Frederick Douglass

The wealth gap between white Americans and black Americans is stark.

We date the expansion of voting rights to women in 1920, but the real story is a lot more complex.

Tearing down monuments is only the beginning to understanding the false narrative of Jim Crow.

Was the white-nationalist march better understood as a departure from America’s traditional values, or viewed in the context of its history?

Independence Day has always been a political battlefield.

Fred Kaplan's new book asks why it took Abraham Lincoln so long to embrace emancipation.

The surprising persistence of Henry David Thoreau.

In the late 19th century, Wells connected lynchings to the economic interests and status anxieties of white southerners.

Yale adopts a new approach to deciding whether Calhoun College and other university properties need new names.

Black veterans were once targeted for racialized violence because of the equality with whites that their military service implied.

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

The founding moment of the United States brought a society newly freed from religion. What went wrong?

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

It will help black Americans to recall that they have a history that transcends victimization and exclusion.

The National Parks Service, which preserves many Civil War sites, is finally looking for a way to mark the struggles that defined its legacy.

What is the greatest libertarian accomplishment of all time? The abolition of slavery.

David Brion Davis’s philosophical history.

Black barbershops are a symbol of community, and they provide a window into our nation's complicated racial dynamics.

Why did Carter G. Woodson choose February, and what was his vision for the annual commemoration?

A look back at the historian's work suggests that contemporary radicals may be all too invested in the myth of American consensus.