freedmen

An opinion from Justice Clarence Thomas exposed the limits of originalism.

The politicized rhetoric linking race and welfare has a long, ingrained history.

Black refugees’ journey from Virginia to Boston after the Civil War.

A new history of the Civil War and Reconstruction examines the ways in which Black Americans formed networks of self-reliance in their pursuit of emancipation.

Freedman's Village, created in Arlington, VA at the end of the Civil War, became a thriving community of Black residents as part of Reconstruction.

John Marshall Harlan's relationship with an enslaved man who grew up in his home showed how respect could transcend barriers and point a path to freedom.

How African Americans came to Indian Territory after the Civil War.

This plight dates back to the era of slavery.

The fate of Raleigh's 11 missing freedman's villages.

To alleviate voters' fears during the Civil War, Northern governors refused to open their states to formerly enslaved refugees.

In 1867, African-Americans in Virginia stood up for their new political rights in the face of threats from their white neighbors.

After emancipation, prison labor replaced slavery as a way for white Southerners to enforce a racial hierarchy.

Migration further west began almost immediately after Reconstruction ended, as Black Americans initiated the "Great Exodus" outside the South toward Kansas.

The struggle over blood and belonging in American Indian communities.

Harriet M. Buss' missives home detail the future congressman's candid views on race and the complicity of Confederate women.

Steps from Georgetown, a memorial to Teddy Roosevelt stands amid ghosts of previous inhabitants: the Nacotchtank, colonist enslavers, and the emancipated.

Before Theodore Roosevelt Island was transformed, a prominent Virginia family relied on enslaved laborers to build and tend to its summer home.

The resistance and unionism of enslaved and freed Black women in the midst of the Confederacy is an epic story of sacrifice for nation and citizenship.

No one should fear a history that asks a country to live up to its highest ideals.

Freedpeople and their advocates persuaded the nation to embrace schooling for all.