Choctaw woman

How 19th Century Women Were Taught to Think About Native Americans

In nineteenth-century American women's magazines, Native American women were depicted as attractive, desirable, and pious.
Blue Black gallery view

Glenn Ligon’s “Blue Black” Exhibits the History of Race in America

Artist Glenn Ligon grounds his work in American history, addressing the inextricable link between history of slavery and the black experience in the U.S.
black power salute olympics

The Uneasy History of Integrated Sports in America

The integration of collegiate and professional sports parallels the civil rights movement, but in important ways it was a whole different track.
The Nightmare

The Racialized History of “Hysteria”

Even three decades after “hysteria” was deleted from the DSM-III, some of the word’s diagnostic power obviously still remains.
World War II Veterans

The Inequality Hidden Within the Race-Neutral GI Bill

While the GI Bill itself was progressive, much of the country still functioned under both covert and blatant segregation.
Clarence Darrow

How African Americans Supported Evolution in the 1925 Scopes Trial

Dayton, Tennessee has a new statue of Clarence Darrow, the evolutionist and criminal defense attorney of the 1925 Scopes “Monkey” Trial.
Smoke billowing over Tulsa, Oklahoma during 1921 race riots

The Devastation of Black Wall Street

Tulsa, Oklahoma. 1921. A wave of racial violence destroys an affluent African-American community, seen as a threat to white-dominated American capitalism.
Untitled Basquiat

How Basquiat Went From Underrated to Record-Breaking

A 1982 Untitled work of Jean-Michel Basquiat broke records as the highest selling US-produced artwork. Learn how Basquiat and his work gained its fame.
Rita Hayworth

The Making of Rita Hayworth

To become a Hollywood star and icon, Rita Hayworth had to transcend not just her waistline or her hairline, but her own ethnicity.
Draft riots

Race and Labor in the 1863 New York City Draft Riots

In July 1863, over a thousand Irish dockworkers rioted against the Civil War draft in New York City in a four-day upheaval, targeting black workers and citizens.