History
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#NotAllHistorians: Some White People Are Upset That the New York Times' 1619 Project Isn’t Centered in Whiteness
“For 400 years, we have been told that black people are a problem. We are indoctrinated into this lie from the moment we take our first breath. No people have been more legislated against and studied than black Americans. That is because our very existence in our country gives lie to the exceptionality mythology of…
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Nearly 100 Years Later, Tulsa Begins Search for Mass Graves From 1921 Black Wall Street Massacre
A few blocks away from Tulsa’s Greenwood neighborhood sits the city’s oldest existing cemetery, Oaklawn. On Monday, scientists and forensic anthropologists scoured the cemetery with ground-penetrating radar, looking for signs of a mass grave that could hold the remains of hundreds of black residents killed during the 1921 Tulsa massacre. As the 100-year anniversary of…
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Hollywood Once Told Francis Ford Coppola The Cotton Club Had 'Too Many Black Stories'. Now, He's Restoring Them
You know how kids have a list of things they want to be when they grow up and toggle between them until they actually do grow up and (maybe) decide on one thing? Well, for me, one of those things was a tap dancer. Now, this urge was completely inside of my head, as I…
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Exclusive: Martin Luther King Jr. Talks Reparations, White Economic Anxiety and Guaranteed Income in Previously Unheard Speech
A newly uncovered speech by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered in 1967 sounds curiously like the civil rights icon is speaking about current-day conditions as he preaches about underfunded schools, the wage gap, white backlash against black progress and the country’s need to address poverty. On July 30, 1967, less than a year before…
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Breaking: Something Bad Is Happening in Virginia [Updated]
To commemorate the quadricentennial anniversary of the arrival of enslaved Africans in America, we imagined what it would be like to cover that late August day when the first slave ship landed on the shores of the place now known as Hampton, Va. 8/20/1619 2:27 P.M. Earlier: A few hours ago, The Root received several…
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Nothing but the Truth: A Q&A With Bryan Stevenson, Subject of HBO’s True Justice
Montgomery, Alabama, exists as a paradox. It is here that slavers sold other human beings at market, and where a young Rosa Parks set off a campaign that eventually desegregated a nation. In Montgomery, in the shadow of the state capitol building, there is a haggard monument to Robert E. Lee sitting directly across the…
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Ta-Nehisi Coates Clapped Back at Mitch McConnell for Saying ‘No One Alive’ Is Liable for Reparations. So We Came Up With a List
On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties held a hearing about H.R. 40, a proposal from Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) that would authorize a national apology and study reparations for slavery and racial discrimination against black people in America. Among those testifying before the subcommittee was…
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The 10 Biggest Cultural Thefts in Black History
Netflix’s new documentary, The Lion’s Share, chronicles the history of the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” how it became a worldwide hit and—most importantly—how media companies including Disney, kept the song’s original creator, South African musician Solomon Linda, from receiving any of the profits. While discussing the film, someone on The Root’s staff pondered if—considering…
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Newly Discovered Photo of Harriet Tubman Now on Display at National Museum of African American History and Culture
A newly discovered photo of Harriet Tubman is now on display for the first time at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. The portrait offers a rare glimpse of Tubman, casually posed in a chair wearing what is described as an elegant dress that features an elaborate bodice…