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A shack on Eastland's plantation, as it appeared in the 1964 film

He Risked His Life Filming A Mississippi Senator's Plantation In 1964

Fannie Lou Hamer is among the sharecroppers interviewed in this unauthorized documentary about the plantation of Dixiecrat James Eastland.
by David Hoffman via YouTube on February 17, 2021
Jimmy Carter speaking into a microphone in front of a crowd.

Unwavering

You can argue over whether Jimmy Carter was America’s greatest president, but he was undoubtedly one of the greatest Americans to ever become president.
by Jim Barger Jr. via The Bitter Southerner on October 1, 2024
A young Black girl picking cotton.

Rings of Fire

Arsenic cycles through racism and empire in the Americas.
by Jayson Maurice Porter via Distillations on February 1, 2024
Black and white men, women, and children listening to a speaker at a Southern Tenant Farmers Union meeting.

When Black and White Tenant Farmers Joined Together to Take on the Plantation South

The Southern Tenant Farmers Union was founded on the principle of interracial organizing.
by David Griscom via Jacobin on December 5, 2023
Tenant farmers picking cotton in Mississippi circa 1890.

The Black Populist Movement Has Been Snuffed Out of the History Books

Often forgotten today, the black populists and their acts of cross-racial solidarity terrified the planter class, who responded with violence and Jim Crow laws.
by Karen Sieber via Jacobin on May 17, 2023
Eugene Debs with Texas and Oklahoma socialists, c. 1910–14.

Texas Was Once a Hotbed of Socialism

In the early 1900s heyday of the Socialist Party, Texas boasted a vibrant state party that attracted oppressed farmers in droves.
by Thomas Alter II, Yaseen Al-Sheikh via Jacobin on April 21, 2023
Black and white photo of an African American family near Southern Pines, N.C. North Carolina Southern Pines

The Black Family, Landownership, and Tobacco Culture

In the US, where less than one percent of the land is owned by black people, Black landownership has historically been a means to challenge economic oppression.
by Kiana Knight via Black Perspectives on November 14, 2022
“Raise Up,” a statue by artist Hank Willis Thomas of African Americans with their hands raised above their heads, is featured in the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama.

How a Coerced Confession Shaped a Family History

A researcher delves into the past to tell the story of a relative—falsely accused as a boy of a crime in Jim Crow–era South Carolina.
by Deidre H. Crumbley via Sapiens on August 10, 2022
Photograph of horse and buggy carrying Black family migrating North

A Brief History of the Great Migration, when 6 Million Black People Left the South

The Great Migration in the 20th century changed the face of America. For the past few decades, it's been reversing.
by Jalyn Henderson via NBCLX on February 28, 2022
Statue of Stonewall Jackson, on its side in slings and propped up by tires, in front of its graffiti-covered pedestal.

What the 1619 Project Got Wrong

It erases the fact that, for the first 70 years of its existence, the US was roiled by intense, escalating conflict over slavery – a conflict only resolved by civil war.
by James Oakes via Catalyst on December 17, 2021
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.”
by Keisha N. Blain, Jamil Smith via Vox on October 21, 2021
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.
by Dale Kretz via Jacobin on June 19, 2021
A man sitting on a table.

A More Perfect Union

On the Black labor organizers who fought for civil rights after Reconstruction and through the twentieth century.
by Arvind Dilawar via Lapham’s Quarterly on November 16, 2020
A Japanese mother and daughter, farmworkers in California, photographed in 1937 by Dorothea Lange

Whitewashing the Great Depression

How the preeminent photographic record of the period excluded people of color from the nation’s self-image.
by Sarah Boxer via The Atlantic on November 15, 2020
Black and white STFU members including Myrtle Lawrence and Ben Lawrence listen to Norman Thomas speak outside Parkin, Arkansas, on September 12, 1937. Louise Boyle / Kheel Center

When Black Sharecroppers in the South Rose Up

In the 1930s, Socialist and Communist organizers tried to help Black sharecroppers rise up against their oppressors.
by Arvind Dilawar, Nan Elizabeth Woodruff via Jacobin on July 7, 2020

Reconstruction in America

Mass lynchings of Black people following the Civil War.
by Jennifer Rae Taylor, Kiara Boone, Jonathan Gibson, Sade Stevens, Kayla Vinson, Trey Walk, Sumita Rajpurohit, Breana Lamkin via Equal Justice Initiative on April 23, 2020

The Ghosts of Elaine, Arkansas, 1919

In America’s bloody history of racial violence, the little-known Elaine Massacre may rank as the deadliest.
by Jerome B. Karabel via New York Review of Books on September 30, 2019

Elaine Race Massacre: Red Summer in Arkansas

An interactive exhibit that explores the events and consequences of the deadliest racial conflict in Arkansas history.
via Center For Arkansas History And Culture on July 29, 2019

First Slavery, Then a Chemical Plant and Cancer Deaths: One Town's Brutal History

Long before Reserve, Louisiana was home to a chemical plant and riddled with cancer, it suffered the deprivations of enslavement.
by Oliver Laughland, Jamiles Lartey via The Guardian on May 6, 2019

In Search of George Washington Carver’s True Legacy

The famed agriculturalist deserves to be known for much more than peanuts.
by Rachel Kaufman via Smithsonian on February 21, 2019

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

What the Civil Rights Movement Has to Do With Denim

The history of blue jeans has been whitewashed.
by Marlen Komar via Racked on October 30, 2017
Black farmer harvesting kale.

Black Earth

In North Carolina, a Black farmer purchased the plantation where his ancestors were enslaved—and is reclaiming his family’s story and the soil beneath his feet.
by Christina Cooke via The Bitter Southerner on November 25, 2024
Statue of Jefferson Davis next to other leaders in Statuary Hall in the Capitol.

Many Wealthy Members of Congress are Descendants of Rich Slaveholders

Researchers measured lawmakers’ wealth and found that those whose Southern ancestors owned slaves before abolition have a higher net worth today.
by Neil K. R. Sehgal, Ashwini Sehgal via The Conversation on October 23, 2024
Illustration of the Georgia Peach.

The Georgia Peach: A Labor History

The peach industry represented a new, scientifically driven economy for Georgia, but it also depended on the rhythms and racial stereotypes of cotton farming.
by Livia Gershon via JSTOR Daily on July 1, 2024
"Soulsville" mural in Memphis, Tennessee.

Capitalism and (Under)Development in the American South

In the American South, an oligarchy of planters enriched itself through slavery. Pervasive underdevelopment is their legacy.
by Keri Leigh Merritt via Aeon on April 2, 2024
Ivory Perry.

Ivory Perry, the Forgotten Civil Rights Hell-Raiser

Activists are often held up as exemplars of personal morality — but in every social struggle, ordinary people with complex lives rise up as leaders.
by Devin Thomas O’Shea via Jacobin on January 15, 2024
Leaders of the 1963 March on Washington posing in front of the statue of Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln Memorial. August 28, 1963.

How the 1619 Project Distorted History

The 1619 Project claimed to reveal the unknown history of slavery. It ended up helping to distort the real history of slavery and the struggle against it.
by James Oakes via Jacobin on December 27, 2023
Matthew Henson Henson in a fur coat with a hood pulled over his head.

Matthew Henson: The US' Unsung Black Explorer

While other explorers may claim credit for discovering the North Pole, an unsung and largely forgotten former sharecropper has as good a case as anyone.
by Robert Isenberg via BBC News on April 19, 2023
Fisk University Class of 1888.

*The South*: The Past, Historicity, and Black American History (Part II)

Exploring recent debates about the uses–and utility–of Black history in both the academic and public spheres.
by Adolph Reed Jr. via U.S. Intellectual History Blog on April 10, 2023
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