black history
-
Tracing Your Roots: How Did My Ancestor Escape Slavery?
In revisiting the story of black refugees to Trinidad, we came across the tale of a foiled slave rebellion in Maryland. Dear Professor Gates: I am a Trinidadian who has been searching for information on my ancestor Henry Ransom, a black Colonial Marine who joined with the British in 1814 and was resettled in 5th…
-
Green Book Mobile App Turns the Painful History of Traveling While Black Into Tool for Learning
A new mobile tool combines the latest technology with the legacy of a forgotten past when “traveling while black” was an activity fraught with peril and danger. In a first-of-its-kind combination of history and technology, the South Carolina African American Heritage Commission has created a web-based mobile version of The Green Book—also known as…
-
Violence Is Never the Answer … for Black People
There is one universal subject that cannot be ignored when explaining history, dissecting the status of marginalized people around the world, or pursuing any understanding of society, culture or politics. It is an unavoidable component that must be factored into any academic or intellectual examination of civilization, social order or government. That subject is violence.…
-
Ohio’s 1st African-American State Trooper Dies at 85
Family, friends and dozens of local law enforcement gathered Monday to remember the life of Louis Sharp, a huge part of Ohio’s history as the state’s first African-American state trooper. According to WCMH, Sharp died last week at the age of 85. Sharp’s grandson, Justin Sharp, remembered his grandfather as a “strong” person. “I don’t…
-
Black Women in DC Bring to Life the Untold Stories of Overlooked Black Women in Civil War History
A group of black women in Washington, D.C., are part of an acting troupe that gives voice to the nameless, faceless black women of the Civil War in a different spin on re-enactment groups. Female Re-Enactors of Distinction, or FREED, was founded in 2005 in association with the African American Civil War Museum in D.C.,…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…