In 1780, the proclamation “all men are born free and equal,” rang out from the central square in the small town of Sheffield in western Massachusetts. The line was from the state’s newly ratified constitution, read aloud for a proud public to hear. America’s war for independence ...read more
It’s not often that a little-known chapter from one of the most important books of the 20th century emerges into the public sphere. Especially one in which a prominent civil-rights figure delivers a stern rebuke to his race. In July 2018, the Schomburg Center for Research in ...read more
Born into slavery before the American Revolution, Jude Hall fought valiantly in several of the war’s most crucial battles, earning the nickname “Old Rock” for his strength and heroism. Yet while he would gain his freedom after the war, and a small plot of land in Exeter, New ...read more
For his first 107 years, Richard Overton lived in relative anonymity. A World War II veteran who fought in the Pacific, he could usually be found post-retirement on the porch of his Austin, Texas, home, smoking cigars and chatting up his extensive circle of family and friends. ...read more
Frederick Douglass, the most influential black man in 19th-century America, wrote 1,200 pages of autobiography, one of the most impressive performances of memoir in the nation’s history. The three texts included Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave ...read more
Segregation is the practice of requiring separate housing, education and other services for people of color. Segregation was made law several times in 18th and 19th-century America as some believed that black and white people were incapable of coexisting. In the lead-up to the ...read more
The history of African-Americans begins with slavery, as white European settlers first brought Africans to the continent to serve as slaves. The fate of slaves in the United States would divide the nation during the Civil War. And after the war, the racist legacy of slavery would ...read more
Idlewild, Michigan was once known as “The Black Eden”—a resort where black writers, business people, physicians and entertainers spent their summers in a racially segregated country. In its earliest days, you could run into W.E.B. Du Bois; in its later years, you could catch an ...read more
When Duke Ellington and his band toured the segregated South in the early 1930s, they encountered racism wherever they went. A gorgeous black performer also traveled with the band—Frederika “Fredi” Washington. Lithe and light-skinned, she was pale enough to “pass” as white in the ...read more
History is usually written by the winners. But that wasn’t the case when The Birth of a Nation was released on February 8, 1915. In just over three hours, D.W. Griffith’s controversial epic film about the Civil War and Reconstruction depicted the Ku Klux Klan as valiant saviors ...read more
Martha Gadley’s marriage was a nightmare. When her husband drank, he turned increasingly violent. One night, he used an ax to chop a hole in the floor and threatened to push her into the room below. He refused to bring her water when she was sick. When she left the house, he ...read more
Hiram Rhodes Revels arrived on Capitol Hill to take his seat as the first black member of the U.S. Congress in 1870. But first, the Mississippi Republican faced Democrats determined to block him. The Constitution requires senators to hold citizenship for at least nine years, and ...read more
Among the white supremacist members of the Ku Klux Klan, Ron Stallworth stood out for a couple reasons: he was an undercover officer and he was a black man. In the fall of 1978, at the Colorado Springs Police Department, Stallworth saw an ad in the local newspaper calling for new ...read more
In 1926, a self-taught musician named Big Bill Broonzy found his way to Chicago. A sharecropper turned soldier, he had left Mississippi and headed north to escape the pervasive racism of the Jim Crow South along with thousands of others of African-Americans in the Great ...read more
Journalist Ida B. Wells was already out of town when she realized that an editorial she’d written had caused a riot. In 1892, Wells had left Memphis to attend a conference in Philadelphia, when the office of the newspaper she co-owned was destroyed and her co-editor was run out ...read more
On the evening of June 17, 2015, Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old baby-faced white supremacist, walked into a prayer group at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. After sitting quietly for nearly an hour, he stood up, pulled out a ...read more
One night in October 1983, two white men waited outside a local dance club near Sunny Side, Georgia for a black man, Timothy Coggins. Coggins was young, exuberant, loved to dance—and was known to date white women. When Coggins emerged, according to court testimony, they lured him ...read more
Like many veterans of the killing fields of World War I, Horace Pippin had a tough time shaking off the memories. So in the decade after the war he captured them, and tamed them, inside sketch-filled journals. He had no dearth of stories to tell. There was the terrified young ...read more
He was known as the Galveston Giant—a boxer who fought his way toward the first world heavyweight title held by an African-American. But in 1912, Jack Johnson became something else: a wanted man. Accused of violating the Mann Act, which forbade transporting a woman across state ...read more
The civil rights movement was a fight for equal rights under the law for African Americans during the 1950s and 1960s. Centuries of prejudice and discrimination fueled the crusade, but World War II and its aftermath were arguably the main catalysts. A. Philip Randolph’s crusade ...read more
For most black Americans descended from enslaved Africans, there’s no way of tracing back where their ancestors came from. There’s also no way of discovering, as Malcolm X emphasized, their “true family name.” The slave trade ripped families apart, and records from slave ships ...read more
Is there any good way to teach children about lynching? After attending the opening of a powerful new memorial and museum, which together explore some of the most painful aspects of American history, I wondered about the prospect of returning there with my 12-year-old son. My ...read more
The Rosewood Massacre was an attack on the predominantly African-American town of Rosewood, Florida, in 1923 by large groups of whites. The town was entirely destroyed by the end of the violence, and the residents were driven out permanently. The story was mostly forgotten until ...read more
As the freight train whisked its way over the Alabama rails in 1931, nine boys’ lives were changed forever. The details of their skirmish with a group of white men and two women on the train are still unclear. But by the end of the train ride, nine young men—all African-American, ...read more
