The idea of economic amends for past injustices and persistent disparities is getting renewed attention. Here are some formulas for achieving the aim. By Patricia Cohen, The New York Times…
The Diaries Left Behind by Confederate Soldiers Reveal the True Role of Enslaved Labor at Gettysburg
Even as some enslaved men escaped North, the retreat by the Army of Northern Virginia would have been disastrous without the support of its camp servants. By Kevin M. Levin,…
U.S. Senate candidates, Ga. officials voice support for bill to study options. By Tamar Hallerman, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution — Two of the top Democrats seeking Georgia’s U.S. Senate seat in…
By Keisha N. Blain, The Washington Post — Honoring a former Confederate general and KKK grand wizard in 2019 is outrageous An obscure Tennessee law required Gov. Bill Lee to declare this past Saturday “Nathan Bedford Forrest Day” to commemorate the Confederate general and Ku Klux Klan leader. But Lee went further, admitting he had not even considered whether the law should be changed. His actions drew sharp criticism from politicians throughout…
By Olivia B. Waxman,Time — After the Independence Day military parade in the nation’s capital on Thursday, President Donald Trump will give a speech at the Lincoln Memorial, the most…
This 2009 documentary was produced by the Washington, DC Office of Cable Television to commemorate DC Emancipation Day. The film is a stirring account of African-American history from the colonial…
This moving and profound portrait serves as a fitting biographical tribute as well as a piercing, often painful recount of African American history from slavery and the Civil War to the Jim Crow era, the Civil Rights movement and beyond. By Syreeta McFadden, The Atlantic — One of my white teachers in high school insisted that Toni Morrison would be confusing to me as a reader. So I approached the…
By M. Andrew Holowchak — The two most significant issues that led to war between the North and South were, most scholars acknowledge, slavery and states’ rights. Northern states had…
After Republicans lost their first election in 1856, the nineteenth-century Nate Silvers were happy to declare the antislavery movement a radical, fringe idea. Four years later, Abraham Lincoln won on…
By Henry Lewis Gates, Jr., Times — During an interview with Chris Rock for my PBS series African American Lives 2, we traced the ancestry of several well-known African Americans. When…
By Wyatt Massey, Frederick News Post — The Rev. Dr. Ernest Campbell said no, James Forman could not speak at his church service the next day. Campbell was the senior pastor at Riverside Church, a predominantly white church on the west side of Manhattan. Forman, a black civil rights leader, wanted to read something to the congregation at the next day’s service on May 4, 1969, according to a history…
Biographer David Blight on Douglass’ lessons for us: “White supremacy does not die … it revives in new forms.” By Chauncey DeVega, Salon — Black History Month, which has…