The Transformative Justice Coalition and the Voting Rights Alliance, in honor of Black History Month 2023, revived 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 this year, added a total of 7 NEW articles. 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.

Thank you for following our #VRABlackHistory series, where for 28 days 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. Below is the list of all 28 articles that were published this year.

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.

This is the 5th year we have done the series since 2017. The Transformative Justice Coalition thanks those who have been republishing our articles, on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, your websites, and as articles. Over these past 28 days, these Black History emails have been opened over 76,000 times, with over 3,700 individual clicks. You have responded with gratitude and an eagerness for knowledge, despite this being one of the most controversial Black History Months in recent times. In light of the recent attempts to ban Black History, we are even more pleased to share these stories this year and have encouraged everyone in the 18 states that are banning Black History to share these stories broadly!

We want to 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 14th, 2023, we honor Ella Baker, one of the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement.

"Born in Norfolk, Virginia, on 13 December 1903, Baker was raised on the same land her grandparents had worked as slaves. Baker’s childhood was marked early on by the activist spirit of her mother, a member of the local missionary association, who called on women to act as agents of social change in their communities.

[Ella Baker's] political activism began in Harlem in the 1930s. She worked with the cooperative movement during the Great Depression; supported the campaign against Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia; and opposed the racist conviction of the famed Scottsboro boys.

Baker was a field secretary and director of branches for the N.A.A.C.P. in the 1940s, and she traveled throughout the Jim Crow South, organizing against discrimination and recruiting people to the Civil Rights Movement. She worked alongside King and others in the Southern Christian Leadership Council in the 1950s and was a mentor to the young activists who founded the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee in 1960. S.N.C.C. went on to lead the 'Freedom Rides,' in which participants risked life and limb to desegregate interstate transportation, and then to organize 'Freedom Summer,' a massive voter registration drive targeting disenfranchised black southern voters.

In addition to continuing her involvement as an advisor to SNCC, Baker served as a consultant to the Southern Conference Education Fund throughout the mid-1960s and helped organize the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. She returned to New York in the late 1960s and remained active in the civil rights struggle until her death in 1986." (Ransby, B., 2020)