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African American History

Adam Francis Plummer began this diary in 1841 while enslaved in Prince George's County, Maryland. After his death, his daughter Nellie Arnold Plummer continued the diary.

This 19th-Century Diary Written by an Enslaved Maryland Man Is a Crucial Record of His Life and Family History—and the Only One of Its Kind Found in the United States

Adam Francis Plummer’s chronicle is believed to be the country’s sole known example of a multigenerational journal begun by an enslaved person. It’s now on view at the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum

A black-and-white photograph from the 1910s of a girl named Gladys by Hooks Brothers Studio in Memphis

This Photography Studio Captured the Beauty of Black Life in the South. Soon Its Archive, Once Hidden Away, Will Have a New Museum Home

The Hooks brothers documented life and joy in Memphis during the 20th century. Their images will be put on public view when the Memphis Art Museum opens

David Drake’s 1857 ceramic jar is featured prominently in the museum’s redesigned 18th-century galleries ahead of its America at 250 celebration. 

America's 250th Anniversary

By Signing His Name to Massive Jars, This Enslaved Artist Defied Literacy Bans in the South. Now, His Masterpiece Is on View With a Famed Paul Revere Bowl

Born into slavery around 1800, David Drake was a skilled ceramicist. His work will be on display at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston as the institution marks America’s 250th birthday

An aerial view of the Sesquicentennial International Exposition

America's 250th Anniversary

America’s 150th Birthday Celebration Was Deemed the Nation’s ‘Greatest Flop.’ What Went Wrong With the Sesquicentennial?

Philadelphia politicians hoped to replicate the success of the 1876 Centennial Exposition. Instead, the 1926 world’s fair lost millions of dollars, essentially bankrupting the city on the eve of the Great Depression

Wrigley Field was the last Major League Baseball stadium to install lights: The Cubs first played under them on August 8, 1988, versus the Philadelphia Phillies. Photographer Ronald C. Modra captured the scene from a helicopter.

America at 250: The Revolutionary Spark

With a Few Tweaks, the Country’s Favorite Sports Went From Pastimes to Part of the Fabric of Our Culture

Can you imagine a football game where there was never a passing play? The forward pass is just one of the innovations that made these contests into events

Clive Campbell in 1980. “Hip-hop is both an American immigrant story and a global story,” he later said. “It belongs to everybody.”

America at 250: The Revolutionary Spark

They Were Just Having a Back-to-School Party in an Apartment Rec Room. Little Did They Know They Were Creating Hip-Hop

The music genre that became a global sensation started with some creative teens just getting together and riffing rhymes to DJ Kool Herc’s curated beats

After moving 1,093 miles, the Jackson home sits in Greenfield Village, where visitors can tour it beginning this weekend.

The Events That Took Place in This Selma, Alabama, Home Were Key to the Civil Rights Movement, and You Can Now Visit It

The Jackson family opened their home to civil rights leaders planning the Selma-to-Montgomery march, which led to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The entire house was recently moved to Greenfield Village at The Henry Ford, in Dearborn, Michigan

Lomax hit the road in search of as many folk traditions as he could discover. “Folk music,” he wrote, “blooms hard by the crossroads.”

America at 250: The Revolutionary Spark

Alan Lomax Spent Years Traveling the Country to Record the Sounds of America. The Legacy of His Obsession Will Live Forever

By letting Muddy Waters hear himself for the first time, he unlocked a new confidence that set the sharecropper on the path to superstardom. And that’s just the start of what he found in churches, prisons and even lumberjack camps

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America at 250: The Revolutionary Spark

At a Pivotal Moment of the Civil War, Frederick Douglass Delivered a Speech That Reframed What Was at Stake if Slavery Stood

In “The Mission of the War,” America’s incomparable orator helped turn public sentiment in favor of the Union and Abraham Lincoln, beginning the process of “national regeneration”

This painting, titled Excelsior, shows Liberty and Justice as allegorical figures. A new exhibition “moves past symbolism to center the real expertise and labor of women who navigated a world of blurred allegiances to help found the United States,” says Louise Mirrer, president and CEO of the New York Historical.

America's 250th Anniversary

During the Revolution, American Women Fought for Freedom, Spied on the British, Cared for the Sick and Fell in Love. A New Exhibition Reveals Their Rich Wartime Stories

Now on view at the New York Historical, “Revolutionary Women” spotlights figures with connections to the state, including a Jewish chocolatier, a Mohawk leader and a woman who disguised herself as a man to enlist in the Continental Army

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Smithsonian Magazine Presents: America at 250—The Revolutionary Spark

Celebrating the visionary insights & darling innovators that forged a nation.

No likenesses of Ona Judge survive today. The only surviving description of her comes from a runaway ad, which states that she was “a light mulatto girl, much freckled, with very black eyes and bushy black hair. She is of middle stature, slender and delicately formed, about 20 years of age.”

Ona Judge Escaped From Slavery While George Washington Was Busy Eating Dinner Inside. Now, a New Mural Honors Her Legacy

The artwork in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, shows Judge arriving in the city after her journey from Philadelphia in May 1796. She remained a free woman until her death in 1848

The exterior of the reconstructed chapel in Historic St. Mary's City, Maryland

Groundbreaking DNA Analysis Identifies 1.3 Million Living Relatives of Colonial Maryland’s Earliest Settlers

Experts compared DNA from 49 skeletons buried in a cemetery in St. Mary’s City to genetic data shared by 11.5 million 23andMe users. They also identified what may be the remains of the colony’s second governor

Sweetgrass basket weaving is one of the most enduring cultural traditions of the Gullah Geechee people, descendants of Africans enslaved on the rice, indigo and cotton plantations of the southeastern United States.

From Basket Weaving to Oyster Reef Conservation, Gullah Geechee Women Are Preserving a Living Heritage

Along America’s southeastern coast, descendants of enslaved Africans pass down traditions and knowledge of crafts, ecology and food through generations

On the day of the Birmingham church bombing—September 15, 1963—white assailants also killed 13-year-old Virgil Ware (left) and 16-year-old Johnny Robinson (right).

Traveling Along the U.S. Civil Rights Trail

The 1963 Birmingham Church Bombing Killed Four Young Black Girls. But They Weren’t the Only Victims of Racial Violence in the City That Day

Hours after the attack, a police officer shot 16-year-old Johnny Robinson in the back. Then, a white teenager mortally injured 13-year-old Virgil Ware as he rode on the handlebars of his brother’s bike

Visitors view the Star-Spangled Banner at the National Museum of American History.

The National Museum of American History Is Displaying 250 Objects to Commemorate the Country’s Big Birthday. Here’s the Story Behind Ten of the Artifacts

Featuring iconic and everyday items, including a Revolutionary War gunboat and a first-generation iPod, “In Pursuit of Life, Liberty & Happiness” is open now at the museum

Pearl Fryar in his topiary garden

Born to a Family of Sharecroppers, This Topiary Artist Overcame Discrimination to Become the ‘Picasso of Plants’

Self-taught artist Pearl Fryar, who died this month at age 86, got his start when he tried to win an award from his local garden club. He ended up becoming a celebrity in the horticultural world

The passageway stretches 15 feet underground.

This Secret Passageway May Have Been Part of the Underground Railroad. Now, Preservationists Say It’s in Danger

The Merchant’s House Museum in New York City announced its investigation into the tunnel’s history in February. A neighboring development could threaten the building’s walls and foundations

The Tougaloo Nine, from left: Joseph Jackson Jr., Geraldine Edwards, James Bradford, Evelyn Pierce, Albert Lassiter, Ethel Sawyer, Meredith Anding Jr., Janice Jackson and Alfred Cook

Traveling Along the U.S. Civil Rights Trail

Nine Black College Students Were Arrested in 1961 for Reading at a Segregated Public Library. Their Contributions to the Civil Rights Movement Have Long Been Overlooked

Known as the Tougaloo Nine, the demonstrators staged a sit-in that helped the NAACP push for the desegregation of public spaces in Mississippi’s capital

Toni Morrison in Milan, November 1994

A New Book of Toni Morrison’s University Lectures, Now Collected for the First Time, Shares Some of the Legendary Novelist’s Most Important Lessons

At Princeton, the author analyzed the depictions of Blackness in the works of canonical American authors

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