African American History

Roosevelt Patterson greets his grandmother, Hester Ford, during her 111th birthday party. Ford was either 115 or 116 when she died on Saturday, April 17, 2021.

Hester Ford, the U.S.' Oldest Living Person, Dies at 115—or 116

Born in 1904 or 1905, the supercentenarian lived through two World Wars, the civil rights movement and two major pandemics

Rendering of the National World War I Memorial's wall of remembrance, which is set to be installed in 2024

How D.C.'s Newly Unveiled WWI Memorial Commemorates the Global Conflict

The space's central feature, a 60-foot-long wall of remembrance, remains unfinished

Cpl. Lawrence McVey poses at attention in a photographic postcard. The word "Hero" is inscribed at the top.

The Unmatched Bravery of the Harlem Hellfighters

A salute to the all-Black World War I fighting unit

On January 20, 2021, poet Amanda Gorman read her her poem "The Hill We Climb" during the 59th Presidential Inauguration at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Why Poetry Is Experiencing an Awakening

Celebrate the 25th Anniversary of April’s National Poetry Month with these workshops from the National Museum of African American History and Culture

Photograph for a Coca-Cola ad featuring Selena, 1994, by Al Rendon.

How Do We Remember Selena?

On the anniversary of her 50th birthday, honoring the legacy of the first Tejana singer to top the U.S. Billboard charts with her Spanish-language album

Amy Sherald's posthumous portrait of Breonna Taylor serves as the Louisville show's focal point.

How an Art Exhibition in Breonna Taylor's Hometown Honors Her Life and Impact

The Louisville show is organized around three overarching themes proposed by Taylor's mother: promise, witness and remembrance

Tuskegee history professor Frank Toland speaks to the gathered students at the base of the Confederate monument.

Black Protesters Have Been Rallying Against Confederate Statues for Generations

When Tuskegee student Sammy Younge, Jr., was murdered in 1966, his classmates focused their righteous anger on a local monument

White Lies Matter stole the Jefferson Davis Memorial Chair from Confederate Circle, a private section of Old Live Oak Cemetery in Selma, Alabama.

Activist Group Will Return Stolen Confederate Monument—After Converting It Into a Toilet

"White Lies Matter" had pledged to deliver the stone chair intact if the United Daughters of the Confederacy displayed a specific banner

Artists Roderick and Rozell Sykes founded St. Elmo Village, a creative enclave that could become a Los Angeles historic landmark, in 1969.

How Los Angeles Plans to Preserve the City's Black Cultural Heritage

Just 3 percent of L.A.'s historic landmarks commemorate African American history. A new three-year project hopes to change that

This month's book picks include The Light of Days, The Musical Human and Empire of Ants.

Women Resistance Fighters of WWII, the Secret Lives of Ants and Other New Books to Read

These April releases elevate overlooked stories and offer insights on oft-discussed topics

Pleasant Plains School in Hertford County, North Carolina, active 1920-1950

How the Rosenwald Schools Shaped a Generation of Black Leaders

Photographer Andrew Feiler's years-long journey through 15 Southern states rescued stories of the fading buildings and the lives they changed

Portrait of Graceanna Lewis, The Underground Rail Road (1872)

Meet Naturalist Graceanna Lewis, Who Played a Key Role in the Underground Railroad

One of the first three woman to be accepted into the Academy of Natural Sciences, Lewis left behind a legacy of science and soclal progress

This recreated wooden building resembles one that may have housed enslaved people on John Dickinson's Dover, Delaware, plantation.

Graves of Enslaved People Discovered on Founding Father's Delaware Plantation

A signee of the U.S. Constitution, John Dickinson enslaved as many as 59 men, women and children at one time

The “Spirit of Tuskegee” hangs from the ceiling at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. The blue and yellow Stearman PT 13-D was used to train Black pilots from 1944 to 1946.

The Legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen Soars on the Wing of This World War II Aircraft

The 80th anniversary of the first Black flying unit is a time to recall the era when military service meant confronting foes both at home and abroad

An illustration from an abolitionist paper shows the divide in border states like Ohio, where a small African American minority petitioned for change.

Decades Before the Civil War, Black Activists Organized for Racial Equality

Though they were just a small percentage of the state’s population, African Americans petitioned the state of Ohio to repeal racist laws

This 1936 photograph from the collections of the National Portrait Gallery—featuring eight of the nine Scottsboro Boys with NAACP representatives Juanita Jackson Mitchell, Laura Kellum, and Dr. Ernest W. Taggart—was taken inside the prison where the Scottsboro Boys were being held.

Who Were the Scottsboro Nine?

The young black men served a combined total of 130 years for a crime they never committed

A 1932 facsimile of the first issue of the Emancipator, published on April 30, 1820

New Project Reimagines the U.S.' First Antislavery Newspaper, the 'Emancipator'

A joint initiative from Boston University and the "Boston Globe" revamps a 19th-century abolitionist publication for 21st-century research about race

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Looking Back at the Tulsa Race Massacre, 100 Years Later

Confronting the murderous attack on the most prosperous black community in the nation

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The Unrealized Promise of Oklahoma

How the push for statehood led a beacon of racial progress to oppression and violence

Newbery Honoree Alicia D. Williams is the author of Genesis Begins Again and the new picture book Jump at the Sun, the first biography of Zora Neale Hurston written for children.

How Alicia D. Williams Is Reviving Storytelling for Black Children

Williams wanted a different story for her daughter—and for herself. So, she set out to write it

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