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The History and Significance of Kente Cloth in the Black Diaspora

Kente serves as more than a pop of color at college graduations.
by James Padilioni via Black Perspectives on May 22, 2017
A New Orleans parade, with confetti falling on the heads of men dancing in suits.

Sundays in the Streets

The long history of benevolence, self-help, and parades in New Orleans.
by Leslie Parr via Southern Cultures on December 16, 2016
Book cover with the title "Baby Boy Born Birthplace Blues" superimposed on a photo of a man lying down with his cheek on the ground.

Baby Boy Born Birthplace Blues

"The blues was born on a riverboat between Louisville and New Albany, along those docks, in the 1890s. I mean, the blues was born nowhere, of course. Or it was born many places."
by John Jeremiah Sullivan via Oxford American on December 6, 2016
A man holding a sign detailing oil production

All-Black Towns Living the American Dream

Rare footage from the 1920s, when Oklahoma was home to some 50 African-American towns.
by Rhea Combs via National Geographic on October 2, 2016
Kids and adults free dancing.

Camille A. Brown: A Visual History of Social Dance in 25 Moves

Why do we dance? African-American social dances started as a way for enslaved Africans to keep cultural traditions alive and retain a sense of inner freedom.
by Camille A. Brown via TED on June 1, 2016

Soul Survivor

The revival and hidden treasure of Aretha Franklin.
by David Remnick via The New Yorker on April 4, 2016
Cast of Hamilton take a curtain call.

Who Tells America's Story? 'Hamilton,' Hip-Hop, and Me

How the hit musical allows those who have been left out of the story to claim the narrative of America as their own.
by Marcella White Campbell via Baker Street Blues on March 15, 2016
Booker T. Washington writing at a desk.

Toward a Usable Black History

It will help black Americans to recall that they have a history that transcends victimization and exclusion.
by John McWhorter via City Journal on December 23, 2015

Juneteenth and Barbecue

The menu of Emancipation Day.
by Daniel Vaughn via Texas Monthly on June 16, 2015
Waiter taking a plate of calas on from the counter to serve

Meet the Calas, a New Orleans Tradition That Helped Free Slaves

A path to freedom for enslaved blacks, an engine of economic independence, a treat for Mardi Gras revelers.
by Maria Godoy via NPR on February 12, 2013

That World Is Gone: Race and Displacement in a Southern Town

The story of Vinegar Hill, a historically African American neighborhood in Charlottesville, Virginia.
via Field Studio on May 9, 2011
Painting representing the Great Migration: African Americans going through gates to Chicago, New York, and St. Louis.

The Changing Definition of African-American

How the great influx of people from Africa and the Caribbean since 1965 is challenging what it means to be African-American.
by Ira Berlin via Smithsonian Magazine on February 1, 2010

Lady Soul Singing it Like It Is

In 1968, Time Magazine searched for the elusive definition of "soul."
via TIME on June 28, 1968
Circus Sideshow, by Georges Seurat, 1887–88.

Unforgettable

W.E.B. Du Bois on the beauty of sorrow songs.
via Lapham’s Quarterly on January 1, 1903
Children eating Thanksgiving dinner in Harlem.

Make Thanksgiving Radical Again

The holiday’s real roots lie in abolition, liberation, and anti-racism. Let’s reconnect to that legacy.
by Kali Holloway via The Nation on November 27, 2025
A. Philip Randolph.
partner

A. Philip Randolph Lambasts the Old Crowd

A Black socialist magazine urges solidarity and action in 1919.
by A. Philip Randolph, Martha H. Patterson, Henry Louis Gates Jr. via HNN on September 9, 2025
Toni Morrison holding a manuscript.

She Was the Greatest Author of Her Generation. She Should Be Remembered for More Than Her Writing.

Toni Morrison was an editor for 12 years, even as she wrote her own masterpieces. I spoke to her authors about being edited by an icon.
by Dana A. Williams via Slate on June 17, 2025
Mark Twain

The Impossible Contradictions of Mark Twain

Populist and patrician, hustler and moralist, salesman and satirist, he embodied the tensions within his America, and ours.
by Lauren Michele Jackson via The New Yorker on April 28, 2025
National Museum of African American History and Culture.

What It Means to Tell the Truth About America

And what happens when empirical fact is labeled “improper ideology.”
by Clint Smith via The Atlantic on April 21, 2025
Children at the Oakland Community School, 1973.

What Happens When the U.S. Declares War on Your Parents?

The Black Panthers shook America before the party was gutted by the government. Their children paid a steep price, but also emerged with unassailable pride.
by Ed Pilkington via The Guardian on March 25, 2025
Alvin Ailey

How to Forget Alvin Ailey

Even as “Edges of Ailey” gathers such intimate documents, it does not make them legible to its visitors.
by Juliana Devaan via Public Books on March 12, 2025
A line of people swearing in as Ghanaian citizens.

The Land Disputes Facing African Americans in Ghana

Locals complain of losing out as wealthier ‘returnees’ from abroad secure prime real estate.
by Philip Teye Agbove via New Lines on February 27, 2025
A family of formerly enslaved people outside their house in Fredericksburg, Virginia, circa 1862–1865.

The Missing Persons of Reconstruction

Enslaved families were regularly separated​. A new history chronicles the tenacious efforts of the emancipated to be reunited​ with their loved ones.
by Joshua D. Rothman via The New Republic on February 26, 2025
A drawing of a scuba diver holding a flare, exploring the wreck of a slave ship underwater.

Dredging Up the Ghostly Secrets of Slave Ships

A global network of maritime archeologists is excavating slave shipwrecks—and reconnecting Black communities to the deep.
by Julian Lucas via The New Yorker on February 24, 2025
Abstract painting of Black people.

The Messiness of Black Identity

Can language unify the people?
by Doreen St. Félix via The New Yorker on September 7, 2024
Alain Locke.

A Century of Cultural Pluralism

How an unlikely American friendship should inspire diversity, equity, and inclusion.
by David Weinfeld via U.S. Intellectual History Blog on August 21, 2024
summer campers around a fire
partner

Around the Campfire with Paul Robeson

The history of Camp Wo-Chi-Ca tells a largely overlooked story about left-wing politics and Black culture.
by Nina Silber via HNN on August 6, 2024
Juneteenth celebrations.

Before Juneteenth

A firsthand account of freedom’s earliest celebrations.
by Susannah J. Ural, Ann Marsh Daly via The Atlantic on June 17, 2024
A painting of a lively sermon in a Black church.

Respectability Be Damned: How the Harlem Renaissance Paved the Way for Art by Black Nonbelievers

How James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, and others embraced a new Black humanism.
by Anthony B. Pinn via Literary Hub on May 24, 2024
Archibald J. Motley, Jr.'s 1929 painting entitled "Blues," from 1929 depicting Black musicians and dancers.

How Harlem Saw Itself

On the Metropolitan Museum of Art's exhibition of ‘The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism.’
by Clifford Thompson via Commonweal on May 8, 2024
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