history

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. 73: Who was the first…

You can hear this quote by Jimmy Carter, from an interview with Huffington Post Live, in its full context here. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and founding director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He is also the editor-in-chief of The Root. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

You can read this quote by Ohio State professor Brad Bushman, from a press release announcing the findings of a study exploring the influence of avatar race in violent video games, in its full context here. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and founding director of the Hutchins Center for African and African…

You can read this quote by Oprah Winfrey, part of a promotional campaign for her self-help arena tour, “Oprah’s The Life You Want Weekend,” in its full context here. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and founding director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He…

I’d like to get to the bottom of a puzzling name change in my family’s past. My great-grandfather Jeffrey Bedard (born circa 1856) started life as Jeffrey Nesmith, according to the 1870 census of Turkey, Williamsburg County, S.C., where he lived with Prince and Peggy Nesmith, listed as his parents, and several siblings. Then, in…

You can read this quote by Max Roach, from Notes and Tones: Musician-to-Musician Interviews (1993), in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read the quote in its full context here. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and founding director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He is also the editor-in-chief of The…

In 1825 my maternal grandfather three times removed, William Grimes, wrote and published the first fugitive slave narrative in America—Life of William Grimes, the Runaway Slave. Published in New York at a time when black autobiography was rare, this life story was written by Grimes after his master from Savannah, Ga., issued him an ultimatum: Either…

You can read this quote by President Barack Obama, from a press conference in Amsterdam about the Russian occupation, in its full context here.   Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and founding director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He is also the editor-in-chief of The…

You can read this quote by Dayo Olopade, about Africa’s informal job sectors that are keeping the continent afloat, in this New York Times op-ed. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and founding director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He is also the…

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. A scene of frantic battle is captured by an exaggerated, rather…