Dred Scott v. Sandford (1957)

The fear that overtook us that day in 1988 was unfamiliar to most Americans. Now all too many know how it feels.

A new biography of William Still show how the abolitionist documented the underground railroad as he helped people through it.

From birthright freedom to birthright citizenship.

The Florida governor’s long-ignored 2011 work, "Dreams From Our Founding Fathers," reveals a distinct vision of American history.

In the first half of the 19th century, upstate New York was a hotbed of movements for reform. How visible is that history today?

A Washington Post investigation of more than 400 artworks in the U.S. Capitol building found that one-third honor enslavers or Confederates.

An 1859 painting by Eastman Johnson depicted enslaved people in a D.C. courtyard. Intended to humanize them, it was coopted by slavery defenders.

Was abolition intended as a perpetuation of slavery by other means?

A trio of American Samoan plaintiffs are asking the high court to end their status as second-class citizens.

A conversation about changing the American story.

The piece of paper went missing for nearly 200 years, leaving some scholars to question whether it even existed

And Congress should claw it back.

An overview of historical scholarship and socio-cultural developments in America to explain how racism became institutionalized against Black Americans.

A collaborative project by legal scholars sets out to make visible the vast array of legal precedents based on cases involving enslaved people.

The Washington Post has compiled the first database of slaveholding members of Congress by examining thousands of census records and historical documents.

Tyler Stovall demonstrates ways that people have conflated freedom with whiteness but pays too little attention to the force of freedom as a concept.

Leading conservative pundits today are pounding themes that were popular among opponents of Reconstruction.

St. Louis seems to define America’s past—but does it offer insight for the future?

The selection of African American Sen. Hiram Revels in 1870 offered great hope — but it was soon dashed.

Delany's insistence on interest-based coalitions, evident in his fiction and political prose, explains his late-Reconstruction defection to the Democrats and his strategies for revolution.