history
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Adopted in Louisiana and Looking for Kin?
(The Root) — The search for family roots takes on a special intensity for individuals who were adopted and don’t know their birth parents. Find out why this woman’s husband doesn’t feel like a “free black man in America.” “I am writing you with hope in my heart that you could assist us locating my husband’s roots. My husband…
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Did Peter the Great Have a Black Son?
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. (The Root) — Amazing Fact About…
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Who Really Ran the Underground Railroad?
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. (The Root) — Amazing Facts About the Negro: No. 24:…
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Why Richard Wright Hated Zora Neale Hurston
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. This column was originally published on March 18, 2013.…
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How Did Harriet Tubman Become a Legend?
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. (The Root) — Amazing Fact About the Negro…
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How Do I Track Down a Slave Plantation?
(The Root) — In the 100 Amazing Facts About the Negro column entitled “Why Was Cotton ‘King’?” I described how blacks were commodified by the plantation economy in slaveholding states. For many, the trail to discovering black ancestry is paved with this sad truth and with clues in the records kept by plantations. Below, a…
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I'm Black and I Think I Have Presidential Roots
(The Root) — Right now there’s a lot of popular interest in the life of President Abraham Lincoln, due in no small part to the recent success of Steven Spielberg’s award-winning 2012 film, Lincoln. I share that interest, and in 2009 even presented a documentary on PBS about his legacy called Looking for Lincoln. Below,…
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Tarantino Talks Sequel to 'Basterds' and 'Django'
(The Root) — If you thought Quentin Tarantino was done with historical revenge fantasies after Inglourious Basterds and his latest, Django Unchained — a “postmodern, slave-narrative Western,” in the words of The Root’s editor-in-chief, Henry Louis Gates Jr. — you’d be wrong. The spaghetti Western-inspired Django Unchained, for which Tarantino won an Academy Award for…
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How Do I Trace My Former-Slave Ancestor?
Updated Aug. 30, 2013: This Labor Day holiday weekend will bring many families together at picnics, barbecues and celebrations. Such gatherings are the perfect time for the genealogy-minded to research their roots: Get out the old photo albums, ask questions of kin with long memories, go digging for documents in the attic of your grandma’s…
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Who Was the Black Swallow of Death?
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. (The Root) — Amazing Facts About…