A Debt She Could Not Pay The year was 1902, near Dadeville, Alabama, and a Black woman named Sarah Neely found herself caught inside a system much bigger than the charge against her. Sarah was arrested for larceny, taken before the local mayor, convicted, and ordered to pay a fine. On paper, this may have
Sarah Neely: Freedom in Name Only Read More »
Suspicion Has a History Black people do not become suspicious every time something looks wrong because we are irrational. Sometimes suspicion grows out of history. That does not mean every suspicious death is a murder. It does not mean every official report is false. It does not mean every police department, medical examiner, sheriff, prosecutor,
Black Suspicion Did Not Begin on Social Media Read More »
A House Sitting Beside History There is a house in downtown Tampa that most people could probably drive past without understanding what they are looking at. It sits at 851 East Zack Street, only a short distance from Tampa Union Station. Today the building looks fragile, weathered, and in desperate need of restoration. During segregation,
The Jackson House: When Segregation Made a Tampa Home a Haven Read More »
Owning Something Means More Than Having Your Name on It I grew up in a generation where owning something meant something. A house was something you tried to own. A car was something you eventually hoped to pay off. A business was something you built so that the income, decisions, and future belonged to you.
Dr. Claud Anderson, Safe Bus, and the Meaning of Ownership Read More »
The Story Is Real, but It Needs to Be Told Correctly There is a piece of American welfare history that deserves far more attention than it gets. You may have heard somebody say there was a law called the “No Man in the House law” that forced Black fathers out of their homes so mothers
The Welfare Rules That Policed Black Families Read More »
A Young Woman Doing What Nobody Expected I want to introduce you to a young woman whose life was short but whose impact was anything but small. Her name was Alice Augusta Ball. She was born in Seattle in 1892 and showed an early talent for science and chemistry. She studied pharmaceutical chemistry and pharmacy
Alice Augusta Ball: The Young Chemist Who Changed the Treatment of Hansen’s Disease Read More »
Freedom Was Never Supposed to Stop at Our Door When I think about the Black freedom struggle at its best, I do not think the goal was simply to get the boot off our own necks and then walk away. I think the deeper hope was to challenge the kind of system that puts a
The Struggle Was Always Bigger Than Us Read More »
Carry Your Own Light Here is something from American history that ought to make us stop and think about what surveillance really means. In 1713, New York City adopted a law regulating the nighttime movement of enslaved Black and Indigenous people over the age of fourteen. The ordinance said that if they were outside more
From the Lantern to the License Plate: A Long History of Watching Who Moves Read More »
A Tampa Story Hiding in Plain Sight You want to know something remarkable about Tampa history that many people walk past every day without ever knowing. A woman who was born enslaved went on to become a landowner along the Hillsborough River, right in the heart of what we now call downtown Tampa. Her name
Madame Fortune Taylor: The Black Woman Whose Name Tampa Almost Forgot Read More »
A Queen Powerful Enough to Make Kings Pay Attention Every now and then I discover a piece of African history that makes me wonder how I went so long without hearing about it. The story of the Rain Queens of the Balobedu people in South Africa did exactly that to me. For roughly two centuries,
The Rain Queens of Africa: When Kings Sent Gifts Instead of Soldiers Read More »