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African American History

“Art can’t change society,” said White, whose stirring images challenged stereotypes. “It can only change individuals.”

A New Exhibit Gives Charles White’s Art and Activism the Attention They Deserve

A century after his birth, an overlooked figure in the Black Renaissance is on the rise again

Millicent Brown broke the racial barrier at a Charleston, South Carolina, high school. “This was the challenge of our day,” says Brown, a historian and activist.

The Defiant Ones

As young girls, they fought the fierce battle to integrate America’s schools half a century ago

Josiah Henson as a young man at left, and at right, at age 87, photographed in Boston on June 17, 1876

The Story of Josiah Henson, the Real Inspiration for ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’

Before there was the novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe, a formerly enslaved African-American living in Canada wrote a memoir detailing his experience

Henrietta Lacks (HeLa): The Mother of Modern Medicine by Kadir Nelson (detail, above) is on view at the National Portrait Gallery through November 4, 2018.

Women Who Shaped History

Famed for “Immortal” Cells, Henrietta Lacks is Immortalized in Portraiture

Lacks’s cells gave rise to medical miracles, but ethical questions of propriety and ownership continue to swirl

Elinor Powell (right) with a fellow nurse at POW Camp Florence in Arizona, circa 1944-1945

Women Who Shaped History

The Army’s First Black Nurses Were Relegated to Caring for Nazi Prisoners of War

Prohibited from treating white GIs, the women felt betrayed by the country they sought to serve

Members of the 369th [African American] Infantry

World War I: 100 Years Later

One Hundred Years Ago, the Harlem Hellfighters Bravely Led the U.S. Into WWI

Their courage made headlines across the country, hailing the African-American regiment as heroes even as they faced discrimination at home

Lucy, Rufus, Flynn and Wyatt finish off the season in San Francisco

'Timeless' Recapped

Pilot, Thinker, Soldier, Spy: The Epic “Timeless” Season Finale Twofer

The heroes help Harriet Tubman raid the Confederacy before leaving their heart in San Francisco

George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: Page from an American History Textbook, 1975, Robert Colescott, acrylic on canvas

What Happens When Art History Gets Refigured

A museum in Seattle shows the incredible power of subverting the traditional course of representation

Tenant associations lead a march up Columbia Road N.W. in protest against threats of eviction at a time when land speculation and residential displacement were growing more common in the Adams Morgan neighborhood and across Washington, D.C.

A New Show About Neighborhoods Facing Gentrification Offers a Cautionary Tale

As cities face multi-billion-dollar developments, the question remains “Who Owns the City?”

Stephen Towns. Birth of a Nation. 2014. Private Collection.

Cool Finds

Artist’s Quilts Pay Tribute to African-American Women

Artist Stephen Towns’ first museum exhibition showcases his painterly skill through traditional textile art

One of the last few reminders of Shermantown is this scene in Stone Mountain Village

In the Shadow of Stone Mountain

The past, present, and future of the African-American community are nestled beneath the country’s largest Confederate monument

Hank Willis Thomas sculpture

Five Things to See at Alabama’s New Memorial to Lynching Victims

The memorial, along with a new museum, exposes America’s fraught legacy of racial violence from slavery to lynchings to mass incarceration

The museum's situation on the National Mall gives it access to ample water and sunlight.

The African American History and Culture Museum Wins Gold for Going Green

How the Smithsonian’s newest museum set the bar for sustainability in architecture

A rendering of the planned memorial honoring Ed Johnson.

Public Sculpture in Tennessee Will Memorialize Lynching Victim

Chattanooga confronts its history with a planned memorial to a young black man named Ed Johnson who was murdered by a white lynch mob in 1906

Following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in April 1968, cities across the U.S. erupted in protests.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s Assassination Sparked Uprisings in Cities Across America

Known as the Holy Week Uprisings, the collective protests resulted in 43 deaths, thousands of arrests, and millions of dollars of property damage

Martin Luther King Jr.‘s dream – which alternated between shattered and hopeful – can be traced back to Hughes’ poetry.

In His Speeches, MLK Carefully Evoked the Poetry of Langston Hughes

To avoid being labeled a communist sympathizer, King had to distance himself from Hughes, but he still managed to channel the controversial poet

This May 8, 1964 file photo shows Linda Brown Smith standing in front of the Sumner School in Topeka, Kansas.

Trending Today

Linda Brown, at the Center of Brown v. Board of Education, Has Died

After being refused enrollment at an all-white school in Topeka, Kansas, Brown’s court case led to the historic Supreme Court ruling that ended segregation

Mary McLeod Bethune in 1949

Trending Today

U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall Collection Will Get Its First State-Commissioned Statue of a Black American

A statue of educator and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune will replace a statue of a Confederate general

Roger Williams University in Nashville, Tennessee, was a historically black college founded in 1866.

First Museum Committed to Sharing the Stories of Historically Black Colleges Opens

The HBCU Museum in Washington, D.C., launched March 9 and has plans to expand to a second location in Atlanta

In 2003, Pulitzer-prize winning reporter Les Payne is pictured delivering the traditional charge to University of Connecticut undergraduates during commencement exercises at The Harry A. Gampel Pavilion.

Trending Today

Pioneering Black Journalist Les Payne Has Died at Age 76

The fearless Pulitzer Prize-winning Newsday reporter and editor, who was a founding member of NABJ, paved the way for journalists of color

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