history

My Colonial ancestor was a woman named Sarah Summers, who I believe was from England and sentenced to serve seven years in the America[n] plantations for an unknown offense. I believe her to have been a “seven-year passenger,” who arrived in Virginia in 1756, according to a mention in Peter Wilson Coldham’s book series, Bonded…

Editor’s note: For Women’s History Month, The Root is spotlighting less famous figures from the African American National Biography, whose stories exemplify the extraordinary, and often unsung, accomplishments of African-American women from our past. With their combined 26 tennis grand-slam singles titles and 30 grand slams in doubles, few could deny that Venus and Serena Williams are the…

Don’t even bother asking Reggie Love about that infamous card game that he and President Barack Obama reportedly played while Navy SEALs were en route to Abbottabad, Pakistan, with orders to kill Osama bin Laden. Because the only thing Love was willing to say during an interview about his new book, Power Forward: My Presidential Education, is that…

This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black Archive & Library at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. Within the flowering branches of a divine version of the genealogical tree, eight biblical kings flank a majestic vision of…

Who was the first (and only) female buffalo soldier? In November 1866, an African American named William Cathey, along with two companions, enlisted in the U.S. Army in St. Louis. Described by the recruiting officer as 5 feet 9 inches tall, with black eyes, hair and complexion, Cathey stated that he was 22 years old…

A hundred years ago—on March 3, 1915, to be exact—as war consumed Europe, and the United States tried to steer clear of entanglements, some of the best minds and most passionate social-justice advocates had one goal: to stop the opening of D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation at the Liberty Theater in New York City’s Times…

Editor’s note: During Black History Month, the focus is usually on historical figures who loomed larger than life, paving the way for the progress we experience today. But black history isn’t just about telling stories of our past. History is being made every day and has been made throughout our lives; it’s not just in books.…

This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black Archive & Library at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. From the other side of a narrow ledge, a black man looks out from a picture with an air of…

In the late 1940s, a historian predicted that one day all of Mississippi’s schoolchildren, black and white, would come to know the name of Charles Caldwell, who gave his life during the Reconstruction struggle for black citizenship, economic opportunity and equal rights for women. It was a bold prediction at a time when the textbooks of…

Editor’s note: During Black History Month, the focus is usually on historical figures who loomed larger than life, paving the way for the progress we experience today. But black history isn’t just about telling stories of our past. History is being made every day and has been made throughout our lives; it’s not just in books.…