Black History

Introduction: When History Changes the Meaning of a Name I’ve lived long enough to hear “Uncle Tom” used as one of the harshest insults directed at a Black person. Today, it usually describes somebody accused of betraying their own people to please White authority. But the original character in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 novel Uncle

I Don’t Miss the Old Racism We should not overlook the racism that was once openly accepted in America. There was nothing better about a time when Black Americans faced segregation, racial violence, denial of voting rights, and laws that treated them as inferior. What concerns me today is how race, class, immigration, religion, and

Start With What Hoover Actually Said A quote circulating online claims J. Edgar Hoover said Black unity was the greatest threat to America. I understand why people believe it because it seems to fit the FBI’s history, but I cannot find reliable evidence that Hoover actually said those words. We do not need a questionable

Freedom Came, but the Family Was Still Fighting The Civil War was over and slavery had been abolished, but Nathan and Jenney Cox were still fighting for something fundamental: the right to keep their children. In Alabama in 1865, their former enslaver, Francis Jones, asked a court to bind five of their children, ages three

A Star Harlem Never Forgot When Florence Mills died in 1927 at only 31, thousands attended her funeral at Mother Zion A.M.E. Church, while more than 100,000 people reportedly filled Harlem’s streets. She had become one of the most celebrated Black entertainers of the 1920s, performing in New York, London, Paris, and elsewhere in Europe.

Reparations Should Not Turn Americans Against One Another The reparations debate deserves more than the claim that Black Americans are coming to take White people’s money. It is a public-policy question about whether documented historical harms justify repair and, if so, what form that repair should take. Reasonable people can disagree about eligibility, cost, responsibility,