In the 1800s, West Africa became a focal point for efforts to remove Black people from America. The arrival of free people later gave the country its name.
Articles on Frederick Douglass
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The beating of Sen. Charles Sumner in 1856 by Rep. Preston Brooks over a speech against slavery sparked a nationwide debate over free speech, political violence and the relationship between the two.
From the very earliest days of independence, the struggle of African Americans for their rights has defined the idea of freedom in the United States.
Enslaved people were not just enslaved physically, but mentally as well. as widespread laws in the South barred enslaved people from receiving an education.
A bronze statue of Tubman is set to be installed outside Philadelphia’s City Hall in late 2026.
The most politically divided time in US democracy coincided with a boom in new communications technologies, confrontational political influencers and widespread disinformation. It wasn’t 2024.
Frederick Douglass was introduced to the idea of universal human rights after traveling to Ireland and meeting with Irish nationalist leaders.
The image of a kneeling person in chains was first used in a seal commissioned by the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, established by English Quakers in 1787.
Instead of using the secret routes along the Underground Railroad to find freedom in the North, thousands of enslaved Black people fled to free Black communities in Southern slaveholding states.
Harriet Tubman has long been known as a conductor on the Underground Railroad leading enslaved Black people to freedom. Less known is her role as a Union spy during the Civil War.
The evidence is growing that experiencing both systemic and everyday race-based discrimination may lead some Black Americans to become depressed and think about suicide.
Escaping slavery did not result in unconditional freedom.
James McCune Smith was the first African American to receive a medical doctorate from a university. He dedicated his life to fighting injustice.
Cameras played a critical role in the quest for social equality for Black Americans in the post-slavery era.
President Lincoln was a statesman. John Brown was a radical. That’s the traditional view of how each one fought slavery, but it fails to capture the full measure of their devotion.
The abolitionist’s legacy is often molded to fit various political agendas. Yet the Brown who appears in Showtime’s new miniseries is one we haven’t seen before.
When African Americans press ‘record’ to film police brutality, they are challenging a nation not to look away.
On the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, women’s historic struggles to vote continue to resonate as the country debates who should vote and how.
Here is a small list of pivotal texts by African American women from the past century.
Two men were convicted in 1859 of violating the Fugitive Slave Act. They had rescued a runaway slave from slave hunters in Ohio, one of the small acts of resistance that led to the Civil War.
Top contributors
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Professor of English, College of Liberal Arts Dean, Honors College, UMass Boston
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Professor in American Studies, Northumbria University, Newcastle
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Chancellor's Professor of Medicine, Liberal Arts, and Philanthropy, Indiana University
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Assistant Teaching Professor of Music, Penn State
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Professor, Department of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles
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Williams Memorial Professor of Law, Northwestern University
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Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies, Claremont Graduate University
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Professor of History, UMass Amherst
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Distinguished Professor of Humanities Emerita, College of the Holy Cross
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Professor of History, Brandeis University
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Director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center, Iowa State University
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Professor of American Studies and English, Middlebury College
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Associate Professor of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership, Arizona State University
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Former Director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics, Iowa State University
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Professor of Religious Studies, Michigan State University