“Risking their lives for liberty and for love, Ellen and William Craft devised a bold plan: They’d don disguises — she as a white man — and embark on the perilous journey north.”
slavery
Posted inEditor's Pick
Slave Money Paved the Streets. Now This Posh RI City Strives to Teach Its Past.
Between 1700-1850, the city of Newport in tiny Rhode Island launched more slave trading voyages than anywhere in North America. And in a time when conservative school boards and state leaders around the U.S. are banning lessons about race and racism in schools, Newport is confronting its past: teaching students local Black history, African heritage, […]
Posted inCulture, History, Nonfiction, Reading List
What We Save, What We Destroy: A Reading List on Difficult Heritage
The present we inhabit is shaped by the mixed legacies of the past.
Posted inNonfiction
Queens of Infamy: Njinga
The Portuguese colonizers of West Central Africa learned it the hard way: you mess with the Queen of Ndongo and Matamba at your own peril.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Our Democracy’s Founding Ideals Were False When They Were Written. Black Americans Have Fought to Make Them True.
As part of the New York Times Magazine‘s 1619 package commemorating the 400th anniversary of the beginning of slavery in America, Nikole Hannah Jones writes about the crucial influence of black Americans — through resistance, and a never ending fight for equal rights for all — on democracy in this country. “More than any other […]
Posted inArts & Culture, Nonfiction, Quotes
Between Jesmyn and Ta-Nehisi
Author Jesmyn Ward sits down with Ta-Nehisi Coates to discuss slavery, superheroes, and how much you have to hate yourself to enjoy being famous.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books, Nonfiction, Story
Odetta Holmes’ Album One Grain of Sand
The singular singer released her groundbreaking album in 1963, the same year as the March on Washington, and used her art and appearance as weapons in the Civil Rights struggle.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
The Masterless People: Pirates, Maroons, and the Struggle to Live Free
In the “bizarre and horrifying world” of the early modern Caribbean, maroons and pirates both prized their freedom above all else. And sometimes they worked together to safeguard it.
Posted inCulture, Current Events, Nonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes
Home Is a Mixed Bag, Like America
Why would a successful black woman move from the Bay Area back to Mississippi?
Posted inArts & Culture, Culture, Essays & Criticism, Highlight, Quotes
An Igbo Slaver’s Descendants Reckon With History
Adaobi Tricia Nwaumbani reveals her Igbo great-grandfather’s history with the transatlantic slave trade.