Today in Black History: April 18th
1845 – “An Act To Abolish Slavery” Enacted in New Jersey
Under a new law called, “An Act to Abolish Slavery”, white enslavers continued to profit from the exploitation of the labor of Black people. Referring to the captured as “apprentices” instead of “slaves” this new law allowed New Jersey to claim that its state laws no longer permitted “slavery”. The loophole prohibited “apprentices” from leaving the state, and or, any person who had, or harbored an “apprentice”. This law fell far short of abolishing slavery, delaying abolition for decades and ensuring “apprentices for life”.
1977– Alex Haley, Author of “Roots”, Awarded Pulitzer Prize
Alexander Palmer Haley was born in Ithaca, New York on August 11, 1921. Haley’s first major work, The Autobiography of Malcolm X(1965) was popularized due to Malcolm’s assassination earlier that year and is recognized as a literary classic. After over a decade of exhaustive genealogical research, Haley published Roots:The Saga of an American Family (1976), which sold six million copies in over 30 languages. Haley was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for literature on April 18, 1977.
1983– Alice Walker Awarded Pulitzer Prize
Alice Walker, born on February 9, 1944 as the eighth child of sharecroppers, was the first African-American to win a Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Walker attended Spelman College and later transferred to Sarah Lawrence College, earning her B.A. Through her studies and work, Walker created her Black woman centered feminist theory, “womanism”, identifying and assessing oppression based on racism and classism that women often experience. Walker’s collected works include a variety of poetry,novels, short fiction, essays, critical essays, and children’s stories. Walker won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for fiction for The Color Purple, which became a Stephen Spielberg movie and a Broadway musical produced by Oprah Winfrey.
