Asian South America
...when that trade wasn’t actually in people. Consider the 1613 census of Lima in the Viceroy of Peru. The city’s population was 25,000: “in the midst of Spaniards, blacks, and...
The Reverse Freedom Rides
...racial integration. At its height, the organization was the “most powerful political force” in support of segregation and had at least 300,000 members. In regional and local chapters, the Councils...
A Colorblind Compromise?
...for instance, Alexander Hamilton pleaded with Northerners to empathize with those in the “unfortunate situation” of having a “great part of their population, as well as property, in blacks.” In...
The Scholars Charting Black Music’s Timeline: Earl Stewart and Michael Veal
...free people—would develop sounds and styles, explain Stewart and Maultsby. “As freed people, Blacks and their descendants continued to create new and distinctive styles of Black music in the tradition...
Northern Civil Rights and Republican Affirmative Action
...to Blacks cautiously “avoided all publicity” and consequently got nowhere. Brasher, more militant strategies like boycotts and picketing came with the 1960s. In fact, protests in Philadelphia in 1963 turned...
Black Soldier Desertion in the Civil War
...well as in the North feared arming Blacks would inspire slave rebellions and attacks on whites. The great majority of African American soldiers “adjusted to military life and proved courageous,”...
Freedom Libraries and the Fight for Library Equity
In his acceptance speech at the National Book Awards in 2016, Congressman John Lewis spoke of his youth, and his love of books and reading. “I remember in 1956, when...
Adolph Reed Jr.: The Perils of Race Reductionism
Adolph Reed Jr., the distinguished political scientist and commentator, became interested in politics early in life. Born into a family of academics in New York, he moved around a bunch—to...
The First Vietnamese in America
...of a Vietnamese in America” is in a 1912 letter from New York City. The author, Nguyễn Tất Thành, got to North America working in the kitchen of a French...
How to Gather the Oral Histories of COVID-19
...from every state and background, from boxers in Chicago to farmers in Alabama to circus performers in Oregon. An interview session in the StoryCorps sound booth December 18, 2003 at...