Filter by:

Filter by published date

Viewing 181–210 of 338 results. Go to first page
John Ridge

Cherokee Slaveholders and Radical Abolitionists

An unlikely alliance in antebellum America.
Sign reading "take it down" in front of Confederate flag

Rebel Yell

The recent march in South Carolina, demanding removal of the Confederate flag from the state Capitol is the latest episode in a long-running debate over slavery's legacy.
Painting of Abraham Lincoln

The Election in November

The Atlantic’s editor endorsed Abraham Lincoln for presidency in the 1860 election, correctly predicting it would prove to be “a turning-point in our history.”

A Letter From Frederick Douglass to His Former Owner

A spotlight on a primary source.
Title page of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Searching for the Elusive Man Who Inspired Uncle Tom’s Cabin

John Andrew Jackson spent a night at Harriet Beecher Stowe’s home as he fled north. Why do so few traces of his visit remain?
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.
Homepage of Freedom Seekers website.

Freedom Seekers: Stories of Black Liberation in the American Revolutionary Era and Beyond

A new digital project shows how those who escaped slavery were important actors in the challenge not just to their own enslavement but to slavery more broadly.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaking at a podium in front of the Irish and American flags.

Kamala Harris’ Purported Irish Ancestry

The candidate's potential ties to an Irish slave owner invite us to reexamine Ireland’s multilayered historical identity.
Michelle Obama at the Democratic National Convention.
partner

Michelle Obama Was Right to Clap Back at Trump on 'Black Jobs'

The idea of "Black jobs" owes to 18th and 19th century divisions of labor designed to uphold slavery and white supremacy.
Portrait of a Black woman; artist unknown, American, circa 1830–1835.

In Search of the Real Hannah Crafts

"The Bondwoman’s Narrative" is the first novel by a Black woman to describe slavery from the inside. Recently, scholars have discovered her true identity.

40 Acres and a Lie

We compiled Reconstruction-era documents to identify 1,250 formerly enslaved Black Americans given land—only to have it returned to their enslavers.
Cover of "Aiding Ireland" featuring potato plant.

Aiding Ireland: The Politics Of How Donors Learned To Give To Far-Off Strangers

A new book argues that Irish famine philanthropy “went viral” in the nineteenth century because relief has been, and continues to be, politically potent.
A Ride for Liberty – The Fugitive Slaves by Eastman Johnson.

Unapologetically Free: A Personal Declaration of Independence From the Formerly Enslaved

Abolitionist and writer John Swanson Jacobs on reclaiming liberty in a land of unfreedom.
Pennsylvania Hall in flames.
partner

Sordid Mercantile Souls

When labor found a common cause — and enemy — with the abolition movement.
A print titled "Heroes of the Colored Race," centered on portraits of Blanche Bruce, Frederick Douglas, and Hiram Revels.

Slavery, Capitalism, and the Politics of Abolition

"The Reckoning," Robin Blackburn’s monumental history, offers a dizzying account of the politics behind slavery's rise and fall.
Cover of "The Black Tax"

Tax History Matters: A Q&A with the Author of ‘The Black Tax’

The history of the property tax system and its structural defects that have led to widespread discrimination against Black Americans.
A historical marker outside Fendall Hall, a plantation.

Historical Markers Are Everywhere In America. Some Get History Wrong.

The nation's historical markers delight, distort and, sometimes, just get the story wrong.
A drawing of a burning ship engaged in battle at sea.

Burnt Offerings

Aaron Bushnell and the age of immolation.
People on Mason's Island

Island in the Potomac

Steps from Georgetown, a memorial to Teddy Roosevelt stands amid ghosts of previous inhabitants: the Nacotchtank, colonist enslavers, and the emancipated.
Alabama Governor George Wallace standing in front of an American map with the words, "Wallace County," written over it.

The Freedom to Dominate

When viewing federal authority as a bulwark for civil rights against local tyranny, we miss what the U.S. government has done to sustain white freedom.
Peter Waddell's "A Vision Unfolds" imaginatively depicts Benjamin Banneker advising President Washington and fellow surveyor Andrew Ellicott on the layout of the proposed federal capital.

Banneker’s Answer to Jefferson: “I Am an American”

The black naturalist, astronomer, surveyor, and almanac-writer Benjamin Banneker took issue with Thomas Jefferson’s attitude toward “those of my complexion.”
Cover of the book "American Purgatory"

American Purgatory: Prison Imperialism and the Rise of Mass Incarceration

A new book links the rise of American prisons to the expansion of American power around the globe.
Illustration by Kat Brooks of Stephanie Gilbert and her great grandfather Oliver Cromwell Gilbert and his home.

She Cherished the Home Where Her Family Fled Slavery. Then a Stranger Bought It.

Would the new owner of Richland Farm let a Black woman continue to visit to pay tribute to her enslaved ancestors?
Georgetown University building.

Confronting Georgetown’s History of Enslavement

In “The 272,” Rachel L. Swarns sets out how the country’s first Catholic university profited from the sale of enslaved people.
An honor guard displays the colors of Fort Bragg, as part of the ceremony earlier this month to rename it to Fort Liberty.

Who Was Fort Bragg Named After? The South’s Worst, Most Hated General.

Mike Pence and Ron DeSantis say they would restore the Fort Bragg name if elected. Its namesake was a “merciless tyrant” who helped lose the Civil War.
Painting of Thomas Cooper.

Thomas Cooper: Harbinger of Proslavery Thought and the Coming Civil War

To understand the proslavery defense of the 1850s, one must reckon with the proslavery Malthusianism articulated by Cooper in the 1820s.
Cast of the opera "Omar" on stage, with Arabic script on the stage backdrop.

‘Tell Your Story, Omar’

A new, Pulitzer Prize–winning opera adapts the memoir of Omar ibn Said, an African Muslim who spent much of his life enslaved in North Carolina.
The community organizer Sylvester Hoover and Nikole Hannah-Jones, Greenwood, Mississippi; from episode 6 of The 1619 Project.

History Bright and Dark

Americans have often been politically divided. But have the divisions over how we recount our history ever been so deep?
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.
Map of Jamaica.

Revisiting Restoration

Women’s economic labor was essential to state function.

Filter Results:

Suggested Filters:

Idea

Person