Transgender GenderVariant Intersex Justice Project, working to assist transgender persons who are disproportionately incarcerated under a prison-industrial complex.

Alvin Ailey

• At the young age of 22, Alvin AIley became Artistic Directer for the Horton Dance Company where he choreographed as well as directed scenes and costume designs.
• Formed the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre in 1958 but continued to choreograph for other companies.
• Ailey’s signature works prominently reflects his Black pride.
  
• Is credited for popularizing modern dance. 
• Was also posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.
  

Feel free to add anyone I’ve missed!

[staff]

Here’s something that deserves infinite notes: A roundup of five regular people who did amazing, heroic things in the name of equality for both LGBTQ and Black communities.

We’ve been collecting the best stuff we’ve found about Black History Month right here—comics, paintings, GIFs—but keep spreading what you find because there’s tons more that people should see.