history

You can read this quote by Albert Murray, from his book The Omni-Americans (1970), 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 Root. Follow…

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. In a startling re-enactment of a pious medieval legend, two doctors…

You can read this quote, from Lupita Nyong’o’s acceptance speech at the 2014 Academy Awards for her performance as Patsey in 12 Years a Slave, 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…

You can read this quote by Edna Lewis, from her book The Taste of Country Cooking (1976), in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read how the quote is referenced 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…

Editor’s note: Stokely Carmichael’s activism helped found the Black Panther Party, and his work on voter registration transformed the South and allied him with Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders. Carmichael’s brilliant but complicated legacy is examined in the new book Stokely: A Life, written by The Root’s contributing editor Peniel Joseph. It goes on…

Editor’s note: This article was first published on Oct. 14, 2013. 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…

You can read this quote by Harold Cruse, from his book The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual (1967), in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read how the quote is referenced 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’s note: “If Martin [Luther King Jr.] served as the king of the black freedom movement during the civil rights era, then Stokely [Carmichael] reigned as the prince of a revolutionary movement for political self-determination and cultural pride that would be embodied in his call for black power.” So wrote Peniel Joseph in a tribute…

You can read this quote from Sun Ra’s poem “The Shadow of Tomorrow” (1958) in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read how the quote is referenced 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 from Dudley Randall’s poem “A Poet Is Not a Jukebox” (1981) 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…