Blackfacts.com: Building a Legacy for Black History Month

Blackfacts.com: Building a Legacy for Black History Month

Since its founding in 1997 by a pair of self-avowed "nerds" from MIT and Boston University, BlackFacts.com (www.blackfacts.com) has been the longest-running data-driven repository of Black History on the internet. Over its 20+-year history, this online project, founded on the concept that there were black technologists who could give back to their community, has grown from a simple labor of love to become No. 1 on all three major search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing), having its own Amazon Alexa™ Skill for the Black History Fact-Of-The-Day and garnering millions of national and international visitors and over 100,000 followers via social media and email. 

Yet despite all of that, BlackFacts.com was still a relatively unknown entity.  The founders decided to change that fact for 2018. Over the course of the past six months, BlackFacts.com has made drastic changes to what was once a text-based website and email service that simply provided Black History Fact-Of-The-Day. They have expanded their database content – with over 26,000 articles and growing. The website has been revamped with images, videos, games/quizzes, speeches and more. Every article is indexed and cross-referenced with Machine Learning to identify related people, places and events. New content and new features are being added daily to allow for a rich user experience and to bring black history to life.

Whether on desktop, tablet or smartphone – BlackFacts.com offers an interesting and appealing experience to explore the historical and contemporary contributions of people of color. Their slogan is: "Learn Black History. Teach Black History." With a partnership with Twitter and collaborative agreement with the Museum of African American History in Boston, as well as a growing relationship with schools across the country, BlackFacts.com is poised to change the way people find and explore black history, black culture and soon, black products and services.

Blackfacts.com strives to be the practical realization of the dream of W. E. B. Du Bois for the Encyclopedia Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African-American Experience.  If they are not quite there yet, then they are well on their way.

As part of the 2018 expansion, they are now making black history facts available to sponsors, schools and radio stations with an exciting Fact-Of-The-Day widget that can be plugged into ANY website and delivers Black History Facts Daily with just a couple of lines of JavaScript code. Below is a sample:

BlackFacts.com is also kicking off the #blackfacts365 campaign – "because black history is not just in February." This campaign begins on Feb. 1 as part of their partnership with Twitter and will have Black History Fact-Of-The-Day content posted to a possible audience of millions of Twitter users throughout the year.

If you have not heard about BlackFacts.com but are excited about or interested in black history and want to share that history with friends, colleagues and children, then check out www.blackfacts.com.