A sports page from the Pittsburgh Courier

How the Black Press Helped Integrate Baseball

In the 1930s and ’40s, Black newspapers like the Pittsburgh Courier used their platform to help break the sport’s color line.
Three covers from Venus Magazine

From the Black Queer South to the World

Across its twelve-year lifespan, Atlanta-based Venus magazine brought southern voices to the larger Black queer print media network.
A photograph of a company of Black troops from the archives of the United States Sanitary Commission

The Sanitary Commission’s Other Agenda

The US Sanitary Commission is credited with saving lives during the Civil War, but its leadership hoped it would be remembered for advancing racialized science.
The Griffin Sisters

The Griffin Sisters Helped Build Black Vaudeville

The sisters were not only a singing duo, they were successful businesswomen and advocates for Black-owned enterprises in the entertainment world.
An advertisement for a performance by Richard Potter

America’s First Ventriloquist

Richard Potter, the first American-born ventriloquist and stage magician, learned his trade after being kidnapped and abandoned as a child in Great Britain.
The cover of Kwame Brathwaite: Black Is Beautiful by by Kwame Brathwaite, Tanisha C. Ford and Deborah Willis, 2019

Kwame Brathwaite Showed the World that Black is Beautiful

Photographing everyone from musicians to athletes to the person on the street, Brathwaite found the beauty in Blackness and shared it with the world.
The noble Ikhlas Khan with a petition, c. 1650

The Habshi Dynasty of India

Amongst the hundreds of minorities within the Subcontinent, Black Indians of African origin stand out.
Aimé Césaire, Conference on Negritude, Ethnicity and Afro Cultures in the Americas

Négritude’s Enduring Legacy: Black Lives Matter

Today's anti-racist activism builds on the work of Black Francophone writers who founded the Pan-African Négritude movement in the 1930s.
A train yard in Montgomery, Alabama

The Ballad of Railroad Bill

The story of Morris Slater, aka Railroad Bill, prompts us to ask how the legend of the "American outlaw" changes when race is involved.
Ruby Bridges

Chainlink Chronicle: Celebrating Black History in Louisiana

An exploration of one prison newspaper’s commitment to celebrating Black History with a unique focus on its home state.