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U.S. Patent Office

The Story of the American Inventor Denied a Patent Because He Was a Slave

What happens when the Patent Office doesn't recognize the inventor as a person at all?

Citizens to Come: Building Beyond the 14th Amendment

Commemoration of the 14th Amendment must not display the abundance of freedom, but the hunger for it on both sides of the border.

Citizens: 150 Years of the 14th Amendment

In 1868, black activists had already been promoting birthright as the basis of their national belonging for nearly half a century.

When the Fourth of July Was a Black Holiday

After the Civil War, African Americans in the South transformed Independence Day into a celebration of their newly won freedom.
Kossula Oluale

Lonesome for Our Home

Zora Neale Hurston’s long-lost oral history with one of the last survivors of the Atlantic slave trade.

The Historical Roots of Blues Music

The blues is not "slave music," but the music of freed African Americans.
United States Colored Troops.

African American Civil War Soldiers

Why an historian is compiling a digital database of the military records of 200,000+ black Union soldiers.

The Compensated Emancipation Act of 1862

While a far cry from full emancipation, it was an important step towards the abolition of slavery.

Banking Against (Black) Capitalism

A review of "The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap."
Black sailors among the crew of a Union Naval vessel.

Slaves and Sailors in the Civil War

The enlistment of black soldiers in the Union Army is well-known, but their Navy counterparts played an integral role, too.

When Emancipation Finally Came, Slave Markets Took on a Redemptive Purpose

During the Civil War, slave pens held captive Confederate soldiers. After, they became rallying points for a newly empowered community.
Abraham Lincoln entering Richmond, 1865.

How One Amateur Historian Brought Us the Stories of African-Americans Who Knew Abraham Lincoln

Once John E. Washington started to dig, he found an incredible wealth of untapped knowledge about the 16th president.
Mural of a wedding on a plantation, while African Americans working in fields.

'Until Death or Distance Do You Part'

African American marriages before and after the Civil War.

Was the Real Lone Ranger a Black Man?

The amazing true story of Bass Reeves, the formerly enslaved man who patrolled the Wild West.

The Fight Over Andrew Johnson's Impeachment Was a Fight for the Future of the United States

The biggest show in Washington 150 years ago was the trial against the President of the United States.
Ed Ayers next to the cover of his book, "The Thin Light of Freedom."
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The Thin Light of Freedom

On this episode of BackStory, Brian sits down with Ed to talk about a project of his that’s been twenty-five years in the making.

Introducing Reconstruction

The new Slate Academy finds the seeds of our present politics in the period after the Civil War.
Vintage Georgia postcard.

The Un-Pretty History Of Georgia's Iconic Peach

Why are Georgia peaches so iconic? The answer has a lot to do with slavery — its end and a need for the South to rebrand itself.
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The 14th Amendment Solved One Citizenship Crisis, But It Created A New One

How birthright citizenship became a barrier for undocumented immigrants.

Aaron Alpeoria Bradley and Black Power during Reconstruction

Black power, and the causes it supports, began long before the official Black Power movement.

W. E. B. Du Bois’ Hand-Drawn Infographics of African-American Life (1900)

The visualizations condense an enormous amount of data into a set of aesthetically daring and easily digestible visualisations.
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Race and Labor in the 1863 New York City Draft Riots

What sparked one of the deadliest insurrections in American history?

A Dual Emancipation

How black freedom benefited poor whites.

Making America White 200 Years Ago

Brandon Byrd examines resistance to the American Colonization Society's attempts to remove free blacks from the US.

The Lesser-Known History of African-American Cowboys

One in four cowboys was black. So why aren’t they more present in popular culture?
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.
An "Information Wanted" advertisement from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Courtesy of the National Archives.

Last Seen: Finding Family After Slavery

Last Seen is recovering stories of families separated in the domestic slave trade. The following explains how the project engages with these family histories.

Slavery and Freedom

Eric Foner, Walter Johnson, Thavolia Glymph, and Annette Gordon-Reed discuss trends in the study of slavery and emancipation.
Abolitionist image of an enslaved man in chains and the words "Am I not a man and a brother?"

The Truth About Abolition

The movement finally gets the big, bold history it deserves.

Land and The Roots of African-American Poverty

Land redistribution could have served as the primary means of reparations for former slaves. Instead, it did exactly the opposite.

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