history

“I have been tracing my roots on my mother’s side for a number of years. They hail from Middlesex County, Va., home of the senior Honorable Christopher Robinson. Robinson (1645-1693) came to Virginia and settled in Middlesex County, where he established the Hewick Plantation. He also fathered a family of prominent Virginians, and some of…

You can read these lyrics by Jay Z, from his song “December 4th,” in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read the lyrics in their 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 Halle Berry, from her 2002 acceptance speech at the Academy Awards, in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Watch Halle Berry’s full acceptance speech 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…

You can read this quote by David Adjaye, from a 2003 interview in the Guardian newspaper, in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read The Root’s coverage of Adjaye 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…

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. Presented as confident rulers of their own nation, a black leader…

You can read this quote by the character Winter Santiaga in Sister Souljah’s novel The Coldest Winter Ever (1999) and in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read Sister Souljah’s interview with The Root 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…

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.…

You can read this quote by Michael Jordan in his book I Can’t Accept Not Trying (1994) and in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read more about Michael Jordan 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…

More than 40 years ago, I learned of my family’s ancestral ties to Thomas Jefferson. It was a blood connection impossible to prove, and one seldom discussed, as my father was ashamed of his mother’s out-of-wedlock birth. Still, he acknowledged that he’d heard from an older generation that Jefferson was his lineal ancestor. The tie…