The Short but Influential Run of Ebony and Topaz
The 1927 art and literature magazine only ran for a single issue, but “proved an integral component of Harlem Renaissance cultural production."
The Laugh Track: Loathe It or Love It
The use of a laugh track began with radio, and was taken up by the new medium of television in 1950. Both viewers and critics have loathed it ever since.
Russia and the Soviet Union: A Syllabus of Background Readings
These readings from our archive provide context for the developing conflict in Ukraine.
Drafting a Constitution: Thurgood Marshall in Kenya
In 1960, before his nomination as a US Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall helped frame the constitution that would serve a new country.
How Film Ads Were Part of the Fight Against Segregation
In the Jim Crow era, Black film theaters were left out of the "first-run" distribution channels. Theater owners used creativity to attract their audiences.
Independent Voices of the Black American Press
The digitized newspapers in this open access collection offer insight into the country’s diverse civil rights movements following the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Words on the Way In: A Retrospective
The first installment of a new column on living language: talking about COVID (talk)
Donald Goines, Detroit’s Crime Writer Par Excellence
The writer used hard-boiled fiction as a wide lens to accurately capture the widescreen disparity of Black life in the 1970s.
The Slap That Changed American Film-Making
When Sidney Poitier slapped a white murder suspect on screen, it changed how the stories of Black Americans were portrayed on film.
Censoring Ulysses
In reviewing the UK Home Office files on James Joyce's Ulysses, a historian found baffled officials afraid to bring more attention to it.