history
-
Like Dred Scott, Michael Brown Was Denied His Right to Live—and to Live as an American
News out of Ferguson, Mo., has been devastating. Since unarmed teenager Michael Brown was killed by an as-yet-unidentified police officer, local police have responded to the community’s demonstration of outrage with unprecedented force—using military-style weaponry to suppress peaceful protests, arrest black elected officials and detain journalists. And Brown’s death seems to have unearthed a history…
-
After Michael Brown’s Killing, Echoes of the ’65 Watts Rebellion
The killing of Missouri teenager Michael Brown by police, followed by two consecutive nights of racial upheaval in his hometown of Ferguson, coincides with the anniversary of one of the nation’s biggest civil disturbances. Forty-nine years ago this week, Los Angeles’ Watts neighborhood erupted into a weeklong urban rebellion in the aftermath of a confrontation…
-
Painting Shows How All Men Are Equal in the Eyes of God
This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute, part of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. Enthroned in celestial majesty, the impassive, monumental figure of Christ proclaims the spiritual…
-
Did My Slave Ancestor Really Trek Across the South?
My maternal grandmother states that her grandfather Jesse James walked to Wilmington, N.C., when he was 12 years old, from Florence, S.C.—a distance of more than 125 miles. My grandmother was uncertain if it was before or immediately after slavery. I wonder if he could have been a runaway slave or perhaps a part of…
-
We Need a New Voting-Rights Movement
This time next year, be prepared for rousing speeches, earnest commemorations and moving celebrations that mark the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson’s signing the Voting Rights Act. But even now, it’s worth having a national come-to-Jesus moment about the state of voting rights and democracy, especially for black folks, in advance of the coming…
-
The Queen of Sheba and the Rise of Christianity
This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute, part of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. Against a brilliant red background, a regal figure and her servant…
-
A Black Man’s Head Protects Sanctity of Ancient Italian Temple
This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute, part of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. The head of a black man seen here, enclosed in a…
-
Were There Black Pirates?
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. 89: Did black people engage…
-
Was My Great-Grandfather Part of Civil War History?
I have hit a wall while researching my paternal grandfather’s parents. My great-grandparents Joseph and Queen Wiggins were from Milledgeville, Ga., in Baldwin County. They are mentioned in the [Daughters of the American Revolution] chronicles of Anna Maria Green Cook, titled History of Baldwin County, Georgia [pdf]. My great-grandparents were listed under “Faithful Negroes” in…
-
When Black Venus Was the Ideal Standard of Beauty
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. A beautiful black woman stands in an elegantly twisting pose, her naked body rising in a series of fluidly shifting forms. She…