The Transformative Justice Coalition and the Voting Rights Alliance, in honor of Black History Month, are reviving the daily special series devoted to sharing the legacies and stories of the sheroes, heroes, and events in the fight for Black suffrage. This series was created in 2017 and added 4 NEW articles this year, and several newly revised, updated, or corrected ones. In addition to these daily newsletters all February long, this series also incorporates daily social media posts; an interactive calendar; and, website blog posts to spread the word broadly.

We encourage everyone to share this series to your networks and on social media under the hashtag #VRABlackHistory. You can also tweet us @TJC_DC to share your own facts.

Barbara Arnwine insisted that we could not have another year without publishing our Black History series! All month long, we have honored, recognized, and educated about a person, organization, or event, spanning over 5 centuries and told in chronological order, about those moments that forever changed the movement for African-American suffrage. The Transformative Justice Coalition thanks those who have been republishing our articles, on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, your websites, and even in the Tennessee Tribune. Over the 28 days of February 2022, these Black History emails were opened over 65,000 times, with over 600 individual clicks. You have responded to these emails with corrections, more information, asks to republish the series, and by expressing your thanks. We want to also extend our gratitude for your appreciation of the history this series shares.

This article is written by Caitlyn Cobb. All the sources are linked throughout the article with a full reference list at the end of the full article which can be read by clicking the button at the bottom of the page). This is an introductory summary page.

Today, February 11th, 2022, we honor George H. White, who was a lawyer and a Republican African-American Congressman from North Carolina’s Second Congressional District (1899-1901). As we travel through history, I have been purposefully laying the groundwork all week for one of our nine new articles: the Black massacres of the 1860's- 1880's, many of which were over voting. While many more massacres occurred after 1880's, the extreme concentration of Black massacres during this time period were specifically targeted against Black men exerting their right to vote under 15th amendment. Despite the horror that article will show, I purposefully have inserted this article before it to provide a contrast: that even when everything seems hopeless, progress still finds a way to rise as a phoenix.

"Facing overwhelming odds in the wake of the further disfranchisement of North Carolina blacks, he declined to run for re-election in 1900." White was part of the 56th Congress of the United States and was the last African-American member of Congress since Reconstruction, and there wouldn't be another African-American Congressperson until 28 years later in 1928. White would also be the last African-American Congressman "elected from North Carolina until the 1990s".