W.E.B. Du Bois

The world-spanning art of the Harlem Renaissance.

In a circumscribed universe, Black Americans have ceaselessly reinvented themselves.

In 1871, the Fisk University singers embarked on a tour that introduced white Americans to a Black sound that would reshape the nation.

The radical approach employed by black leftists at the Amenia conference set the stage for the civil rights unionism that would help topple Jim Crow.

A new book works to counteract the “symphony of erasure” that has obscured and denied Africa’s contributions to the contemporary world.

It would be a mistake to think of the current wave of attacks on “critical race theory” as a culture war. This is a political battle.

A new history of American politics examines the past and future of political realignments.

Railroads—in the Jim Crow South just as in today’s Ukraine—employ physical infrastructure to create racial divisions.

John Brown and the historical novel.

In "A Nation of Descendants," Francesca Morgan traces the American use and abuse of genealogy from the Daughters of the American Revolution to Roots.

While W. E. B. Du Bois praised an expanding penitentiary system, T. Thomas Fortune called for investment in education and a multiracial, working-class movement.

His communism brought the great American singer Paul Robeson trouble in the US, but helped make him a hero in China.

W.E.B. Du Bois defined the shift from slavery to freedom as a “general strike” — and there are parallels to today.

The Movement for Black Lives has developed an incipient internationalist language and vision, with the potential to remap America’s place in the world.

The story of the first major black-owned record label and the mystery behind the man who created it.

Thaddeus Stevens understood far better than most that fully uprooting slavery meant overthrowing the South’s economic system and challenging property rights.

The story of America can be told through the story of its periodicals.

To preserve Black history, a 19th-century archivist filled hundreds of scrapbooks with newspaper clippings and other materials.

Jacob Lawrence was one of twentieth-century America’s most celebrated black artists.

A review of Robert Elder's new biography of John C. Calhoun.