History
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The Grave of a Former Slave Turned Florida State Senator May Be Buried Under What's Now A Tampa Parking Lot
As Juneteenth approaches, Tampa’s local NAACP wants the city to commit to finding the graves that once rested at College Hill Cemetery.
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On the 100th Anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, Dr. Tiffany Crutcher Reflects on the City's Journey to Justice
On September 16, 2016, Dr. Tiffany Crutcher suffered an unspeakable loss that would forever change not only the course of her life but that of an entire city. While on her way to respond to a domestic dispute, Tulsa, Okla., police officer Betty Shelby spotted an abandoned vehicle in the middle of the road. It…
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The Stories We've Told: A Look at the Tulsa Race Massacre From The Root Archives
The first time most (white) Americans likely heard about the Tulsa Race Massacre was when HBO’s Watchmen opened its first episode—aired on October 20, 2019—with the devastating reenactment of the death and destruction that took place on May 31-June 1 in Greenwood, the Black neighborhood known as “Black Wall Street.” Or if they missed that,…
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What We Lost In the Fire: Black Wall Street Before the Tulsa Race Massacre
By any measure, John W. Rogers is a success story. He grew up on the South Side of Chicago and started trading stocks when he was 12. He attended Princeton and played on an Ivy League champion basketball team while studying economics. In 1983, he raised $10,000 from friends and family and started Ariel Capital…
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Highlighting the Contributions of an 'Unknown Unknown' This Women’s History Month
The great journalist and civil rights activist, Ida B. Wells once said, “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” This Women’s History Month, I want to turn the light of truth on three women whose lives intersected to right the wrong of segregated public transportation. These women deserve…
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Apparently, Violent Extremism Doesn't Exist
A new study on the Jan. 6 insurrection, rally and jumping-in ceremony at the U.S. Capitol Building determined that most of the participants in the Mutiny on the Ballot were regular schmegular white people just like me and you. The investigation, conducted by the George Washington University Program on Extremism, analyzed arrest information, court documents…
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'By Means Fair or Foul': America's Conspiracy to Assassinate Black Power
There is no such thing as “white people.” While the concept of race has always been an unscientific axiom, whiteness is the most mutable of the social constructs we call “race.” Whiteness is a fence with portable borders, defined more aptly by who is not inside. The Irish weren’t considered white. Neither were the Italians.…