history
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Why Did Malcolm X Go to Oxford?
Editor’s note: For those who are wondering about the retro title of this black-history series, please take a moment to learn about historian Joel A. Rogers, author of the 1934 book 100 Amazing Facts About the Negro With Complete Proof, to whom these “amazing facts” are an homage. Amazing Fact About the Negro No. 95: What…
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Good Riddance, ‘Baby Doc’
Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, Haiti’s former dictator, is to be buried Saturday in the nation’s capital, Port-au-Prince, without benefit of a state-sponsored funeral. As I discovered on a recent trip to Haiti, some Haitians, frustrated by the lack of economic progress and forgetful of the oppression he once represented, had begun to speak nostalgically of…
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What’s the Best Way to Research Bajan Roots?
I am doing my husband’s genealogy. His grandmother was born Ethel (Etherea) Chantilla Pounder on March 23, 1898, in St. Philip Parish, Barbados, West Indies. Her father was Arthur Pounder and her mother was Avis Jordan. How can I find records on Arthur and Avis? —Patricia L. Blackwell There are plenty of resources available to you!…
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The Story You Don’t Know About the End of Apartheid
How history is told often depends on who tells it first, which also means it is their version of history. When it comes to the end of apartheid in South Africa and the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, a lot of what we know we learned from the South African leader’s 1995 autobiography, which…
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This Egyptian Paddle Doll May Look Like a Simple Toy, but It Is So Much More
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. Lacking the austere grandeur usually associated with the art of ancient Egypt, the truncated body and staring eyes of this…
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Which Black Man Was Responsible for Burying Bodies at Gettysburg?
Editor’s note: For those who are wondering about the retro title of this black-history series, please take a moment to learn about historian Joel A. Rogers, author of the 1934 book 100 Amazing Facts About the Negro With Complete Proof, to whom these “amazing facts” are an homage. Amazing Fact About the Negro No. 94: How did the war…
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Was My Ancestor an Afro-Cuban Railroad Man?
Dear Professor Gates: I am looking for genealogy resources about Afro-Cuban people in the Ohio Valley region (Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennessee). My father’s paternal grandfather, Thomas Regan, was born in Cuba circa 1900. Using Ancestry.com, I found out that he arrived in the United States about 1918 by way of Ireland.…
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Why Is a Black Monk Seated So Prominently Next to Paul the Apostle?
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. Once an ardent foe of Christianity, Paul the Apostle went on to provide the new religion with a creed firmly rooted…
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Who Were the 1st Black Federal Court Judges?
Editor’s note: For those who are wondering about the retro title of this black-history series, please take a moment to learn about historian Joel A. Rogers, author of the 1934 book 100 Amazing Facts About the Negro With Complete Proof, to whom these “amazing facts” are an homage. Amazing Fact About the Negro No. 93: How did black justices break…
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Gone With the Wind and Its Pernicious Place in History
Well, fiddledeedee, as Scarlett O’Hara might exclaim: Gone With the Wind, the epic film of love and war set against the backdrop of a doomed Southern slavocracy, is turning 75, with special screenings in movie theaters around the nation and an airing on TV, too. While black film buffs and thrill seekers will be in…