Suppressing the Black Vote in 1811
As more Black men gained the right to vote in New York, the state began to change its laws to reduce their power or disenfranchise them completely.
“Heed Their Rising Voices”: Annotated
In 1960, an ad placed in the New York Times to defend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights activists touched off a landmark libel suit.
The Sweet Story of Condensed Milk
This nineteenth-century industrial product became a military staple and a critical part of local food culture around the world.
Black Women Were Also Lynched
A case study of the 1912 lynching of Mary Jackson in Harrison County, Texas, provides insight into the contradictory culture of racial violence.
The Haitian Revolution and American Slavery
For both US politicians and enslaved Black Americans, the Haitian Revolution represented the possibility of a successful violent rebellion by the oppressed.
Why Some Spartan Women Had Two Husbands
In ancient Sparta, it was accepted practice for more women to marry and have children by more than one man.
Nuremberg: City of Dreams and Nightmares
From a mercantile powerhouse in the Middle Ages to a stage for genocidal horror in the twentieth century, Nuremberg has played a pivotal role in German history.
Birth of A National Immigration Policy
Until the Civil War, regulating immigration to the US was left to individual states. That changed with Emancipation and the legal end of slavery.
Historian J.T. Roane Explores Black Ecologies
Considerations of climate change and environmentalism have for too long paid no mind to where Black people live and in what conditions.
James Holman, the “Blind Traveller”
Once a celebrated travel writer, Holman struggled to find a publisher for his books thanks to a Victorian reluctance to witness his disability.