Civil Rights
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
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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
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 Wikimania 2026 group photograph | |
| Type | Informal organization of individual contributors, chapters, user groups and thematic organizations |
|---|---|
Region served | Worldwide |
| Services |
|
| Website | wikimedia |
The Wikimedia movement is the global community of contributors to the Wikimedia projects, including Wikipedia.[1][2] This community directly builds and administers these projects[3] with the commitment of achieving this using open standards and software.[4] It has been described by New Yorker staff writer Margaret Talbot as an important "bulwark" against misinformation and an assault on reliable sources, contributing to an informed citizenry.[5]
First created around and by the Wikipedia's community of volunteer editors, known as Wikipedians, it has since expanded to other projects like Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata and volunteer software engineers and developers contributing to the software used to power Wikimedia, MediaWiki.
As of 2026,[update] Wikimedia's content projects include:
Other supporting projects in the Wikimedia movement include:
The Wikimedia community includes a number of communities devoted to single wikis:
A multilingual cross-project community developed on the Meta-Wiki (meta.wikimedia.org) where translation and governance discussions happen.
The Wikipedia community, known as Wikipedians, is the community of contributors of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. It consists of editors, some operating Wikipedia bots, and administrators. The Arbitration Committee (or ArbCom) is a court of last resort for disputes on Wikipedia.[6]
Wikipedians in residence are Wikipedians and Wikimedians who collaborate with a cultural institution to help integrate its work into the projects.
Thematic organizations are charities, similar to chapters, founded to support Wikimedia projects in a subject focal area. As of 2021[update] there are two such organizations.[7][8][9] WikiPortraits, started in 2024, is a group of photographers, funded by the WMF, working to improve Wikipedia's access to freely-licensed photos of notable people.[10][11]
National and regional community groups have incorporated chapters, charitable organizations that support Wikimedia projects and their participants in specified countries and geographical regions. As of 2021[update] there are 39 chapters.[12] Over time the agreements between chapters and WMF became more formalized.[13]
Wikimedia Deutschland (WMDE) is the oldest chapter, holding its first meeting in 2004. As of 2016, it had a budget of €20 million.[12][14] Some chapters such as WMDE get some of their funds directly from grants and supporting memberships. Some others get their funds primarily from annual plan grants from WMF. As of 2019, roughly 10% of the WMF budget is distributed in this way to chapters and thematic organizations.[7]
The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) is an American non-profit and charitable organization headquartered in San Francisco. It owns the domain names and maintains most of the movement's websites.[15] According to WMF's 2015 financial statements, in 2015 WMF had a budget of US$72 million, spending US$52 million on its operation, and increasing its reserves to US$82 million.[16] WMF is primarily funded by donations with the average donation being $15.[17]
WMF was founded in 2003 by Jimmy Wales so that there would be an independent charitable entity responsible for the domains and trademarks, and so that Wikipedia and its sister projects could be funded through non-profit means in the future. Its purpose was "... to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally."[18][19][20]
There are over 800 language editions of different Wikimedia projects, each with groups of editors working on areas of shared interest. Some have Wikiprojects[21] with their own project pages, membership lists, and open task trackers. Some also register as community user groups to participate in movement governance, use community logos outside of the wikis, and receive grants for events and projects. As of 2023[update], there are over 140 user groups.[22]
The Wikimedia movement has always been a movement of writers (and curators) rather than readers.
The encyclopedia's huge fan base became such a drain on Bomis's resources that Mr. Wales, and co-founder Larry Sanger, thought of a radical new funding model – charity.
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
The Wikimedia movement is the global community of contributors to the Wikimedia projects, including Wikipedia. This community directly builds and administers these projects with the commitment of achieving this using open standards and software. It has been described by New Yorker staff writer Margaret Talbot as an important "bulwark" against misinformation and an assault on reliable sources, contributing to an informed citizenry. First created around and by the Wikipedia's community of volunteer editors, known as Wikipedians, it has since expanded to other projects like Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata and volunteer software engineers and developers contributing to the software used to power Wikimedia, MediaWiki.
Wikimedia UK (WMUK), also known as Wikimedia United Kingdom, is a registered charity established to support volunteers in the United Kingdom who work on Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia. As such, it is a Wikimedia chapter approved by the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), which owns and hosts those projects. Wikimedia UK started out as Wiki Educational Resources Limited (WER), but due to financial difficulties and other problems the organisation dissolved, and was replaced by Wiki UK Limited. After its first attempt to gain charitable status in 2009 failed, the group subsequently made changes to its charter in order to satisfy the charity criteria, and was recognised as a registered charity in England and Wales in 2011. During the same year, WMUK added full-time staff and established a permanent office in London, England. The chapter has several collaborations with museums and other institutions, and has organised events for volunteers aimed at adding content to Foundation projects. In its early years, several of the organisation's board members were involved in controversies related to their contributions to Wikipedia, including claims that the Gibraltarpedia collaboration organised by a trustee was being used for promotional purposes.
Wikimedia Israel (Hebrew: ויקימדיה ישראל; Arabic: ويكيميديا إسرائيل) is an Israeli nonprofit organization working in cooperation with the Wikimedia Foundation to promote knowledge and education in Israel through the collection and dissemination of free content and the initiation of projects to facilitate access to databases. Wikimedia Israel supports the community of Wikipedia volunteers, recruits new editors, establishes collaborations and partnerships, organizes events and conferences, and promotes the exposure of the public and the media to Wikipedia and the importance of free and shared content. In addition to Wikipedia editors, the organization initiates and supports the work of other volunteers (Wikimedia volunteers) who take part in activities organized by the organization and implements its projects and initiatives. Wikimedia Israel was founded in 2007. It is one of 41 recognized chapters (national nonprofit organizations created to promote the interests of Wikimedia projects locally) around the world. Wikimedia Israel is the only chapter that operates in a Hebrew-speaking environment, as well as an Arabic-speaking environment. On July 2, 2014, the speaker of Wikimedia Israel won the Roaring Lion Award from ISPRA (Israel Public Relations Association) in the Technology and Mobile category, for the PR work on the Hebrew Wikipedia 10th anniversary and collaboration with TV Channel 2.
The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (WMF) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, and registered there as a charitable foundation. It is most known for hosting Wikipedia, one of the world's most visited websites. It also hosts and operates 14 related open collaboration projects, and supports the development of MediaWiki, which is the wiki software that underpins them. The foundation was established in 2003 in St. Petersburg, Florida by Jimmy Wales, as a nonprofit way to fund Wikipedia and other wiki projects that had previously been hosted by Bomis, Wales's for-profit company. The Wikimedia Foundation provides the technical and organizational infrastructure to enable members of the public to develop wiki-based content in languages across the world. The foundation does not write or curate any of the content of any associated projects. Instead, this is done by volunteer editors, such as the Wikipedians. However, it does collaborate with a network of individual volunteers and affiliated organizations, such as Wikimedia chapters, thematic organizations, and user groups. The foundation finances itself mainly through millions of small donations from readers and editors, collected through email campaigns and annual fundraising banners placed on Wikipedia and its sister projects. These are complemented by grants from philanthropic organizations and tech companies and, since 2022, by services income from Wikimedia Enterprise. As of 2023, it has employed over 700 staff and contractors, with net assets of $255 million and an endowment that has surpassed $100 million.
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 →Joe Louis.
