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One Mic Black History

Each episode of One Mic centers around little known events or persons from Black history selected for

19/06/2026

The mainstream history of Juneteenth focuses on the first half of General Order No. 3, which declared enslaved people free. It conveniently erases the second half. The US military explicitly ordered 250,000 newly freed Black folks to “remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages.” The government wanted a compliant labor forced to work the Southern economy.

Many of the newly emancipated people in Texas completely ignored the order. While some were forced to stay, thousands initiated what became known as “The Scatter.”

As documented in the WPA Slave Narratives, many refused to spend another day working for the people who had abused them. With zero money and no protection, thousands walked off the plantations and stepped out into the Texas frontier.

The stakes were high. Slave patrols and angry former enslavers were violently attacking those who tried to leave. But many took the risk anyway, walking hundreds of miles across to track down the lost family and create a new life.

18/06/2026

The mainstream narrative of Juneteenth is built on a benevolent myth: that General Gordon Granger stood on a balcony in Galveston, read General Order No. 3, and Texas enslavers immediately followed the law, peacefully freeing 250,000 enslaved people. This completely erases the high stakes and the military reality.

Texas was the last stronghold of the illegal slave empire. Enslavers had been hiding tens of thousands of Black people from the Emancipation Proclamation for two years, believing they were untouched by the war.

Freedom did not arrive as a friendly announcement. It was enforced through a ruthless military occupation. When Granger landed, a massive percentage of his occupying force was made up of thousands of heavily armed men from the United States Colored Troops (USCT). Texas enslavers did not surrender because they heard a speech. They surrendered because thousands of Black Union soldiers seized control of the city, aimed heavy weapons at their homes, and forcing the system to collapse on June 19th 1865.

16/06/2026

In 1969, the federal government tried to bury a pregnant 22-year-old woman under 300 years of prison time. Afeni Shakur was swept up in the “Panther 21” arrests, facing 150 counts of conspiracy based entirely on police claims of a massive bombing plot.

With her life and her unborn child on the line, Afeni refused a lawyer and represented herself in court. She didn’t just argue her innocence; she personally cross-examined Ralph White, the undercover cop who built the case. On the stand, she systematically took his story apart, forcing him to admit that he was the one who supplied the illegal weapons and pushed the violent rhetoric. She proved the entire conspiracy was a government setup.

The prosecution spent 8 months running the most expensive political trial in New York history. After hearing Afeni’s defense, the jury deliberated for less than 45 minutes before acquitting her of all 150 charges. She walked out free on May 12, 1971. One month later, on June 16, she gave birth to Tupac Shakur.

15/06/2026

In 1887, the Mississippi economy was a trap. White landowners used the sharecropping system to keep formerly enslaved people tied to the land through inescapable debt. It was designed so a Black farmer could never break free.

Isaiah Montgomery knew the only way to survive was to own the dirt. He and his cousin Benjamin Green put their cash together and bought 840 acres of swampy wilderness in the Mississippi Delta.

They cleared the land by hand and built Mound Bayou. It was a town owned and run entirely by Black people. Because they held the deeds, they held the power. Mound Bayou had its own Black-owned banks, a post office, and its own laws.

To make sure the white establishment could never use their money to take over the town, Montgomery made a strict law. He banned white people from owning property inside the city limits.

12/06/2026

Medgar Evers didn’t just march.

He hit the white establishment of Jackson, Mississippi, right in their wallets.
He organized a massive boycott against white-owned stores that gladly took Black money but refused to hire Black workers.
Many of those store owners he was bankrupting weren’t just businessmen. They were the leaders of the White Citizens’ Council, the “country club Klan.”
When those business owners realized they couldn’t stop his boycott, they used their power to start up violently racist atmosphere against him.
On this exact day, June 12, 1963, a member of the Council hid in the bushes with a rifle and shot Evers in the back in his driveway.
And the establishment’s complicity didn’t stop at the murder.
When the murderer went to trial, the Councill publicly funded his defense and secretly used a state agency to rig the jury so he would walk free.
TWICE.
They didn’t just kill Medgar Evers because he asked for equality. They murdered Evers because he was messing up their money.

09/06/2026

If you look at a photograph of James C. Napier, the first thing you notice is his extremely light complexion. Born to free Black parents in 1845, his proximity to whiteness gave him a massive advantage in the Jim Crow South. He was able to navigate white spaces, attend Oberlin College, and gain a high-level financial and legal education that most Black Americans were violently denied.

But Napier refused to simply assimilate and abandon his community. He weaponized his access.

By 1904, white-owned banks in Nashville intentionally suffocated Black economic growth by refusing to hold Black wealth or approve business loans. Napier took the financial mechanics he learned behind closed doors, mobilized his community, and built the One-Cent Savings Bank.

By owning the institution outright, Napier gave Black citizens the leverage to bypass the white monopoly entirely. He infiltrated the system, took the blueprint, and built an independent financial fortress that is still operating today.

07/06/2026

In 1987, major record labels controlled the means of production. To record an album, shoot a music video, or rehearse a tour, Black artists were forced to rent out corporate studios and Hollywood soundstages. Labels weaponized this reliance on their infrastructure to dictate budgets and control creative output.
Prince refused to be dependent on the system. Instead of renting, he took $10 million of his own money, bought nine acres of land in Chanhassen, Minnesota, and built Paisley Park.
This wasn’t a mansion; it was a completely autonomous 65,000-square-foot production park. He built four state-of-the-art recording studios, a 12,500-square-foot soundstage, costume design departments, and video editing suites under one roof.
By owning the physical infrastructure, he completely severed his reliance on the corporate machine. Prince ensured that a record label could never turn off his lights or lock him out of the studio. He didn’t just fight the industry; he built his own.

06/06/2026

By June 5, 1956, the Montgomery Bus Boycott was bleeding the white-owned transit system dry, but walking alone wasn’t going to desegregate the bus lines.

The white establishment was intentionally tangling Rosa Parks’ case up in the local courts, hoping to stall the movement.
They expected the red tape to exhaust the Black community into getting back on the buses.
But civil rights attorney Fred Gray had already decided to deliver a legal kill-shot.
He needed plaintiffs who had already fought the bus system and were fearless enough to sue the city.
He called Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, Mary Louise Smith, and Claudette Colvin.
When they took the stand in federal court, the state’s attorneys tried everything they could to intimidate them.
They didn’t flinch.
They stood their ground and explained exactly how they had been treated, with Claudette Colvin shining as the star witness.
Seventy years ago today, the federal panel officially declared Montgomery’s bus segregation laws unconstitutional.
While the bus boycott was a massive public display of force, real change came via the courts.
These four women beat Jim Crow, and proved that this type of organized protest could actually win.

04/06/2026

On June 4, 1967, Muhammad Ali was facing five years in prison for refusing the Vietnam draft.

Boxing commissions had just stripped his heavyweight title, erasing millions of dollars in fighting purses overnight. The establishment expected the Black athletic community to quietly distance themselves to protect their own paychecks.

Instead, NFL star Jim Brown took action. He gathered 11 of the nation’s top Black athletes including Bill Russell and a young Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Cleveland. They didn’t show up just to issue a polite statement. They interrogated Ali behind closed doors for over two hours to test the absolute sincerity of his religious convictions.

Once satisfied, they stepped in front of the press to publicly rally behind him. These men risked their own salaries, endorsements, and public standing to create a unified wall of Black athletic power. They proved that when the system tried to isolate Ali, the most powerful Black men in America would stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him.

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