Most people think Memorial Day came from Congress. It didn’t. The real story starts with freed Black Americans in 1865. The black history of Memorial Day is powerful — and it’s been overlooked for too long.
The Southern Delaware Alliance for Racial Justice (SDARJ) recently hosted a powerful and eye-opening African American historical bus tour through Western Sussex County.
Samuel Eli Cornish was born in 1795 to free parents of mixed race and lived in the vicinity of Georgetown in Sussex County. A journalist, he was also an ordained Presbyterian minister, abolitionist, and publisher.
Long before West Fourth Street was renamed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Way, the corner of Fourth and DuPont Avenue in Lewes, Delaware held one of the most vital institutions in the region’s Black community: the Happy Day Club.
The Supreme Court’s 2026 ruling weakened the Voting Rights Act’s protections against racial gerrymandering. Here’s what the decision means and why organizations like SDARJ and the ACLU are essential to the next chapter of the fight against systemic racism.
Of the 50 states in the U.S., Delaware is among only 13 that have legally mandated the instruction of Black history in grades K-12 in public schools. HB 198, passed in 2021, includes eight minimum content areas. One of these requires instruction on “…the history and culture of Black people prior to the African and Black Diaspora, including contributions to…art.”
