black history
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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…
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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.,…
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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…