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Explore the people, places, events, achievements, struggles and stories that shaped our journey.
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
Innovation, patents, science, technology and world-changing contributions.
Pioneers, champions, Negro Leagues, records, activism and excellence.
Meet the people whose lives, choices and achievements shaped the journey.
Black towns, communities, institutions and places where history happened.
Moments that changed communities, movements, institutions and the nation.
Wilmington, North Carolina once had a thriving Black middle class and an elected interracial government. In 1898 white supremacists used violence to overthrow that government, kill Black residents and drive many others from the city.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
An orphan is a child whose parents have died, are unknown, or have permanently abandoned them. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd edition, defines the term: "One deprived by death of father or mother, or (usu.) of both; a fatherless or motherless child."[1] In some languages, such as Swedish, the term is "parentless" and more ambiguous about whether the parents are dead, unknown or absconded, but typically refers to a child or younger adult.[citation needed]
In common usage, only a child who has lost both parents due to death is called an orphan. When referring to animals, only the mother's condition is usually relevant (i.e., if the female parent has gone, the offspring is an orphan, regardless of the father's condition).[2]
Various groups use different definitions to identify orphans. One legal definition used in the United States is a minor bereft through "death or disappearance of, abandonment or desertion by, or separation or loss from, both parents".[3]
In everyday use, an orphan does not have any surviving parent to care for them. However, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS), and other groups label any child who has lost one parent as an orphan. In this approach, a maternal orphan is a child whose mother has died, a paternal orphan is a child whose father has died, and a double orphan is a child who has lost both parents.[4] This contrasts with the older use of half-orphan to describe children who had lost only one parent.[5]
Wars, epidemics (such as AIDS), pandemics, and poverty[6] have led to many children becoming orphans. The Second World War (1939–1945), with its massive numbers of deaths and vast population movements, left large numbers of orphans in many countries—with estimates for Europe ranging from 1,000,000 to 13,000,000. Judt (2006) estimates there were 9,000 orphaned children in Czechoslovakia, 60,000 in the Netherlands, 300,000 in Poland and 200,000 in Yugoslavia, plus many more in the Soviet Union, Germany, Italy, China and elsewhere.[7]
Orphans are relatively rare in developed countries because most children can expect both of their parents to survive their childhood. Much higher numbers of orphans exist in war-torn nations such as Afghanistan.
| Continent | Number of orphans (1000s) |
Orphans as percentage of all children |
|---|---|---|
| Africa | 34,294 | 11.9% |
| Asia | 65,504 | 6.5% |
| Latin America & Caribbean | 8,166 | 7.4% |
| Total | 107,964 | 7.6% |
| Year | Country | Orphans as % of all children | AIDS orphans as % of orphans | Total orphans | Total orphans (AIDS related) | Maternal (total) | Maternal (AIDS related) | Paternal (total) | Paternal (AIDS related) | Double (total) | Double (AIDS related) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | Botswana | 5.9 | 3.0 | 34,000 | 1,000 | 14,000 | < 100 | 23,000 | 1,000 | 2,000 | < 100 |
| Lesotho | 10.6 | 2.9 | 73,000 | < 100 | 31,000 | < 100 | 49,000 | < 100 | 8,000 | < 100 | |
| Malawi | 11.8 | 5.7 | 524,000 | 30,000 | 233,000 | 11,000 | 346,000 | 23,000 | 55,000 | 6,000 | |
| Uganda | 12.2 | 17.4 | 1,015,000 | 177,000 | 437,000 | 72,000 | 700,000 | 138,000 | 122,000 | 44,000 | |
| 1995 | Botswana | 8.3 | 33.7 | 55,000 | 18,000 | 19,000 | 7,000 | 37,000 | 13,000 | 5,000 | 3,000 |
| Lesotho | 10.3 | 5.5 | 77,000 | 4,000 | 31,000 | 1,000 | 52,000 | 4,000 | 7,000 | 1,000 | |
| Malawi | 14.2 | 24.6 | 664,000 | 163,000 | 305,000 | 78,000 | 442,000 | 115,000 | 83,000 | 41,000 | |
| Uganda | 14.9 | 42.4 | 1,456,000 | 617,000 | 720,000 | 341,000 | 1,019,000 | 450,000 | 282,000 | 211,000 | |
| 2001 | Botswana | 15.1 | 70.5 | 98,000 | 69,000 | 69,000 | 58,000 | 91,000 | 69,000 | 62,000 | 61,000 |
| Lesotho | 17.0 | 53.5 | 137,000 | 73,000 | 66,000 | 38,000 | 108,000 | 63,000 | 37,000 | 32,000 | |
| Malawi | 17.5 | 49.9 | 937,000 | 468,000 | 506,000 | 282,000 | 624,000 | 315,000 | 194,000 | 159,000 | |
| Uganda | 14.6 | 51.1 | 1,731,000 | 884,000 | 902,000 | 517,000 | 1,144,000 | 581,000 | 315,000 | 257,000 |
Famous orphans include world leaders such as Aaron Burr, Andrew Jackson, and Pedro II of Brazil; writers such as Edgar Allan Poe and Leo Tolstoy; and athletes such as Aaron Hernandez. The American orphan Henry Darger portrayed the horrible conditions of his orphanage in his artwork. Other notable orphans include entertainment greats such as Louis Armstrong, Marilyn Monroe, Babe Ruth, Ray Charles and Frances McDormand.
Orphaned characters are prevalent as literary protagonists, especially in children's and fantasy literature.[19] The lack of parents leaves the characters to pursue more exciting and adventurous lives, by freeing them from familial obligations and controls, and depriving them of more prosaic lives. It creates characters that are self-contained and introspective and who strive for affection. Orphans can metaphorically search for self-understanding by attempting to know their roots. Parents can also be allies and sources of aid for children, and removing the parents makes the character's difficulties more severe. Parents, furthermore, can be irrelevant to the theme a writer is trying to develop, and orphaning the character frees the writer from depicting such an irrelevant relationship; if one parent-child relationship is important, removing the other parent prevents complicating the necessary relationship. All these characteristics make orphans attractive characters for authors.
Orphans are common in fairy tales, such as most variants of Cinderella.
Several well-known authors have written books featuring orphans. Examples from classic literature include Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist, Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure, Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan of the Apes, Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, and J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.
More recent authors featuring orphan characters include A. J. Cronin, Lemony Snicket, A. F. Coniglio, Roald Dahl and J. K. Rowling. One recurring storyline has been the relationship that the orphan can have with an adult from outside their immediate family, as seen in Lyle Kessler's play Orphans.
Orphans are especially common as characters in comic books. Many popular heroes are orphans, including Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Robin, Flash, Captain Marvel, Captain America, and Green Arrow. Orphans are also very common among villains: Bane, Catwoman, and Magneto are examples. Lex Luthor, Deadpool, and Carnage can also be included on this list, though they killed one or both of their parents. Supporting characters befriended by the heroes are also often orphans, including the Newsboy Legion and Rick Jones.
Other famous fictional orphans include Little Orphan Annie, Anakin Skywalker, Luke Skywalker and his sister, Leia Organa, and several main characters in children's shows like Diff'rent Strokes and Punky Brewster.
Many religious texts, including the Bible and the Quran, contain the idea that helping and defending orphans is a fundamental and God-pleasing matter. The religious leaders Moses and Muhammad were orphaned as children. Several scriptural citations describe how orphans should be treated:
Bible
Qu'ran
The industrial revolution touched both villages and cities, with migration from one to the other going hand-in-hand with urban overpopulation and severe poverty. Urban population growth also led to an increase in abandonment, the poor swinging between finding work, begging or claiming social assistance from the State as a means of integrating themselves and their family, including their children, into society.
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Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
An orphan is a child whose parents have died, are unknown, or have permanently abandoned them. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd edition, defines the term: "One deprived by death of father or mother, or (usu.) of both; a fatherless or motherless child." In some languages, such as Swedish, the term is "parentless" and more ambiguous about whether the parents are dead, unknown or absconded, but typically refers to a child or younger adult. In common usage, only a child who has lost both parents due to death is called an orphan. When referring to animals, only the mother's condition is usually relevant (i.e., if the female parent has gone, the offspring is an orphan, regardless of the father's condition).
Orphan Black is a Canadian science-fiction thriller television series created by screenwriter Graeme Manson and director John Fawcett and starring Tatiana Maslany. The series focuses on Sarah Manning, one of several genetically identical human clones, and later on some of the other clones. The series raises issues about the moral and ethical implications of human cloning and its effect on identity. The series was produced by Temple Street Productions in association with BBC America and Bell Media's Space. The show premiered on March 30, 2013, on Space in Canada, and on BBC America in the United States. On June 16, 2016, the series was renewed for a fifth and final ten-episode season, which ran from June 10 to August 12, 2017. An aftershow, After the Black, began airing in the third season on Space and was acquired by BBC America for the fourth season. In April 2022, a spin-off titled Orphan Black: Echoes was announced, which premiered in June 2024 on AMC. An Orphan Black comic book series was started in 2015 but was cancelled in 2018 before the end of its contract. Orphan Black developed a loyal online fan base across social media platforms who identify as #CloneClub, a reference to those who are in-the-know in the story. Throughout its run, the series received critical acclaim and various accolades, particularly for Maslany's performances, which earned her a Primetime Emmy Award, two Critics' Choice Television Awards and two further nominations, one TCA Award and one further nomination, two Satellite Award nominations, and a Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. The series won a Peabody Award in 2013 and has been nominated for, and won, several Canadian Screen Awards.
Orphan Black: Echoes is a Canadian science fiction thriller television series created by Anna Fishko based on Orphan Black created by John Fawcett and Graeme Manson. The series stars Krysten Ritter and is set in 2052 in the same universe as Orphan Black. All 10 episodes of season one premiered on November 3, 2023, in Australia on Stan. It premiered on June 23, 2024, on AMC, AMC+ and BBC America. In September 2024, the series was canceled after one season.
Little Orphan Annie, also simply known as Annie, was a daily American comic strip created by Harold Gray and syndicated by the Tribune Media Services. The strip took its name from the 1885 poem "Little Orphant Annie" by James Whitcomb Riley, and it made its debut on August 5, 1924, in the New York Daily News. The plot followed the wide-ranging adventures of Annie, her dog Sandy and her benefactor Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks. Secondary characters include Punjab, the Asp and Mr. Am. The strip attracted adult readers with political commentary that targeted (among other things) organized labor, the New Deal and communism. Following Gray's death in 1968, several artists drew the strip and, for a time, "classic" strips were rerun. Little Orphan Annie inspired a radio show in 1930, film adaptations by RKO in 1932 and Paramount in 1938 and a Broadway musical Annie in 1977 (which was adapted on screen four times, once in 1982, once on TV in 1999, once in 2014, and a live TV production in 2021). The strip's popularity declined over the years; it was running in only 20 newspapers when it ended on June 13, 2010. The characters now appear occasionally as supporting cast in Dick Tracy.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Mae Jemison, aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992.
