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
Juneteenth Is More Than a Date Read More »
When Artemis II Came Home When I watched the story of Artemis II unfold, I saw more than another successful NASA mission. I saw another reminder that Black achievement in science and technology did not begin yesterday. Artemis II carried four astronauts around the Moon and safely returned them to Earth on April 10, 2026.
Black Excellence Was Never a DEI Experiment Read More »
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
Before There Was a Wealth Gap, There Was an Ownership Gap Read More »
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,
Juneteenth, Texas, and the History Beneath the Celebration Read More »
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
When Black Suffering Gets Turned Into a Competition Read More »
When History Starts Looking Like a Cycle The older I get, the harder it becomes for me to think about history as something that simply happened and disappeared. I can listen to Black leaders speaking in 1961, 1962, and 1963 and hear arguments that still sound familiar today. They were talking about voting rights, police
There Is No Past When the Same Questions Keep Coming Back Read More »
The Promise of Finding What Was Taken For Black Americans, ancestry is not simply a matter of curiosity about an old family tree. Slavery separated families, changed names, disrupted languages, and made it difficult for many descendants to trace an unbroken line back to particular African communities. That is why modern DNA testing can feel
When DNA Meets the Stories We Tell About Our African Roots Read More »
Everybody Wants Better Until Better Gets Expensive I have heard people complain about struggling neighborhoods most of my life. We want the abandoned houses repaired, the streets cleaned, the schools strengthened, the businesses reopened, and somebody to finally invest in the place. We want grocery stores instead of empty buildings and safe parks instead of
When the Neighborhood Gets Better, Who Gets to Stay? Read More »
Looking at American History From Another Angle One of the most revealing ways I have learned to study American history is to examine what happened whenever the country considered creating something for the public good. I look at health care, Social Security, public education, housing, parks, swimming pools, and other institutions that were supposed to
When the Public Good Had to Include Everybody Read More »
A Question I Cannot Treat Lightly I have heard the argument that a religion teaching people to love their enemies must be dangerous because oppressed people sometimes need to resist those harming them. I understand why that argument can strike a nerve, especially when Christianity is placed beside the history of slavery. Black people have
When Faith, Slavery, and Freedom Collide Read More »