The People’s Grocery Lynching, Memphis, Tennessee
On March 2, 1892, in Memphis, Tennessee, a racially charged mob grew out of a fight between a black and a white youth near People’s Grocery.
Bringing Universal Education to the South
2018 marks the 150th anniversary of a number of constitutional conventions in Southern states during Reconstruction. One lasting achievement was creating universal education systems.
Cornel West: Neoliberalism Has Failed Us
West speaks on Obama’s legacy, the failures of American empire, and the role of race in Trump’s election.
Emma Amos’s Family Romance
Postmodernist painter and printmaker Emma Amos makes artwork that references historical figures as well as her family legacy.
Black Organizing and White Violence
In 1919, armed posses and federal troops killed as many as one hundred African-Americans in one of the worst instances of mass violence in U.S. history.
Ralph Ellison on Race
Ralph Ellison believed fiercely in the American project and in the centrality of black people to it.
The Man Whose Snowy Day Helped Diversify Children’s Books
Jack Ezra Keats's 1962 book The Snowy Day featured an African-American protagonist, a first for a full-color children’s book.
The Long, Winding History of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”
Julia Ward Howe wrote her most famous poem, the legendary Civil War song, “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” in a single burst of inspiration 156 years ago.
Bryan Stevenson and America’s First Slavery Museum
The Equal Justice Initiative's new museum seeks to lead a more “honest conversation about racial and economic justice."
The Healthcare Wars of 1920s Harlem
In the 1920s, Harlem’s population was growing quickly. A wide variety of “magico-religious workers” emerged to respond to the community’s needs.