https://gpblackhistorymuseum.org/

Great Plains Black History Museum, 2221 N 24 Street (Jewell Building), Omaha, NE (2026)

06/01/2026

On this day, June 1st, in Black Ourstory

On this date in 1886, the Black LGBTQ community in America is affirmed. Black LGBT people are part of both the African American community and the LGBT culture. This date was chosen because it's National Pride Month. LGBT (also seen as LGBTQ) stands for le***an, gay, bis*xual, transgender, and/or q***r.

Black trans-woman Lucy Hicks Anderson, born Tobias Lawson in 1886, worked as a domestic worker as a teenager, eventually becoming a socialite and madame in Oxnard, California, during the 1920s and 1930s. In 1945, she was tried in Ventura County for perjury and fraud for receiving spousal allotments from the military, as her dress and presentation as a woman were considered masquerading. She lost this case but avoided a lengthy jail sentence, only to be tried again by the federal government shortly thereafter. She, too, lost this case, and she and her husband were sentenced to jail time. After serving their sentences, she and her then-husband, Ruben Anderson, relocated to Los Angeles, where they lived quietly until she died in 1954.

During the Harlem Renaissance, a subculture of LGBTQ Black writers, artists, and entertainers emerged, including Alain Locke, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Wallace Thurman, Richard Bruce Nugent, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Moms Mabley, Mabel Hampton, Alberta Hunter, and Gladys Bentley. Places like the Savoy Ballroom and the Rockland Palace hosted drag-ball extravaganzas with prizes for the best costumes.

Langston Hughes depicted the balls as "spectacles of color." George Chauncey, author of Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940, wrote that during this period, "perhaps nowhere were more men willing to venture out in public in drag than in Harlem." During the first night of the Stonewall riots, LGBTQ Blacks and Latinos likely were the most significant percentage of the protestors because those groups heavily frequented the bar. Homeless Black and Latino LGBTQ youth and young adults sleeping near Christopher Park were likely among the protestors.

The overall American LGBT community received societal recognition after the Stonewall Riots in 1969. The Stonewall riots brought domestic and global attention to the le***an and gay community. Proceeding Stonewall, Romer v. Evans vastly impacted the trajectory of the LGBT community. Ruling in favor of Romer, Justice Kennedy asserted in the case commentary that Colorado's state constitutional amendment "bore no purpose other than to burden LGB persons." Advancements in public policy, social discourse, and public knowledge have facilitated the progress and coming out of many LGBT individuals.

Statistics show an increase in accepting attitudes towards le***ans and g**s in the general society. A Gallup survey shows that acceptance rates went from 38% in 1992 to 52% in 2001. However, when looking at the LGBT community through a racial lens, the black community lacks many of these advances. Research and studies are limited for the black LGBT community due to resistance towards coming out and a lack of responses in surveys and research studies. The coming-out rate of Blacks is less than that of whites, as they are often further marginalized within their community. Surveys and research have shown that 80% of blacks say g**s and le***ans endure discrimination compared to 61% of whites. Black members of the LGBT community are often seen as the "other" due to their race and s*xuality, making them targets of whites and blacks.

On June 15, 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees from discrimination based on their s*xual orientation and gender identity. The ruling only pertained to employment, similar to ENDA. LGBT rights advocates welcomed the ruling and called on Congress to pass the Equality Act, noting that as of 2020, 29 states do not have the full protections the Equality Act would provide for the LGBT community. As of 2010, the consensus is 14,129,983 people. Out of that, it is estimated that 4.60 percent of the black population identifies as LGBT. Economically, statistics show black LGBT individuals are more likely to be unemployed than non-Blacks. According to the Williams Institute, the vast difference lies in the “not in the workforce” survey responses from different populations geographically.

Black LGBT individuals face the dilemma of marginalization in the job market. As of 2013, same-s*x couples' income is lower than that of those in heteros*xual relationships, with an average of $25,000. For opposite-s*x couples, statistics show a $1,700 increase. Analyzing economic disparities on an intersectionality level (gender and race), the Black man is likely to receive a higher income than a woman. For men, statistics show approximately a $3,000 increase from the average income for all Black LGBT-identified individuals and a $6,000 increase in salary for same-s*x male couples.

Female same-s*x couples receive $3,000 less than the average income for all Black LGBT individuals and approximately $6,000 less than their male counterparts. The income disparity among Black LGBT families affects the lives of their dependents, contributing to poverty rates. Children growing up in low-income households are more likely to remain in poverty. Due to economic disparities in the black LGBT community, 32% of children raised by gay black men are in poverty. However, only 13% of children raised by heteros*xual Black parents are in poverty, and only 7% by white heteros*xual parents.

One of the greatest concerns in the black LGBT community is s*xually transmitted diseases, and one of the greatest STDs affecting the Black community is HIV/AIDS. Black people account for 44% of new HIV infections in adults and adolescents. Black women account for 29% of new HIV infections. For Black LGBT male-identified individuals, 70% of the population accounts for new HIV infections in adults and adolescents. The rates of HIV for black LGBT men are higher than those of their non-Black counterparts. One major factor contributing to higher rates of STDs like HIV/AIDS is the lack of medical access. Rather than a high prevalence of unsafe s*x, it is caused by a limited supply of antiretroviral therapy in non-white communities.

The 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges case was pivotal in showing the resilience of the 14th Amendment. Also in the 21st century, Black LGBT culture has been depicted in films such as Patrick Ian Polk's Noah's Arc and Punks, Pariah, and Barry Jenkins' Moonlight, which not only has the main character as a gay Black but is written by a Black person and is based on a play by Black gay playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney. In 2018, the TV show Pose premiered, marking the first time a predominantly non-white LGBT cast appeared on a mainstream channel. (African American Registry, 2026)

06/01/2026

On this day, June 1st, in Black Ourstory

On this date in 1861, the first encounter of the American Civil War took place at the Fairfax Court House in Arlington Mills, Virginia.

Under the cover of darkness, a squad of just nine Virginia soldiers fired at the 1st Michigan Volunteer Infantry troops and the 11th New York Volunteer Infantry, who were performing picket duty at Arlington Mill, Virginia.

During a brief and confused exchange of fire, one Union soldier was killed, another wounded, and one Virginian soldier was wounded. It demonstrated that Union forces were vulnerable to enemy attacks, even close to the capital. (African American Registry, 2026)

06/01/2026

On this day, June 1st, in Black History

Alfred Masters became the first African American inducted into the United States Marines since the Revolutionary War on June 1, 1942, in Oklahoma City. He then received his training at historic Montford Point, which is featured below. In the Marines, Masters was promoted to the rank of Technical Sergeant. He was born February 5, 1916, in Palestine, Texas, and died in Anthony, New Mexico, on June 16, 1975, at age 59.

The Montford Point Marines. In 1942, African Americans were recruited for the Marines to receive basic training at the segregated Camp Montford Point in Jacksonville, North Carolina. Over 20,000 troops were trained at Montford Point between 1942 and 1949. The base was deactivated in September of 1949 following President Truman's Executive Order #9981 negating segregation in July of 1948. (Black History Today, 2023)

06/01/2026

On this day, June 1st, in Black Ourstory

Black history in folk music is celebrated on this date in 1820. This musical genre's representation, along with jazz, comes close to being the first truly American classical music.

As soon as Africans arrived through the Middle Passage, their culture gradually transformed into what some now call African American culture. They had to learn how to communicate with each other, as they arrived speaking many different languages. To adjust to the new sounds, surroundings, and customs, they gradually learned to combine the music and dances they brought from Africa with those of the Europeans.

As far back as Black Africans ' involvement in North American cultural history stretches, it has been accompanied by a soundtrack of folk music. Some of the most timeless songs of empowerment and perseverance come from the American slaves and their communities of forced immigrants held in bo***ge throughout the Antebellum South. Black influence has been immeasurable. Some features view African American music as part of the Black African cultural continuum, representing struggles, joy, sorrow, empowerment, and perseverance. Black music of this era was a group activity integrated into daily life among the people of Africa. These aspects of African culture were easily adapted to the New World.

From the Chanteys (Virginia area) came work folk songs that were integrated into the Americas from Africa whenever people worked in groups. Accompanying the labor movement, the singing warded off fatigue, lifted their spirits, and enabled slower workers to keep up. This singing could accompany tasks such as picking cotton, laying railroad tracks, hoeing, and other forms of slave labor. Secular music retained characteristics associated with African music despite the influence of White European music. The dancing was immediately recognized by outsiders as non-European, even if the Africans now knew English or were born in the New World. The notation-al system designed for European music was the only way to preserve folk music before the rise of recordings.

Solomon Northup was a Black abolitionist and author of ‘Twelve Years a Slave,’ the first songbook to bring Black folk music to a wider audience. African American folk music inspires everything, from the blues and hip-hop to R&B. It is the base of all American music as it ties cultures together. Just like the music of today, folk music expresses the sorrows and pains of everyday life. But it also expressed unity, rejoicing, and happiness. Through the diaspora, we can hear Africa sounding different based on its region, but they all bring people together with the natural inclination to move to a melody or beat.

In the 20th century, Odetta was an artist who carried on the rich Black tradition of folk music. Many whites often treat this music and dancing, modifying and co-opting it to their comfort without acknowledging its unique origins, which are distinct from our flavor and style. “It had such a gargantuan effect on American culture, world culture,” Rhiannon Giddens says of the genre, which took root in the 1820s and ’30s. “This was the first time that tunes were written down. So, I’ve been going at it from a musicology point of view rather than looking at it as blackface and running screaming from the room.” (African American Registry, 2026)

06/01/2026

On this day, June 1st, in Black Herstory

Virginia Hewlett Douglass was born on this date in 1849. She was a Black suffragist. Virginia Lewis Molyneaux Hewlett was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

She was the daughter of Aaron Molyneaux Hewlett, the first Black instructor at Harvard University, and Virginia Josephine Lewis Molyneaux Hewlett, a physical education instructor. On August 4, 1869, Virginia Hewlett Douglass married Frederick Douglass, Jr. in Cambridge. Together, they had seven children: Fredrick Aaron Douglass, Virginia Anna Douglass, Lewis Emmanuel Douglass, Maud Ardell Douglass, Gertrude Pearl Douglass, Robert Smalls Douglass, and Charles Paul Douglass. When her sister-in-law, Mary Elizabeth Murphy (married to Charles Remond Douglass), died in 1879, Virginia and Fredrick raised their two minor children, Charles Frederick and Joseph Henry.

In 1877, a petition supporting women's suffrage by the District of Columbia Black community was created and signed by Virginia Hewlett Douglass, Frederick Douglass Jr., Nathan Sprague, and Rosetta Douglass Sprague. The petition had been part of a movement organized by the National Woman Suffrage Association. On September 21, 1881, Douglass wrote a letter to the editor of the Washington Sunday Item newspaper against school segregation and prejudice.

Virginia Hewlett Douglass died on December 14, 1889, at age 41; her death was listed as consumption. She was buried in Graceland Cemetery and later moved to Woodlawn Cemetery in Washington, DC. After her death, her brother Emanuel D. Molyneaux Hewlett took custody of her two minor children, Charles Paul and Robert Smalls. (African American Registry, 2026)

06/01/2026

On this day, June 1st, in Black Ourstory

The founding of Kentucky in Africa is celebrated on this date in 1828. This colony, located in present-day Montserrado County, Liberia, was settled by American freedmen, many formerly enslaved Africans.

As a Kentucky state affiliate of the American Colonization Society, members raised funds to transport Black people from Kentucky to Africa. The Kentucky Society bought a 40-square-mile (100 km2) site along the Saint Paul River (quite near the site of the present-day capital city of Monrovia) and named it Kentucky in Africa. Clay-Ashland was the colony's main town.

Notable residents of Kentucky in Africa include William D. Coleman, the 13th President of Liberia, whose family settled in Clay-Ashland after immigrating from Fayette County, Kentucky, when he was a boy. Alfred Francis Russell, the 10th President of Liberia, also resided in Clay-Ashland. Liberia annexed a part of Africa in about 1847. (African American Registry, 2026)

06/01/2026

On this day, June 1st, in Black Ourstory

The Gullah community celebrated this date in 1526. They are African Americans who reside in the Lowcountry region of the United States, specifically in the states of Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina, encompassing both the coastal plain and the Sea Islands.

They developed a Creole language called Gullah and a culture with some African influence. Historically, the Gullah region extended from the Cape Fear area on North Carolina's south coast to Jacksonville on Florida's coast. The Gullah people and their language are also called Geechee, which may be derived from the name of the Ogeechee River near Savannah, Georgia. Gullah is a term initially used to designate the Creole dialect of English spoken by Gullah and the Geechee people. Over time, its speakers have used this term to formally refer to their Creole language and distinctive ethnic identity as a people.

The Georgia communities are distinguished by identifying as either "Freshwater Geechee" or "Saltwater Geechee," depending on whether they live on the mainland or the Sea Islands. Because of a period of relative isolation from whites while working on large plantations in the Antebellum South, the Africans, enslaved from a variety of Central and West African ethnic groups, developed a Creole culture that has preserved much of their African linguistic and cultural heritage from various peoples; in addition, they absorbed new influences from the region.

The Gullah people speak an English-based Creole language that contains many African loanwords and is influenced by African languages in its grammar and sentence structure. Sometimes referred to as "Sea Island Creole" by linguists and scholars, the Gullah language is sometimes likened to Bahamian Creole, Barbadian Creole, Guyanese Creole, Belizean Creole, Jamaican Patois, and the Krio language of West Africa. Gullah crafts, farming and fishing traditions, folk beliefs, folk music, rice-based cuisine, and storytelling traditions strongly influence Central and West African cultures.

Etymology

The origin of the word "Gullah" is unclear. Some scholars suggest that it may be cognate with the word "Angola," where the ancestors of some of the Gullah people likely originated. They created a new culture synthesized from the various African peoples brought into Charleston and other parts of South Carolina. Some scholars have suggested that it may originate from the name of the Gola, an ethnic group living in the border area between present-day Sierra Leone and Liberia in West Africa, which is also the region of enslaved ancestors of the Gullah people. British planters in the Caribbean and the Southern colonies of North America referred to this area as the "Grain Coast" or "Rice Coast"; many of the tribes are of Mandé or Manding origins.

The name "Geechee," another common name for the Gullah people, may derive from the name of the Kissi people, an ethnic group living in the border area between Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia. Still another possible linguistic source for "Gullah" is the Dyula ethnic civilization. They had territory stretching from Senegal through Mali to Burkina Faso and the rest of French West Africa. The word "Dyula" is pronounced "Gwullah" among members of the Akan ethnic group in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire. The primary land route through which the Dyula people came into contact with European slavers was present-day Liberia, Sierra Leone, Senegambia, and Guinea.

The story of Gullah Jack (an African slave imported from Angola to the United States) may indicate that the word Gullah originated in Angola, as some commentators believe the word is a shortened version of the country's name. Gullah Jack's other name was Jack Pritchard because he was sold to a white man with the last name Pritchard. Some scholars have also suggested that these words have indigenous American origins. The Spanish named the South Carolina and Georgia coastal regions Guale, after a Native American tribe. The name of the Ogeechee River, a prominent geographical feature in coastal Georgia and central to Guale territory, may have been derived from a Creek Indian (Muskogee language) word. Sapelo Island, the site of the last Gullah community of Hog Hammock, was also the principal place of refuge for Guale people who fled slavery on the mainland. The Gullah people have several West African words that survived despite centuries of slavery, when Africans in America were forced to speak English.

African Roots

According to Port of Charleston records, enslaved Africans shipped to the port came from the following areas: Angola (39%), Senegambia (20%), the Windward Coast (17%), the Gold Coast (13%), Sierra Leone (6%), and Madagascar, Mozambique, and the two Bights (viz., Benin and Biafra) (5% combined). Particularly along the western coast, the local peoples had cultivated African rice for over 3,000 years. African rice was originally domesticated in the inland delta of the Upper Niger River. Once Carolinian and Georgian planters in the American South discovered that African rice could grow in that region, they often sought enslaved Africans from rice-growing regions due to their skills and knowledge in developing and building irrigation systems, dams, and earthworks. Two British trading companies based in England operated the slave castle at Bunce Island, located on the Sierra Leone River.

Henry Laurens was their main contact in Charleston and was a planter and slave trader. His counterpart in Britain was the Scottish merchant and slave trader Richard Oswald. Many enslaved Africans taken in West Africa were processed through Bunce Island. It was a prime export site for slaves to South Carolina and Georgia. Slave castles in Ghana, by contrast, shipped many of the people they handled to ports and markets in the Caribbean islands. After Freetown, Sierra Leone was founded in the late 18th century by the British as a colony for poor Black people from London and Black Loyalists from Nova Scotia, resettled after the American Revolutionary War; they did not allow slaves to be taken from Sierra Leone. They tried to protect the people from kidnappers. In 1808, Great Britain prohibited the African slave trade. After that date, the British, whose navy patrolled to intercept slave ships off Africa, sometimes resettled Africans liberated from slave trader ships in Sierra Leone. Similarly, Americans sometimes settled freed slaves in Liberia, a similar colony established in the early 19th century by the American Colonization Society.

As it was a place for freed slaves and free Blacks from the United States, some free blacks emigrated there voluntarily for the chance to create their own society. The Gullah people have been able to preserve much of their African cultural heritage because of climate, geography, cultural pride, and patterns of importation of enslaved Africans. Enslaved persons from the Central Western region of Africa, originating primarily from the Mende populations of Sierra Leone, were transported to some areas of Brazil (including Bahia), and the enslaved Gullah-Geechee people were traded in what was then Charleston, South Carolina. According to British historian P.E.H. Hair, Gullah culture developed as a Creole culture in the colonies and the United States, drawing from the diverse African cultures represented among the people who came together there. These included the Baga, Fula, Kissi, Kpelle, Limba, Mandinka, Mende, Susu, Temne, Vai, and Wolof of the Rice Coast, as well as many from Angola, Igbo, Calabar, Congo, and the Gold Coast.

By the middle of the 18th century, thousands of acres in the Georgia and South Carolina Lowcountry and the Sea Islands were developed as African rice fields. African farmers from the "Rice Coast" brought the skills for cultivation and tidal irrigation that made rice farming one of the most successful industries in early America. The subtropical climate encouraged the spread of malaria and yellow fever, which are carried and transmitted by mosquitoes. These tropical diseases were endemic in Africa and had been carried by enslaved Africans to the colonies. Mosquitoes in the Lowcountry's swamps and inundated rice fields also picked up and spread diseases to European settlers. Because they had acquired some immunity in their homeland, Africans were more resistant to these tropical fevers than were the Europeans.

As the rice industry was developed, planters continued to import enslaved Africans. By about 1708, South Carolina had a black majority. Coastal Georgia developed a Black majority after rice cultivation expanded in the mid-18th century. Malaria and yellow fever became endemic. Fearing these diseases, many white planters and their families left the Lowcountry during the rainy spring and summer months when fevers ran rampant. Others mainly lived in cities such as Charleston rather than on isolated plantations, especially those on the Sea Islands.

The planters left their European or African "rice drivers," or overseers, in charge of the rice plantations. These had hundreds of laborers, with African traditions reinforced by new imports from the same regions. Over time, the Gullah people developed a Creole culture in which elements of African languages, cultures, and community life were preserved to a high degree. Their culture developed in a distinct way, different from that of the enslaved Blacks in North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland, where the enslaved lived in smaller groups. It had more sustained and frequent interactions with whites and British American culture.

Civil War Period

When the American Civil War began, the Union rushed to blockade Confederate shipping. White planters on the Sea Islands, fearing an invasion by the US naval forces, abandoned their plantations and fled to the mainland. When Union forces arrived on the Sea Islands in 1861, they found the Gullah people eager for their freedom and to defend it. Many Gullahs served with distinction in the Union Army's First South Carolina Volunteers. The Sea Islands were the first place in the South where slaves were freed. Long before the War ended, Unitarian missionaries from Pennsylvania came to start schools on the islands for the newly freed slaves. Penn Center, now a Gullah community organization on Saint Helena Island, South Carolina, was founded as the first school for freed slaves. After the American Civil War ended, the Gullahs' isolation from the outside world increased in some respects. The rice planters on the mainland gradually abandoned their plantations and moved away from the area because of labor issues. Free Blacks were unwilling to work in the dangerous and disease-ridden rice fields. A series of hurricanes devastated the crops in the 1890s.

Left alone in remote rural areas of the Lowcountry, the Gullah continued to practice their traditional culture with little influence from the outside world well into the 20th century. In the 20th century, some plantations were redeveloped as resorts or hunting destinations by wealthy white individuals. Gradually, more visitors visited the islands to enjoy their beaches and mild climate. Since the late 20th century, the Gullah people—led by Penn Center and other determined community groups—have been fighting to keep control of their traditional lands. Since the 1960s, resort development on the Sea Islands has significantly increased property values, threatening to displace the Gullah from the family lands they have owned since emancipation. They have fought against uncontrolled island development through community action, the courts, and political processes. The Gullahs have also struggled to preserve their traditional culture despite much more contact with modern culture and media. In 1979, a translation of the New Testament into the Gullah language was begun.

The Gullah have also reached out to West Africa. Gullah groups made three celebrated "homecomings" to Sierra Leone in 1989, 1997, and 2005, when many of the Gullahs' ancestors are believed to have originated. These dramatic homecomings were the subject of three documentary films—Family Across the Sea (1990), The Language You Cry In (1998), and Priscilla's Homecoming (in production). The American Bible Society published the De New Testament in 2005. The Gullah achieved another victory in 2005 when the US Congress passed the "Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Act"; it provided $10 million over ten years for preserving and interpreting historic sites in the Low Country relating to Gullah culture. The Heritage Corridor will extend from southern North Carolina to northern Florida.

The US National Park Service will administer the project with extensive consultation with the Gullah community. In November 2011, Healin fa de Soul was released, a five-CD collection of readings from the Gullah Bible. This collection includes Scipcha Wa De Bring Healing ("Scripture That Heals") and the Gospel of John (De Good Nyews Bout Jedus Christ Wa John Write). This was also the most extensive collection of Gullah recordings, surpassing Lorenzo Dow Turner's. The recordings have helped people develop an interest in the culture because they get to hear the language and learn how to pronounce some words. (African American Registry, 2026)

06/01/2026

On this day, June 1st, in Black History

In 1937, Academy Award-winning actor Morgan Freeman, most well-known for his role in "Driving Miss Daisy," was born in Memphis, Tennessee. (Black History, 2008)

06/01/2026

On this day, June 1st, in Black Ourstory

Critical Race Theory (CRT) was affirmed on this date in 1971. This philosophical framework was developed to address issues of race, class, and gender.

In the 1970s, Derrick Bell, along with other legal scholars, began using Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a takeoff on "critical legal theory," a branch of legal scholarship that challenges the validity of concepts such as rationality, objective truth, and judicial neutrality. Critical legal theory was a takeoff on critical theory, a philosophical framework rooted in Marxist thought. Bell continued writing about critical race theory after accepting a teaching position at Harvard University. He worked alongside lawyers, activists, and legal scholars nationwide. His experience as a Black man and a civil rights attorney significantly influenced his legal scholarship. Bell resigned from his position at Harvard because of what he viewed as the university's discriminatory practices.

In the early 1980s, nonwhite students at Harvard Law School organized protests regarding Harvard's lack of racial diversity in the curriculum, among students, and in the faculty. These students supported Professor Bell, who left Harvard Law in 1980 and then became the dean at the University of Oregon School of Law. During his time at Harvard, Bell developed new courses that studied American law through a racial lens. Harvard students of color wanted faculty of color to teach the new classes in his absence. The university rejected student requests, responding that no sufficiently qualified black instructor existed.

Legal scholar Randall Kennedy writes that some students felt affronted by Harvard's choice to employ an "archetypal white liberal... in a way that precludes the development of black leadership". In response, numerous students, including Kimberlé Crenshaw and Mari Matsuda, boycotted and organized to develop an "Alternative Course" using Bell's Race, Racism, and American Law (1973, 1st edition) as a core text. Bell wrote in a narrative style and contributed to the intellectual discussions on race. According to Bell, his purpose in writing was to examine the racial issues within the context of their economic, social, and political dimensions from a legal standpoint.

Additionally, Bell's critical race theory was eventually expanded into more theories, each describing the hardships faced by specific groups, including AsianCrit (Asian), FemCrit (Women), LatCrit (Latino), TribalCrit (American Indian), and WhiteCrit (White). Bell's theories were based on the following propositions:

· First, racism is ordinary, not aberrational.

· Second, white-over-color ascendancy serves important purposes, both psychic and material, for the dominant group.

· Third ("social construction" thesis), race and races are products of social thought and relations.

· Fourth, the dominant society racializes different minority groups at different times in response to shifting needs, such as the labor market.

· Fifth, "intersectionality and anti-essentialism" thesis. No person has a single, easily stated, unitary identity. Everyone has potentially conflicting overlapping identities, loyalties, and allegiances. For example, a person with parents who have different religious views, political views, ethnicity, etc.

· Sixth ("voice-of-color" thesis), because of different histories and experiences from white counterparts, matters that white people are unlikely to know must be communicated to them by the racialized minorities.

CRT has also led to the study of microaggressions, Paradigmatic kinship, the historical origins and shifting paradigmatic vision of CRT, and how in-depth legal studies show that law serves the interests of the powerful groups in society. Microaggressions are subtle insults (verbal, nonverbal, and/or visual) directed toward people of color, often automatically or unconsciously.

For instance, in The Constitutional Contradiction, Bell argued that the framers of the Constitution chose the rewards of property over justice. Regarding the interest convergence, he maintained that "whites will promote racial advances for blacks only when they also promote white self-interest." Finally, in The Price of Racial Remedies, Bell argued that whites will not support civil rights policies that may threaten white social status.

Similar themes can be found in another well-known piece, "Who's Afraid of Critical Race Theory?" from 1995. Bell's 2002 book Ethical Ambition encourages ethical behavior, including "a good job well done, giving credit to others, standing up for what you believe in, voluntarily returning lost valuables, choosing what feels right over what might feel good right now." Other early practitioners of CRT are Richard Delgado, Charles Lawrence, Mari Matsuda, and Patricia Williams. (African American Registry, 2026)

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