Black History

The Campaign Against Martin Luther King Jr. The more I learn about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the more I realize that his struggle went far beyond marches, speeches, and street demonstrations. Behind the scenes, the federal government was watching him with an intensity that should trouble anybody who values freedom. FBI Director J. Edgar

Reparations Are About More Than a Check Whenever reparations for Black Americans come up, the conversation can get heated before anybody has clearly defined what reparations would actually mean. Some people immediately imagine the government handing every Black person a large check and calling the matter settled. I think the subject is much deeper than

The Lesson Behind Shaka Zulu When I think about Shaka Zulu, I see more than the familiar story of a powerful African warrior king. I see a complicated lesson about leadership, institution building, succession, and what happens when too much power becomes concentrated in one person. Shaka was born around 1787 in what is now

A Young Woman With Everything in Front of Her Every now and then, I learn about a talented Black performer from years ago and wonder why later generations barely know their name. Sheila Guyse is one of those performers who deserves another look. At one time, her future seemed full of possibilities. She had beauty,

When History Is Written in the Body The more I learn about African American history, the more I realize that some of our story survived outside courthouses and history books. For more than two centuries, slavery controlled where millions of Black people lived, worked, and raised their families. It also separated families and forced people

The Date Is Only the Doorway When people hear the word Juneteenth, many immediately think of June 19, 1865, and that date absolutely matters. That was the day Union Major General Gordon Granger announced in Galveston, Texas, that enslaved people were free under General Order No. 3. The announcement came more than two years after

The Question Behind the Wealth There is a question about American history that has stayed with me because it sounds simple until I really sit with it. If Black people contributed so much labor to building America’s wealth, why did Black families end up owning so little of that wealth? The answer does not begin

Why So Many Black Texans Are in the East When I look at Texas today, one thing that catches my attention is how much of the state’s historic Black population has been concentrated in the eastern part of Texas. That pattern did not happen by accident. East Texas contained the climate, rainfall, rivers, fertile soil,

The Black Body and the Making of Wealth When I hear someone say enslavers wanted the strongest Black bodies they could find and worked them until they had nothing left to give, I understand the anger behind those words. That anger comes from recognizing the cruelty and exploitation enslaved people endured. The Atlantic slave trade