One Mic Black History

One Mic Black History

One Mic Black History brings you the untold stories that shaped Black lives and reshaped America. Each episode uncovers a hidden chapter of our history, told by us, for us

Episodes

December 8, 2025 14 mins

Two magazines changed the mirror. Ebony and Jet put everyday Black life on the cover, turned a touring fashion show into a cosmetics empire, and forced Madison Avenue to see—then spend. This episode shows how pictures became power.Audio Onemichistory.comFollow me on Instagram: @onemic_historyFollow me on Substack: https://onemicblackhistorypodcast.substack.com/Follow me on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@onemic_historyPlease supp...

Mark as Played

In 1968, Chicago after Dr. King’s murder. Windows are boarded. Stores sit dark. McDonald’s needs a plan. Operation Breadbasket has one: put Black owners in Black neighborhoods. In December, Herman Petty opens the first Black owned McDonald’s in Chicago. It works, More owners follow and a pipeline is created. But there is a catch. McDonald’s owns the land, sets the fees, and picks the sites. This is how a Black franchise empire crea...

Mark as Played

Hot sauce isn’t just a condiment in Black kitchens, its a passport. From jars of pepper‑vinegar on the stove to a bottle parked on every table, here’s how heat became culture, comfort, and pride and why so many of us still put it on everythingAudio Onemichistory.comFollow me on Instagram: @onemic_historyFollow me on Substack: https://onemicblackhistorypodcast.substack.com/Follow me on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@onemic_histor...

Mark as Played

On Jim Crow roads, the lifeline wasn’t a law, it was a gas station. Esso used maps, credit, and a nationwide dealer network to turn the Green Book into safe miles.Audio Onemichistory.comFollow me on Instagram: @onemic_historyFollow me on Substack: https://onemicblackhistorypodcast.substack.com/Follow me on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@onemic_historyPlease support our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=25697914Buy me a Cof...

Mark as Played
September 29, 2025 8 mins

Johnson Products brand financed Soul Train when others wouldn’t. This is the story of the Afro Sheen sponsorship, the dollars behind it, and how they built an institutionAudio Onemichistory.comFollow me on Instagram: @onemic_historyFollow me on Substack: https://onemicblackhistorypodcast.substack.com/Follow me on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@onemic_historyPlease support our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=25697914Buy m...

Mark as Played
September 22, 2025 11 mins

In the Jim Crow South, Black newspapers like the Chicago Defender were banned, seized, and silenced. But the porters found a way. Tucked in suitcases, hidden in stacks of linens, they smuggled news, hope, and opportunity across the South for just 2 cents.

onemichistory.com

Follow me on Instagram: @onemic_historyFollow me on Substack: https://onemicblackhistorypodcast.substack.com/Follow me on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@onemic_...

Mark as Played
September 8, 2025 8 mins

Under Jim Crow, Pepsi did what others wouldn’t, hired a Black sales team and put Black folks in its ads. Sales soared but then came the internal backlash. How did a nickel soda become quiet powerhouse and who tried to kill it? This is why Pepsi became ‘the Black soda.Audio Onemichistory.comFollow me on Instagram: @onemic_historyFollow me on Substack: https://onemicblackhistorypodcast.substack.com/Follow me on Threads: https://www.t...

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September 4, 2025 10 mins

This book sold the same stove, suit, or pair of boots to anyone at the same printed price. When Rural Free Delivery brought it to the mailbox, the Sears, Roebuck catalog landed on Black families’ porches it turned shopping from a ritual of humiliation into something closer to dignity. Here’s how the Sears mail‑order catalog quietly beat Jim Crow
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In 1985, In a stand off with the Black organization MOVE. Philadelphia police dropped a bomb on a Black neighborhood, killing 11 people and leveling an entire city block.

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In 1866, Congress decided to form the first all-Black Army regiments in peacetime: the 9th and 10th Cavalry, and the 24th and 25th Infantry. For many Black men, especially those just freed from slavery or who’d worn Union blue during the war, the military offered something rare: steady work, a chance for education, and maybe a little dignity in the era of Jim Crow.

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Imagine calling an ambulance because someone you love is dying. You need urgent medical help—but instead of paramedics, The police shows up at your door. No medical training, no emergency equipment just the police vehicle. Hard to imagine, but this was real life for Black communities throughout America just 60 years ago.
This is the true story of everyday people from Pittsburgh’s historic Hill District ended up inventing emergency m...
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In the aftermath of the Civil War, Fourth of July celebrations took on deep new meanings. While Confederate sympathizers hid away in bitterness, African Americans across the South embraced the day with joy, commemorating their newfound freedom with fireworks, speeches, and readings of the Emancipation Proclamation.

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For over a century, Black bodies were used—examined, experimented on, and exploited in the name of science. From plantation doctors perfecting procedures on enslaved women without anesthesia, to the government letting Black men die slow deaths in Tuskegee, to the stolen cells of a unsuspecting Black women changing medical history.

This isn’t ancient history. It’s a pattern. And it shaped the way Black communities view medicine, hosp...
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Imagine waking to helicopters overhead and soldiers marching down your street—not due to war or disaster, but because your own government decided your voice had become too powerful. In 2025, this became reality in Los Angeles.

President Trump deployed 2,000 federal troops into California, branding immigration protests as an "insurrection." But ask Black activists, educators, and community leaders there—it felt all-too familiar: anot...
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Imagine an American city street around 1900, the sidewalks spill over as children play tag in the roadway, vendors call out to neighbors, and people wander wherever they please. The street is alive—a true communal space, owned by everyone. No crosswalks, no traffic lights—just freedom and connection.

But this all changed almost overnight. What replaced those vibrant streets? Automobiles, Laws, and, most shockingly, a tool to control...
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Born from the pain, joy, and raw truth of Black life in the Deep South, the blues gave voice to what the church often couldn’t touch desire, heartbreak, defiance, and survival. While gospel promised heaven, the blues told the truth about life on Earth.

This clash shook the Black community, especially as sacred and secular worlds collided in juke joints and church pews. But beneath the controversy was a sound that shaped American mus...
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May 19, 2025 12 mins
On May 15, 2025, flames tore through Louisiana's Nottoway Plantation, reducing one of America's largest, largest most lavish antebellum mansions to ashes. Behind the grand columns and gleaming chandeliers lay buried truths of pain, oppression, and exploitation, Black stories glossed over in the narrative of American history.

Join me today while we discuss the destruction of Nottoway

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Sinners isn’t just a vampire story, it’s a mirror. Set in Jim Crow Mississippi, it sinks its teeth into the real horrors Black folks faced: chain gangs, racial passing, and survival by any means. And it doesn’t stop there, Mississippi’s Chinese communities had their own battles, caught between exclusion and uneasy alliances.

Join us for Part 2 of my breakdown of Ryan Coogler’s Sinners

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In 1932 Mississippi, twin brothers Smoke and Stack return home seeking redemption, only to awaken chilling horrors from their past. Step into a shadowy world filled with juke joints, cotton plantations, and dark Southern secrets. But how much of "Sinners" draws from actual events in Black history?

Join us for a journey, revealing that sometimes the scariest monsters aren't vampires, they're human. 

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In the world of breakfast staples, few names echo through American kitchens like Aunt Jemima. Yet, beneath the familiar face lies a story deeply intertwined with America's racial past. From minstrel shows to modern grocery aisles, Aunt Jemima's image has carried more than just a pancake mix; it has carried the weight of cultural stereotypes. This emblem of comfort food is also a stark reminder of our uncomfortable history.

Join us a...
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