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African American history



  • The Women of the Montgomery Bus Boycott

    "It felt like Harriet Tubman's hands were pushing me down on one shoulder and Sojourner Truth's hand on me pushed me down on another one. History had me glued to the seat." – Claudette Colvin



  • Exhibiting the Black Panthers' Ephemera

    An exhibition of the radical group's posters illustrates the importance-and difficulty-of documenting political movements that used visual communications through ephemeral media like postering and newspapers. 



  • In Chicago, the Political Vibes Echo 1983, but the Politics are Different

    by Gordon Mantler

    Harold Washington's victory in 1983 to become the city's first Black mayor promised a new multicultural coalition politics. Forty years later, that coalition is discouraged and demobilized, and seems unlikely to challenge the entrenched interests that Washington tried to dislodge from power. 



  • The NBA Embraced Blackness in the 1970s—Moral Panic Ensued

    Theresa Runstedtler looks at the NBA's key transitional decade as a time when Black players didn't simply change the style of play but demanded fair treatment for the value created by their skilled labor, following the ethos of civil rights and Black Power. 



  • A Different Kind of Unfree Labor Haunts a Houston Suburb

    by Ashanté Reese

    Texas's convict labor system was a first step in reasserting white dominance over Black labor through criminal law. The discovery of remains of convicted laborers on the site of a former prison farm show the need to reckon with unfree labor after the end of slavery. 



  • Conversations in Black Studies

    Komozi Woodard, Jeanne Theoharis and Robyn Spencer-Antoine discuss the 10th anniversary of an important monthly discussion series hosted by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York. 



  • Portraits of 19th C. Black Charlottesville Show Life, Joy

    The University of Virginia has begun to acknowledge the labors of enslaved people who built the campus. John Edwin Mason is curating an exhibition of photographs commissioned by Black Charlottesvillians showing how they saw themselves.