As America’s Civil War raged, with the enslavement of millions of people hanging in the balance, African Americans didn’t just sit on the sidelines. Whether enslaved, escaped or born free, many sought to actively affect the outcome. From fighting on bloody battlefields to ...read more

The Day of the Dead or Día de Muertos is an ever-evolving holiday that traces its  earliest roots to the Aztec people in what is now central Mexico. The Aztecs used skulls to honor the dead a millennium before the Day of the Dead celebrations emerged. Skulls, like the ones once ...read more

“The whites won't like it.” When a small-town Texas funeral home, using these words, refused to hold a wake for decorated World War II veteran Felix Longoria, the ensuing controversy sent the fight for Mexican American civil rights soaring onto the national stage—with some help ...read more