Black Death

(noun)

A rat-borne and highly contagious disease known as the bubonic plague that swept through Europe in the 1340s, killing about one-third of the population. 

Related Terms

Examples of Black Death in the following topics:

  • Racial Tensions and Black Lives Matter

    • BLM regularly organizes protests around the deaths of black people in killings by law enforcement officers, as well as broader issues of racial profiling, police brutality, and racial inequality in the United States criminal justice system.
    • The movement began in 2013 with the use of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of African-American teen Trayvon Martin.
    • Black Lives Matter became nationally recognized for its street demonstrations following the 2014 police shooting deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Eric Garner in New York City.
    • After national media focused on the tragedy, Zimmerman was eventually charged and tried in Martin's death.
    • The medical examiner ruled Garner's death a homicide.

  • Military Segregation

    • Woodrow Wilson's policy of military segregation led to conflict, rioting, and the brutal sentencing of the all-black Twenty-Fourth U.S.
    • This kept the great majority of black people out of combat.
    • The all-black Twenty-Fourth U.S.
    • This led to clashes with local authorities, including an incident in which police beat a black soldier and set off a nighttime riot by 156 African-American troops resulting in the shooting deaths of two soldiers, four police officers, and nine civilians.
    • Nicknamed the "Harlem Hellfighters," it was the first all-black regiment.

  • Women and Slavery

    • In the antebellum period, black men accused of rape were punished with death whereas white men could rape or sexually abuse female slaves without fear of punishment.
    • In fact, by the 19th century popular works in the South depicted female slaves as lustful, promiscuous “Jezebels” who shamelessly tempted white owners into sexual relations, thereby justifying abuse perpetrated by white men against black women.
    • Children, free women, indentured servants, and black men also endured similar treatment from their masters, or even their masters' children or relatives.
    • The sexual abuse of slaves was partially rooted in a patriarchal Southern culture which perceived all women, whether black or white, as property or chattel.
    • Examine the prevalence of sexual abuse perpetuated by white males against black slaves throughout American history.

  • Black Power

    • Black Power emphasized racial pride, the creation of political and social institutions against oppression, and advancement of black collective interests.
    • "Black Power" is a term used to refer to various ideologies associated with African Americans in the United States, emphasizing racial pride and the creation of black political and cultural institutions to nurture and promote black collective interests and advance black values.
    • Black Power meant a variety of things.
    • Racial riots broke out in the black community in cities from Boston to San Francisco following King's death.
    • The 1960s composed a decade not only of Black Power but also of Black Pride.

  • Fighting for Liberty

    • At the time of the American Revolution, some blacks had already been enlisted as Minutemen.
    • In state navies, some blacks served as pilots, such as in South Carolina which had significant numbers of black pilots.
    • Revolutionary leaders began to be fearful of using blacks in the armed forces.
    • This order did not apply to blacks already serving in the army.
    • This picture depicts the death of African-American Crispus Attucks, who was believed to be the first person killed at the Boston Massacre.

  • Jackie Robinson

    • Jackie Robinson was the first black Major League Baseball player in the United States.
    • Baseball fans and players reacted to Robinson with everything from unbridled enthusiasm, evident in newspaper headlines, to wariness and open hostility, expressed in beanball pitches and death threats.
    • The Sporting News, which had opposed blacks in the major leagues, gave Robinson its first Rookie of the Year Award in 1947.
    • The Dodgers succeeded well with such black stars as Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, and Don Newcombe.
    • Jackie Robinson was the first black Major League Baseball player in the United States

  • The Aftermath of the War

    • Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation enabled blacks to join the Union Army, giving the Union an advantage, and helped end the Civil War.
    • The Emancipation Proclamation enabled African-Americans, both free blacks and escaped slaves, to join the Union Army.
    • Slavery for the Confederacy's 3.5 million blacks effectively ended when Union armies arrived.
    • The war produced about 1,030,000 casualties (3% of the population), including about 620,000 soldier deaths—two-thirds by disease.
    • The war accounted for roughly as many American deaths as all American deaths in other U.S. wars combined.

  • Eleanor Roosevelt

    • However, she was a well known public life  figure before Franklin Delano Roosevelt took over the presidential office and long after her husband's death in 1945.
    • While Eleanor supported other struggles of black communities, this well known episode demonstrates how different her attitude towards African Americans was from that of her husband's.
    • She was explicit in her support of civil rights for black Americans, did not hide her agenda from the often critical public eye, challenged her husband's political opponents and allies (especially racist white Southerners), and sought attention for the civil rights cause through relationships and close friendships with black leaders, most notably Mary McLeod Bethune, the founder of the National Council of Negro Women, member of the Black Cabinet, and director of the Division of Negro Affairs at the National Youth Administration. and Walter White, the NAACP's executive secretary and anti-lynching legislation activist.
    • Despite the fact that during the post-WWII period black leaders accused Eleanor of giving up on the civil rights struggle, she was an unusual representative of her own class.
    • After her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to be an international influence as an author, speaker, politician and activist.

  • The American Indian Wars

    • Also, when determining how many deaths resulted from the wars in each of the American states, Arizona again ranked highest.
    • Most of the deaths in Arizona were caused by the Apache.
    • The Black Hills region was reserved for their exclusive use.
    • In 1874, the government dispatched the Custer Expedition to examine the Black Hills.
    • Prospectors, motivated by the economic panic of 1873, began to trickle into the Black Hills in violation of the Fort Laramie Treaty.

  • The Diversity of Workers

    • Although the Federation preached a policy of egalitarianism with regard to African American workers, it actively discriminated against black workers.
    • The AFL sanctioned the maintenance of segregated locals within its affiliates — particularly in the construction and railroad industries — a practice which often excluded black workers altogether from union membership, and thus from employment in organized industries.
    • In most ways, the AFL's treatment of women workers paralleled its policy towards black workers.
    • The Knights of Labor had a mixed history of inclusiveness and exclusiveness, accepting women and blacks (after 1878) and their employers as members, and advocating the admission of blacks into local assemblies but tolerating the segregation of assemblies in the South.
    • The Knights were also responsible for race riots that resulted in the deaths of about 28 Chinese Americans in the Rock Springs massacre in Wyoming, and an estimated 50 African-American sugar-cane laborers in the 1887 Thibodaux massacre in Louisiana.