black history
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87-Year-Old Woman Sees ‘Slave Cabin’ in Which She Was Born at National African-American Museum
It was a cabin that housed people who were enslaved starting in 1853 on Edisto Island, S.C. In 2017 the restored structure sits in the National Museum of African American History and Culture, helping to tell the often overlooked and covered-up stories of our nation’s history. But to Isabell Meggett Lucas, 87, the cabin also…
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7 Times Harriet Tubman Was a Badass Superhero
Harriet Tubman is having a moment. Right now she is the “it” girl of history. No longer relegated to the pages of schoolbooks during Black History Month, the freedom-fighting, self-liberating she-warrior and “conductor” on the Underground Railroad is getting the recognition she so richly deserves. Last year the Treasury Department announced that Tubman would replace…
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So Many People Failed Black History Month 2017; Here Are 8 Ways to Do Better
Black History Month 2017 proved my grandfather right: Common sense really isn’t that common. This year, as in previous years, I subscribed to the notion of being #365BLACK, but I made it a point to be extra unapologetically black this year. I wore African print, consumed a little more chicken than usual and kept hot…
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Living With History: Harriet Tubman’s Great-Great-Grandniece Wants Black History Celebrated Every Month
Editor’s note: For Black History Month, The Root is speaking to the relatives of our most cherished African-American heroes in a series called Living With History. To open the series, we interviewed a descendant of Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington. Next, we did a Q&A with the descendants of Ida B. Wells, and last…
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Watch: I Love My Black Friendships
For Black History Month, The Root is celebrating blackness in a new The Root TV series called I Love My Blackness. In the series, we celebrate black skin, black style, black friendship and black love. Our first video of the series celebrated our love of our black skin and the understanding that black is gold.…
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Watch: Spotlight on Black History’s Storytellers
The video below was published in partnership with Peabody Spotlight, a digital series produced by the Peabody Media Center at the University of Georgia in commemoration of Black History Month. Each part of the series draws from the vast Peabody Awards archives, the third-largest repository of audiovisual materials in the United States. Peabody Spotlight will…
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Over 1,000,000 Visitors to National Museum of African American History and Culture Since Opening
The National Museum of African American History and Culture has reached a huge milestone in the few months it has been opened, hitting its 1 million-visitors mark last week. The museum announced the milestone Monday, noting that it has been just a little more than four months since its Sept. 24 opening. According to the…
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Family of Henrietta Lacks Seeks Compensation for Unauthorized Use of Her Cells
The story of Henrietta Lacks and her “immortal” cells is not quite over. Her eldest son, Lawrence Lacks, has come forth requesting compensation from Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins University and possibly other institutions for the unauthorized use of the famous cells that prompted decades of medical advances. The Washington Post reports that Lawrence Lacks, who says…
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Watch: James Baldwin, in Our Words and His
James Baldwin is unequivocally one of the most prolific writers of his time. A queer black man, he brought life to the African-American experience through his novels, essays, debates and public lectures. And now a new generation is getting to experience the power of those words in the Oscar-nominated documentary I Am Not Your Negro.…