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An unkempt cemetery

When Black History Is Unearthed, Who Gets to Speak for the Dead?

Efforts to rescue African American burial grounds and remains have exposed deep conflicts over inheritance and representation.
by Jill Lepore via The New Yorker on September 24, 2021
Portrait of Robert Carter III

Like Washington and Jefferson, He Championed Liberty. Unlike the Founders, He Freed his Slaves

The little-known story of Robert Carter III.
by Eliot C. McLaughlin via CNN on September 5, 2021
African American men in suits, sitting outside of a drugstore

The Game Is Changing for Historians of Black America

For centuries, stories of Black communities have been limited by racism in the historical record. Now we can finally follow the trails they left behind.
by William Sturkey via The Atlantic on May 4, 2021
Map of Indian Territory

The Troubling Paradox of Slavery in Indian Territory

My ancestors were enslaved—but their freedom came at a price for others.
by Alaina E. Roberts via TIME on April 14, 2021
Eric Sheppard standing in front of two log cabins in the Great Dismal Swamp

The Great Dismal Swamp was a Refuge for the Enslaved. Their Descendants Want to Preserve It.

A Virginia congressman has filed a bill to make the swamp a National Heritage Site.
by Meagan Flynn via Washington Post on April 11, 2021
Statue of "Freedom" on top of the U.S. Capitol

Philip Reed, The Enslaved Man Who Rescued Freedom

The ironies abound in the story of Reed, who made it possible to erect the statue that remains on the top of the Capitol dome today.
by Megan Smolenyak via Medium on January 10, 2021
A cemetery.

New Orleans: Vanishing Graves

Holt Cemetery has been filled to capacity many times over; each gravesite has been used for dozens of burials.
by Charlie Lee via The American Scholar on December 7, 2020
A shackle hanging from a post.

A Massive New Effort to Name Millions Sold Into Bondage During The Transatlantic Slave Trade

Enslaved.org will allow anyone to search for individual enslaved people around the globe in one central online location.
by Sydney Trent via Retropolis on December 1, 2020
Descent book cover

Identity as a Hall of Mirrors

A review of "Descent" – a family story that blends the real world and the imagination.
by Jesi Buell via The Rumpus on October 7, 2020

The Ancestry Project

Sometimes I learned more Black history in a week at home than I did in a lifetime of Februarys at school.
by Mariah Stovall via The Paris Review on June 29, 2020

I Am a Descendant of James Madison and His Slave

My whole life, my mother told me, ‘Always remember — you’re a Madison. You come from African slaves and a president.’
by Bettye Kearse via Zora on March 17, 2020
A statue depicting a traveler of the Great Migration.

It’s OK If the Story of Black Americans Begins Right Here on This Land

America should be ashamed of slavery, but black Americans do not bear the burden of shame.
by Natalie Y. Moore via Chicago Sun-Times on November 21, 2019
Open field by a highway.

The Departed and Dismissed of Richmond

Richmond has a long-forgotten graveyard that is the resting place for hundreds of slaves. Will a new railway be built over it?
by Samantha Willis via Scalawag on August 5, 2019

Beyond Romantic Advertisements: Ancestry.com, Genealogy, and White Supremacy

On Ancestry's dangerous move to make it harder to discern which white families owned slaves.
by Adam H. Domby via Black Perspectives on May 10, 2019

'This Is Surreal': Descendants of Slaves and Slaveowners Meet On US Plantation

At Prospect Hill, people came from as far as Liberia for an unlikely gathering that led to a scene of visible emotion – with ‘a lot to talk about.'
by Alan Huffman via The Guardian on November 16, 2017
An "Information Wanted" advertisement from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Courtesy of the National Archives.

Last Seen: Finding Family After Slavery

Last Seen is recovering stories of families separated in the domestic slave trade. The following explains how the project engages with these family histories.
via Villanova University on August 1, 2016
Painting of enslaved people running away from hands grabbing at them.

Remarkable Documents Lay Bare New York’s History of Slavery

A newly digitized set of records reveals the plight and bravery of enslaved people in the North.
by Carolyn Eastman via Smithsonian on September 3, 2024
Five generations of a family pose at the plantation where they were enslaved, soon after Union forces arrived in Beaufort, South Carolina, 1863.

More Than 100 U.S. Political Elites Have Family Links to Slavery

Among America's political elite, 5 living presidents, 2 Supreme Court justices, 11 governors, and 100 legislators have ancestors who enslaved Black people.
by Tom Lasseter, Lawrence Delevingne, Makini Brice, Donna Bryson, Nicholas P. Brown, Tom Bergin via Reuters on June 27, 2023
Detail of faces on a family tree.

The Pocahontas Exception: America’s Ancestor Obsession

The ‘methods and collections’ of genealogists are political because they have a great deal in common with genealogy as a way of doing history.
by Thomas W. Laqueur via London Review of Books on March 30, 2023
Black and white photograph of William Still, sitting, pasted against a blue tinted backdrop of a U.S. state map

The Forgotten Father of the Underground Railroad

The author of a book about William Still unearths new details about the leading Black abolitionist—and reflects on his lost legacy.
by Andrew K. Diemer via Smithsonian on November 9, 2022
A large federal style brick house, the William Paca House in Annapolis, Md.

I Searched for Answers About My Enslaved Ancestor. I Found Questions About America

'Did slavery make home always somewhere else?'
by Imani Perry via TIME on January 13, 2022
Artwork by Alanna Fields of an enslaved individual.

The Dark Underside of Representations of Slavery

Will the Black body ever have the opportunity to rest in peace?
by Latria Graham via The Atlantic on September 16, 2021
Photo of the 1870 U.S. Census, with lines highlighted in orange, yellow, and green

The Strange Case of Booker T. Washington's Birthday

If Booker T. Washington never knew when he was born, how are we so sure about it now?
by Bill Black via Contingent on April 5, 2021
Priest standing at pulpit. Caption: Timothy Kesicki, S.J., apologizes for the Jesuits’ sin of owning and selling people. Gaston Hall, Georgetown University, April 18, 2017.

The Jesuits and Slavery

Despite extensive historiography, most people are not aware that the Society of Jesus owned people.
by Adam Rothman via Journal Of Jesuit Studies on December 15, 2020

Cousins Like Us: Black Lives and John Maynard Keynes

Reflections on the famous economist through the prism of the author's own mixed-race family.
by Taylor Beck via Los Angeles Review of Books on September 4, 2020
Chart of names of and payments to enslaved people.

Confederate Slave Payrolls Shed Light on Lives of 19th-Century African American Families

The Confederate Army required owners to loan their slaves to the military. The National Archives has now digitized those records.
by Victoria Macchi via U.S. National Archives on March 3, 2020
A map showing where Laurel Cemetery is

The Grim History Hidden Under a Baltimore Parking Lot

After an African-American cemetery was bulldozed, families wondered what happened to the graves.
by Sarah Laskow via Atlas Obscura on October 25, 2019

The Hidden Story of Two African American Women

An historian discovers the portraits of two women all bound up in the pages of a 19th-century book.
by Martha S. Jones, Kate Clarke Lemay via The Conversation on September 9, 2019
Malcolm X

Reflections on Malcom X

What we can learn from him and his legacy.
by Nathan J. Robinson, Oren Nimni via Current Affairs on August 28, 2019
partner

Freedom's Fortress

Exploring Virginia’s Fort Monroe – the place where slavery began in British North America, and where, during the Civil War, it began to unravel.
via Future Of America's Past on August 8, 2019
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