Portrait of Harriet Tubman, in a field.

There Is Room for Our Black Heroes To Be Human

“Night Flyer” expands Harriet Tubman’s legacy to include her family, community and “eco-spiritual worldview.”
Harriet Tubman.

How a Young Harriet Tubman Found Solace in Syncretic Religion

Childhood trauma led Minty Ross (Harriet Tubman) to seek divine intervention.
Members of the Mason family, St. Inigoes, Maryland, circa 1890–1909.

How Bondage Built the Church

Swarns’s book about a sale of enslaved people by Jesuit priests to save Georgetown University reminds us that the legacy of slavery is the legacy of resistance.
Drawing of Phillis Wheatley writing at a desk.

The Great American Poet Who Was Named After a Slave Ship

A new biography of Phillis Wheatley places her in her era and shows the ways she used poetry to criticize the existence of slavery.
Harriet Powers patchwork pictorial quilt.

How the Survivors of Slavery Used Material Objects to Preserve Intergenerational Wisdom

On the importance of material ownership in the context of Black history.
Three children playing on a frozen river.

The Ohio River

When the river freezes, lives change.
Boats moored in the water in front of a row of houses on the beach. Photo by Amani Willett.

Nantucket Doesn’t Belong to the Preppies

The island was once a place of working-class ingenuity and Black daring.
An embroidered sack that says "My great grandmother Rose, mother of Ashley gave her this sack when, she was sold at age 9 in South Carolina, it held a tattered dress 3 handfulls of pecans a braid of Rose's hair. Told her it be filled with my Love always, she never saw her again, Ashley is my grandmother, Ruth Middleton 1921

To Find the History of African American Women, Look to Their Handiwork

Our foremothers wove spiritual beliefs, cultural values, and historical knowledge into their flax, wool, silk, and cotton webs.
Erica Armstrong Dunbar and Tiya Miles.

Talk of Souls in Slavery Studies

The co-winners of the 2018 Frederick Douglass Book Prize on researching slavery.

Fresh Takes on the Declaration of Independence

A new look at the Declaration of Independence from 24 scholars across the country.