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Drawing of two laborers in a vast agricultural field with a farmhouse in the background.

A Family From High Plains

Sappony tobacco farmers across generations, and across state borders, when North Carolina and Virginia law diverged on tribal recognition, education, and segregation.
by Nick Martin via Splinter on August 2, 2018

My Great-Grandfather, the Nigerian Slave-Trader

White traders couldn’t have loaded their ships without help from Africans like my great-grandfather.
by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani via The New Yorker on July 15, 2018

This Man is an Island

How the Key West we know today became a reflection of one man’s campy sense of style.
by Michael Adno via The Bitter Southerner on July 11, 2018

The Strange Decline of H.L. Mencken

No American writer has wielded such influence. So why is he so little known today?
by John Rossi via The American Conservative on July 9, 2018

My Dad and Henry Ford

My father was pro-Jewish propaganda when the country had an anti-semitism problem - he even met the man that inspired much of the hate. But is history repeating itself?
by Michael Kupperman via The Nib on July 6, 2018

A Cool Dip & A Little Dignity

In 1961, two African-American men decided to go swimming at a whites-only Nashville pool. In response, the city closed all its public pools — for three years.
by Erin E. Tocknell via The Bitter Southerner on July 2, 2018
Photo of young woman looking at camera in blue-walled room. Above her an image of Jesus Christ is framed. Through the room's window a shirtless man can be seen on a porch, also facing the camera

Left Behind

J.D. Vance's "Hillbilly Elegy" and Steven Stoll's "Ramp Hollow" both remind us that the history of poor and migratory people in Appalachia is a difficult story to tell.
by Nancy Isenberg via New York Review of Books on June 28, 2018

A Disgruntled Federal Employee's 1980s Desk Calendar

A nameless Cold Warrior grew frustrated in his Defense Department job, and poured out his feelings in an unusual way.
by Ted Widmer via The Paris Review on June 13, 2018

The Premiere of 'Four Women Artists'

In this 1977 documentary, the spirit of Southern culture is captured through four Mississippi artists who tell their stories.
by Nicole Rudick via The Paris Review on May 29, 2018

The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

The class divide is already toxic, and is fast becoming unbridgeable. You’re probably part of the problem.
by Matthew Stewart via The Atlantic on May 16, 2018

Piecing Together a Border’s History, One Love Letter at a Time

Finding a puzzle from the past in a family member’s basement.
by Miroslava Chávez-García via Lapham’s Quarterly on May 16, 2018

Rewriting My Grandfather’s MLK Story

In excavating the story of King’s visit to Harlem Hospital, I uncovered my grandfather’s own fight for civil rights.
by Lena Felton via The Atlantic on April 3, 2018

I Am a Big Black Man Who Will Never Own a Gun Because I Know I Would Use It

On history, race, and guns in America.
by Kiese Laymon via Medium on April 3, 2018

The Quiet Genius of Margalit Fox’s Obituaries

For years, she’s injected subtle, deft works of cultural history into the New York Times.
by Rebecca Onion via Slate on March 1, 2018

White Americans Fail to Address Their Family Histories

There is a conversation about race that white families are just not having. This is mine. 
by William Horne via The Activist History Review on February 9, 2018
Alice Lee Hum with her mother Jean, at a laundry on 21st Ave in Astoria, Queens, c. 1951.

How Childhoods Spent in Chinese Laundries Tell the Story of America

The laundry: a place to play, grow up, and live out memories both bitter and sweet.
by Eveline Chao via Atlas Obscura on January 3, 2018

An Intimate History of America

A reminder of history's proximity is prompted by a visit to the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
by Clint Smith via The Paris Review on December 18, 2017

Forgiving the Unforgivable: Geronimo’s Descendants Seek to Salve Generational Trauma

Traveling to the heart of Mexico for a Ceremonia del Perdón.
by Anna Badkhen via Literary Hub on November 21, 2017

Annotating the First Page of the Navajo-English Dictionary

“It is one thing to play dress-up, to imitate pronunciations and understanding; it is another thing to think or dream or live in a language not your own.”
by Danielle Geller via The New Yorker on November 7, 2017
original

A Refugee in Puerto Rico, 1942

Claude Lévi-Strauss and the burden of our personal archives.
by Benjamin Breen on October 6, 2017

Scaramucci’s Removal Evokes White House Turmoil During the Reagan Years

Anthony Scaramucci's resignation after 10 days broke a record held by Ronald Reagan’s communications director.
by Matt Giles via Longreads on July 31, 2017
Family photo of a woman pulling a child on a sled down a snowy street.

My Grandmother's Desperate Choice

My questions about my grandmother's death – from a self-induced abortion – haven’t changed since I was 12. What feels new is the urgency of her story.
by Kate Daloz via The New Yorker on May 14, 2017
Book cover with the title "Baby Boy Born Birthplace Blues" superimposed on a photo of a man lying down with his cheek on the ground.

Baby Boy Born Birthplace Blues

"The blues was born on a riverboat between Louisville and New Albany, along those docks, in the 1890s. I mean, the blues was born nowhere, of course. Or it was born many places."
by John Jeremiah Sullivan via Oxford American on December 6, 2016
Drawing of a woman standing with blurred people behind her and computer text boxes pointing to her face.

Cracking the Code

It's impossible for most black Americans to construct full family trees, but genetic testing can provide some clues.
by Jesmyn Ward via The New Yorker on May 14, 2015
Photograph of blues singer Robert Johnson, playing guitar, 1936.

Searching for Robert Johnson

In the seven decades since his mysterious death, bluesman Robert Johnson’s legend has grown.
by Frank DiGiacomo via Vanity Fair on October 1, 2008
Cover of "Making Whiteness," featuring a Black man in front of a billboard of larger-than-life white faces.
partner

Making Whiteness

How a historian's family history informed her professional quest to unpack the stories white Southerners told about themselves.
by In Black America via American Archive of Public Broadcasting on September 1, 1998

Who Owns Anne Frank?

The diary has been distorted by even her greatest champions. Would history have been better served if it had been destroyed?
by Cynthia Ozick via The New Yorker on September 28, 1997
Drawing of a memorial, with two cutout, brown walls at the front of a walkway that read: reckoning. At the end of the walkway is a monument with a picture of Fred Rouse, and an inscription below it.

Fort Worth's Forgotten Lynching: In Search of Fred Rouse

Retracing the steps of a Texan lynched in 1921 requires a trip through dark days in state history.
by Karen Olsson via The Texas Observer
Aaron Henry of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party delegation speaks at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.

60 Years Ago, Courage Confronted Racism at the Democratic Convention

My grandmother and the fight over the 1964 Mississippi delegation.
by Margaret McMullan via The Bulwark on August 21, 2024
Bookstore

Are Bookstores Just a Waste of Space?

In the online era, brick-and-mortar book retailers have been forced to redefine themselves.
by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on August 19, 2024
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