Collection of Insane and Fun Facts
Up to 25 percent of cowboys in the West during the later 19th century were black. Former slaves or born into a formerly enslaved family, they worked in an industry that despite facing inevitable racism was a generally less discriminatory than other industries at the time.
Martin Luther King Jr. said he experienced far more hatred in Chicago than he ever did in Alabama or Mississippi. King took part of the Chicago Housing Movement in August 1966 with thousands of local whites jeering, throwing bricks, and displaying Confederate and Nazi signs all over the city.
Black people in ancient Rome were not discriminated against because of their skin color or physical features. They were not excluded from any profession and there was no stigma against mixed race relationships. Classical writers did not attach social status or degree of humanity to skin color.
Korla Pandit, a prolific 1940’s musician from India and one of TV’s first musical stars, was actually an African American man from Missouri. His secret lasted until his death.
When asked for his thoughts on the migration of New Zealanders to Australia, the Prime Minister of New Zealand stated that the “annual exodus of Kiwis to Australia raised the average IQ of both countries”.
In 1925 an all-black baseball team in Wichita, Kansas played an exhibition against a local KKK Klavern, with Irish Catholics serving as umpires. The black team won 10-8.
There is a 1/2 mile long wall in Detroit originally built to separate blacks from whites.
During the Civil Rights Movement, the Soviet Union purposely inflamed racial tensions by mailing forged threats from the KKK to black neighborhoods.
Mack Robinson, brother of Jackie Robinson, medaled in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Upon returning home to California, the only work he could find as an African American was sweeping streets, which he did while wearing his Olympic ‘USA’ sweatshirt.
There is a small town outside Fort Worth, TX named White Settlement. In 2005, a record number of voters turned out to oppose changing the name to something less racist-sounding and then proceeded to call for the mayor’s resignation for even proposing the change.