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A jar of soil from the burial site of Howard Cooper, dated 1885.

Now We Know Their Names

In Maryland, a memorial for two lynching victims reveals how America is grappling with its history of racial terror.
Black and white photograph of Lucille Clifton.

Lucille Clifton and the Task of Remembering

The poet’s memoir Generations is both a chronicle of her ancestral lineage and lesson in the centrality of Black women to the story of American history.

More Than 1,700 Congressmen Once Enslaved Black People. This is Who They Were.

The Washington Post has compiled the first database of slaveholding members of Congress by examining thousands of census records and historical documents.
Three black students holding hands though the smoke during the Children's Crusade

The Authoritarian Right’s 1877 Project

As the GOP undermines Black political rights in the present, some right-wing intellectuals are rationalizing Black disenfranchisement in the past.
In the preface to a new book version of the 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones, a reporter and the leading force behind the endeavor, recalls that it began as a “simple pitch.”

The 1619 Project and the Demands of Public History

The ambitious Times endeavor reveals the difficulties that greet a journalistic project when it aspires to shift a founding narrative of the past.
Antiquated image of two Indigenous people, against the backdrop of a settlement.

What Slavery Looked Like in the West

Tens of thousands of Indigenous people labored in bondage across the western United States in the 1800s.
Statue of Robert E. Lee on his horse.

Reëxamining the Legacy of Race and Robert E. Lee

The historian Allen C. Guelzo believes that the Confederate general deserves a more compassionate reading.

We Can’t Blame the South Alone for Anti-Tax Austerity Politics

The legacy of slavery is often invoked to explain the stunted welfare state. But the strongest resistance to taxation and redistribution came from the Northern ruling class.
A mural depicting the portrait of Ahmaud Arbery, on the side of a building.
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Trial of Arbery's Killers Hinges on Law that Originated in Slavery

Georgia enacted the Citizen's Arrest Law in an attempt to maintain control of enslaved people.
Dual circular images of fire, representing seeing fire through the eye holes of a klan hood

Sins of the Fathers

In Life of a Klansman, Edward Ball’s white supremacist great-great-grandfather becomes a case study in the enduring legacy of slavery.
Black and white photo of Fannie Lou Hamer in her rocking chair.

Why Fannie Lou Hamer’s Definition of "Freedom" Still Matters

The human rights activist and former sharecropper once said that “you are not free whether you are white or black, until I am free.”
Group portrait, "Elihu Yale With Members of His Family and an Enslaved Child," 1719.

Who Is the Enslaved Child in This Portrait of Yale University's Namesake?

Scholars have yet to identify the young boy, but new research offers insights on his age and likely background.
Archaeologists excavating grounds near the Rhode Island state house.

Before Rhode Island Built Its State House, a Racist Mob Destroyed the Community That Lived There

In 1831, a group of white rioters razed the Providence neighborhood of Snowtown. Now, archaeologists are excavating its legacy.
Watercolor and pen illustration of Eric Williams.

Eric Williams and the Tangled History of Capitalism and Slavery

This historian and politician helped transform how several generations understood 18th- and 19th-century history.
Montpelier, the home of James Madison in Orange, Virginia

Is History for Sale?

The omnipresence of slavery at historic sites today seems intended to tarnish remarkable achievements and promote the cause of identity politics.
The Legacy Museum shows visitors elements of America’s long history of racial injustice – slavery, lynching, segregation, police killings of Black teens and the societal addiction to putting Black people behind bars. Photograph: Courtesy of Equal Justice Initiative/Human Pictures

‘Truth-Telling Has to Happen’: The Museum of America’s Racist History

The Legacy Museum lands at a time when racial violence is on the rise and critical race theory is used to prevent America’s racist past being taught in schools.
Collage of strips of famous African American faces in a mechanical press.

Afropessimism and Its Discontents

A guide for the perplexed, the puzzled, and the politically confused.
A group of freedpeople with tools

What Is Owed

William Darity and A. Kirsten Mullen’s case for reparations.
A courtroom gavel placed in front of an open book and justice scale.

History Won’t Judge

The idea of history’s judgment was, and remains, seductive. Yet this notion cannot withstand scrutiny, as Joan Wallach Scott’s On the Judgment of History shows.
Man kneeling in crowd in front of police

On Our Knees

What the history of a gesture can tell us about Black creative power.
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.

Remembering Past Lessons about Structural Racism — Recentering Black Theorists of Health and Society

A look at African-American scholars' contributions to health disparity discourse.
Inscription on Gullah-Geechee gravestone

Hilton Head Island— Haunted by Its Own History

Historical traces of racism and exclusion remain on the island. It’s just that new residents can’t—or won’t—read them.
A supporter of US President Donald Trump holds a Confederate flag outside the Senate Chamber during a protest after breaching the US Capitol in Washington, DC, January 6, 2021. - The demonstrators breeched security and entered the Capitol as Congress debated the 2020 presidential election Electoral Vote Certification.

Jan. 6 Was a "Turning Point" in American History

Pulitzer-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed reflects on the battle for the past and the fragile state of American democracy.
Woman looking over a former plantation site

The Lost Graves of Louisiana’s Enslaved People

A story about the hidden burial grounds of Louisiana’s enslaved people, and how continued industrial development is putting the historic sites at risk.
A group of formerly enslaved people at a county almshouse, c. 1900.

Juneteenth Is About Freedom

On Juneteenth, we should remember both the struggle against chattel slavery and the struggle for radical freedom during Reconstruction.
A slave in chains behind an American flag

Germany Faced its Horrible Past. Can We Do the Same?

For too long, we've ignored our real history. We must face where truth can take us.
The Confederate statue, center, which was recently relocated from the Greensville County Courthouse, in its new location in the Emporia Cemetery in Virginia. (Julia Rendleman for The Washington Post)

The Confederacy’s Final Resting Place

Are cemeteries the right place to put Confederate statues and memorials being removed from court houses and town squares across the South?
Poet Amanda Gorman recites a piece at Biddy Mason Memorial Park on Aug. 18, 2018, at a gathering to mark the 200th birthday of Biddy Mason, a key figure in the establishment and development of downtown Los Angeles. (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images)
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California Is Finally Confronting Its History of Slavery. Here’s How.

Los Angeles is finding success at reshaping its commemorative landscape.
Image of a red elephant with text from the 1619 Project overlaid on it, against a black background.

Why Conservatives Want to Cancel the 1619 Project

Objections to the appointment of Nikole Hannah-Jones to an academic chair are the latest instance of conservatives using the state to suppress "dangerous" ideas.

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