Ashawnta Jackson is a reader, writer, and record collector living in New York. She has written for NPR Music, Bandcamp, Artsy, Atlas Obscura, and GRAMMY.com, among others. You can read more of her work at heyjackson.net.
Despite the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924, Native American activists have had to repeatedly take their fight for voting rights to Congress.
In the 1950s, the covers of most jazz records featured abstract designs. By the late 1960s, album aesthetics better reflected the times and the musicians.
On October 6, 1923, Iowa State tackle Jack Trice lined up for the second half of a college football game. No one’s sure what happened in that third quarter.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Christian heavy metal bands used head-banging music to share the politics and values of evangelical Christians with America’s youth.
As a musician of color during the Ancien Régime and French Revolution, Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, lived a life unlike those of his peers.
Though many associate the accordion with polkas and klezmer, the instrument played an important role in Black music after its arrival in the United States.
Asian American artists who performed for primarily white audiences in the 1930s and ’40s both challenged and solidified racial boundaries in the United States.
One of the first Native American women aviators, Riddle leaned into stereotypes to earn a name for herself in the male-dominated world of American aviation.
