Sammy Davis Jr.’s Conversion Mishegoss
Sammy Davis Jr.'s conversion to Judaism in 1960 was met with skepticism, derision, and, yes, jokes by the members of the groups he claimed and embraced.
“I Have a Dream”: Annotated
Martin Luther King, Jr.'s iconic speech, annotated with relevant scholarship on the literary, political, and religious roots of his words.
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."
50 Years On: How Angela Davis’ Focus Changed in Jail
In a 2012 interview published in Social Justice, Angela Davis spoke about her detention in jail and how it informed her work on abolition and feminism.
Introducing “Archives Unbound”
In her new column, Dorothy Berry offers an inside look at the work of the digital archivist, while highlighting forgotten figures in Black print culture and public life.
The Long Afterlife of Freedman’s Village
Freedman's Village, created in Arlington, VA at the end of the Civil War, became a thriving community of Black residents as part of Reconstruction.
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.
Black Soldier Desertion in the Civil War
The reasons Black Union soldiers left their army during the Civil war were varied, with poor pay, family needs and racism among them.
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.