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Framed photograph of an African-American soldier in Union uniform with wife and two daughters, circa 1863–1865.

Means-Testing Is the Foe of Freedom

After Emancipation, Black people fought for public benefits like pensions that would make their newly won citizenship meaningful.
by Matthew E. Stanley via Jacobin on April 17, 2023
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice.

Grappling With the Overthrow of Reconstruction

Two new books ask us to shift our attention away from the white vigilantes of Jim Crow and instead focus on what it meant for the survivors.
by Eric Herschthal via The New Republic on March 23, 2023
Collage of Hungerford School in Eatonville.

A Florida Town, Once Settled By Former Slaves, Now Fights Over "Sacred Land"

In Eatonville, one of the few Black towns to have survived incorporation, locals are fighting to preserve 100 acres of land from being sold to developers.
by Martha Teichner via CBS News on March 19, 2023
Two unnamed Black officers in the Union Army.

Richard Wright’s Civil War Cipher

Archival records of Black southerners' military desertion tribunals can be read as a distinct form of political action.
by Jonathan Lande via Process: A Blog for American History on February 14, 2023
The Rankin House, Ripley, Ohio.
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The Heroes of Ripley, Ohio

From Underground Railroad conductors who risked everything to present-day residents who show kindness to travelers.
by David Goodrich via HNN on February 6, 2023
Company of Black infantry at Fort Lincoln

The Civil War and Natchez U.S. Colored Troops

The Natchez USCT not only contributed to the war effort but was essential to establishing a post-war monument honoring President Lincoln and emancipation.
by Deborah Fountain via Black Perspectives on December 13, 2022
A courtroom or public civic room full of people, with white and black people sitting on opposite sides of a railing.

When Tribal Nations Expel Their Black Members

Clashes between sovereignty rights and civil rights reveal an uncomfortable and complicated story about race and belonging in America.
by Philip J. Deloria via The New Yorker on July 14, 2022
Painting of Liberian leaders and Americans deliberating

How One Historian Located Liberia’s Elusive Founding Document

The piece of paper went missing for nearly 200 years, leaving some scholars to question whether it even existed
by Amy Crawford via Smithsonian on July 7, 2022
Photograph of building at Virginia Union University
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A Formerly Enslaved Woman Helped Found a Key American University

Mary Lumpkin’s life helps us to better understand the post-Civil War push for education.
by Kristen Green via Made By History on May 10, 2022
INTERIM ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES A map of slavery laws in the United States, from 1775 to 1865.

A Reckoning With How Slavery Ended

A new book examines the ways white slaveholders were compensated, while formerly enslaved people were not.
by Eric Herschthal via The New Republic on April 15, 2022
Illustration of the shadow of Mary Lumpkin over the blueprint of Virginia Union University

The Enslaved Woman Who Liberated a Slave Jail and Transformed It Into an HBCU

Forced to bear her enslaver's children, Mary Lumpkin later forged her own path to freedom.
by Kristen Green via Smithsonian on April 4, 2022
Portraits of African American men revealed under torn copy of the Dred Scott Case.

The Painful, Cutting and Brilliant Letters Black People Wrote To Their Former Enslavers

The letters show a desire for freedom and a desperate longing to be reunited with their families.
by Jourdon Anderson, Vilet Lester, Gillian Brockell, Annie Davis, Jermain Wesley Loguen, Frederick Douglass via Retropolis on March 13, 2022
Members of the Coloured Hockey League pose with hockey sticks and trophies.

The All-Black League That Invented Hockey As We Know It

The Coloured Hockey League doesn’t get a prominent place in most tellings of hockey’s story, but its legacy is undeniable.
by Jasper Hutson via Defector on March 9, 2022
Illustration of West Ford with laborers working fields in the background, by John P. Dessereau

Did George Washington Have an Enslaved Son?

West Ford’s descendants want to prove his parentage—and save the freedmen’s village he founded.
by Jill Abramson via The New Yorker on March 4, 2022
A boulder marks the location where Brister Freeman’s house is thought to have stood.

Black People Lived in Walden Woods Long Before Henry David Thoreau

Decades before Thoreau's famous experiment, a community of formerly enslaved men and women had a much different experience of life in the woods.
by Sydney Trent via Retropolis on November 28, 2021
Illustration of the funeral procession of the late Captain Cailloux, 1863.

The Case for Posthumously Awarding André Cailloux the Congressional Medal of Honor

Cailloux’s valor, and the Black troops he led in battle, electrified northern opinion and gave federal race policy a strong jolt.
by Lawrence N. Powell via Muster on October 19, 2021
Statue of Dred Scott and wife

Allegiance, Birthright, and Race in America

What the Dred Scott v. Sandford case meant for black citizenship.
by William A. Darity Jr., Charles Ali Bey via Black Perspectives on August 4, 2021
Two hooded KKK members

The Ku Klux Klan Was Also a Bosses’ Association

The KKK violently resisted the revolutionary gains of the Civil War and Reconstruction, and sought to keep the black masses toiling in submission.
by Chad Pearson via Jacobin on July 27, 2021
Restaurant with 'Help Wanted' sign
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‘Help Wanted’ Signs Indicate Lack of Decent Job Offers, Not People Unwilling to Work

The 19th-century antecedent to today’s complaints of labor shortage.
by Samuel Niu via Made By History on June 30, 2021
Bass Reeves

The Resurrection of Bass Reeves

Today, the legendary deputy U.S. marshal is widely believed to be the real Lone Ranger. But his true legacy is even greater.
by Christian Wallace via Texas Monthly on June 22, 2021
Man is being carried by a lot of people while sitting on a chair

What Made Gilded Age Politics So Acrimonious?

Fearful of increasing participation, elites of the era attempted to rein in democracy.
by Chris Lehmann via The New Republic on June 21, 2021
Historical photo of a group of black men and women

The United States' First Civil Rights Movement

A new history charts the radical agitation around Black rights and freedom back to the early nineteenth century. 
by Kellie Carter Jackson via The Nation on June 16, 2021
George Washington Williams
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George Washington Williams and the Origins of Anti-Imperialism

Initially supportive of Belgian King Leopold II’s claim to have created a “free state” of Congo, Williams changed his mind when he saw the horrors of empire.
by Mohammed Elnaiem via JSTOR Daily on June 10, 2021
A COVID-19 burial in India

This Pandemic Isn’t Over

The smallpox epidemic of the 1860s offers us a valuable, if disconcerting, clue about how epidemics actually end.
by Jim Downs via The Atlantic on June 9, 2021
An map of the U.S. in 1857

Lessons From the Civil Rights Struggle That Began Before the Civil War

The path to equality in the free Northern states was inconceivably steep. But in time, the movement maneuvered from the margins into mainstream politics.
by Kate Masur via Los Angeles Times on April 6, 2021
A Black family in Savannah, GA.

The “Families’ Cause” in the Post-Civil War Era

While focusing on refuting the Lost Cause narrative, many historians forget to memorialize Black Americans in the post Civil War period.
by Holly A. Pinheiro Jr. via Black Perspectives on March 24, 2021
Painted photo of Northwest Territory

A Confusion of Language

On the legal foundations that spurred centuries of civil rights movements.
by Kate Masur via Lapham’s Quarterly on March 24, 2021
Harriet Tubman and Elizabeth Keckley over a map of Washington DC.

How Black Women Brought Liberty to Washington in the 1800s

A new book shows us the capital region's earliest years through the eyes and the experiences of leaders like Harriet Tubman and Elizabeth Keckley.
by Tamika Nunley, Karin Wulf via Smithsonian on March 5, 2021
Thaddeus Stevens

The Radicalism of Thaddeus Stevens

Thaddeus Stevens understood far better than most that fully uprooting slavery meant overthrowing the South’s economic system and challenging property rights.
by Matthew E. Stanley via Jacobin on March 1, 2021
Illustration of James McCune Smith, the African Free School #2, and the University of Glasgow

America's First Black Physician Sought to Heal a Nation's Persistent Illness

An activist, writer, doctor and intellectual, James McCune Smith, born enslaved, directed his talents to the eradication of slavery.
by Bryan Greene via Smithsonian on February 26, 2021
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