by Jesse Washington

(AP)—Millions of Americans endured financial calamities in the recession. But for many in the Black community, job loss has knocked them out of the middle class and back into poverty. And some experts warn of a historic reversal of hard-won economic gains that took Black people decades to achieve.

“History is going to say the Black middle class was decimated” over the past few years, said Maya Wiley, director of the Center for Social Inclusion. “But we’re not done writing history.”

AT ODDS WITH PRESIDENT—Princeton Professor Cornel West, center, eagerly shakes the hand of President Barack Obama in July 2010. Today, West calls Obama “a Black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs.” (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Algernon Austin, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy adds, “The recession is not over for Black folks.”

July 23

1900—The first Pan African conference takes place in London, England. Blacks from throughout the world gathered to plot strategies for bringing about rights for all people of African ancestry, independence from colonialism for African countries and international Black unity. This “conference” was the precursor of all the subsequent Pan African “Congresses.” Among the most prominent names present in 1900 were African-American activist and intellectual W.E.B. DuBois and West Indian lawyer H. Sylvester Williams. “Pan Africanism” became both a movement and a way of thinking.

W.E.B. DuBOIS

A Monroeville restaurant will ban children under the age of 6 from its dining area beginning July 16 after receiving noise complaints from older clientele. The small, 40-seat McDain’s Restaurant and Golf Center located in Monroeville, Pa., resides on a golf course and attracts older customers, according to ABC News.

The nationwide movement encourages Black men to drop students off on their first day of school and guard school doors to symbolize their support and protectiveness of all children earning their education.