Black History

When Familiar Phrases Change Language does not stay frozen simply because folks have been repeating the same expression for generations. Words and sayings can take on new meanings as people begin looking more carefully at the assumptions hiding underneath them. Linguists often describe changes in meaning as semantic change or semantic shift, although not every

We Have Always Known How to Build Building was never the hard part for Black people in America, even when the country put obstacle after obstacle in the way. We built businesses, churches, schools, newspapers, farms, banks, insurance companies, neighborhoods, and professional organizations when many doors were deliberately closed to us. Madam C. J. Walker

Trauma Is More Than a Memory Trauma does not live only in our memories or in stories we tell about what happened. The body can carry the effects of prolonged fear, violence, poverty, discrimination, and uncertainty. When danger becomes constant, the nervous system can remain on alert even when no immediate threat is standing in

The Idea of Trauma in the Bloodline When people say trauma runs in the bloodline, they are usually trying to explain why pain can seem to travel through a family for generations. Black families have understood that feeling long before anybody started using words like epigenetics. Slavery, family separation, racial violence, segregation, housing discrimination, and

When Racism Became a Business Model How Blockbusting Worked One of the most destructive housing practices of twentieth-century America did more than keep Black families out of certain neighborhoods. It found a way to make money from racial fear on one side and racial discrimination on the other. The practice became known as blockbusting. Real

Race Was Not Invented by One Man The question “Who created race?” sounds like it should have a simple answer, one person and one date. History, however, rarely works that neatly. No single writer, pope, king, explorer, or government woke up one morning and invented what we now understand as race. The idea developed gradually

Two Histories of Suffering That Should Not Be Confused Whenever American slavery comes up, sooner or later somebody will say, “The Irish were slaves too.” That statement usually refers to Irish people who endured indentured servitude, forced transportation, brutal labor, poverty, religious persecution, and English colonial oppression. There is no question that many Irish people

A Legal Education System Built on Unequal Terms For a period in South Carolina history, graduating from an approved law school could do more than put a diploma on the wall because that degree could also open the door to practicing law. The system was commonly known as diploma privilege, meaning eligible graduates could be

A Restaurant That Turned Racism Into a Brand American history gives us more examples than we would like to remember of Black people being humiliated, excluded, or treated as less than human in restaurants, hotels, theaters, transportation, and other public places. But few businesses made racist imagery as openly central to their identity as the