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.
Buffalo Soldiers and the Bicycle Corps
Buffalo Soldiers were assigned to assess bicycles as military transportation on the frontier at the end of the nineteenth century.
Music and Spirit in the African Diaspora
The musical traditions found in contemporary Black U.S. and Caribbean Christian worship originated hundreds of years ago, continents away.
The Slap That Changed American Film-Making
When Sidney Poitier slapped a white murder suspect on screen, it changed how the stories of Black Americans were portrayed on film.
Why the “Black Playboy” Folded After Just Six Issues
Duke magazine aimed to celebrate the good life for the era’s growing Black middle-class.
Freedom Libraries and the Fight for Library Equity
Freedom libraries in the south provided Black residents with access to spaces and books, whether in church basements or private homes.
The Emancipation Proclamation: Annotated
Abraham Lincoln proclaimed freedom for enslaved people in America on January 1, 1863. Today, we've annotated the Emancipation Proclamation for readers.