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Slavery

Monticello's main house and South Wing

Putting Enslaved Families’ Stories Back in the Monticello Narrative

An oral history project deepens our understanding of U.S. history by sharing accounts of the community owned by Thomas Jefferson

Silhouettes of Sylvia Drake and Charity Bryant of Weybridge, Vermont, (c. 1805-1815) is possibly the first depiction of a same sex couple.

Rarely Seen 19th-Century Silhouette of a Same-Sex Couple Living Together Goes On View

A new show, featuring the paper cutouts, reveals unheralded early Americans, as well as contemporary artists working with this old art form

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

Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston’s ‘Barracoon’ Tells the Story of the Slave Trade’s Last Survivor

Published eight decades after it was written, the new book offers a first-hand account of a Middle Passage journey

Located in Orange, Virginia, Montpelier was the plantation home of the Madison family. It's now a museum and historical site.

LiDAR Gives Researchers New Insight Into the Lives of Montpelier’s Enslaved Population

Around 300 enslaved people lived and worked on James Madison’s historic estate

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

Statue of James Marion Sims in front of the Alabama State Capitol.

A Statue of a Doctor Who Experimented on Enslaved People Was Removed From Central Park

The discussion over the memorialization of James Marion Sims offers the opportunity to remember his victims

Runaway Slaves Built This Fort to Defend Their Freedom

An archaeological expedition into the wilderness of North Carolina uncovers evidence of a remarkable settlement once filled with runaway slaves

William Still and a recent street view image of the row house where conservationists believe he and his wife Letitia once lived.

Underground Railroad Safe House Discovered in Philadelphia

Preservationists say they have identified the home of famed black abolitionist William Still, who offered refuge to hundreds of freedom seekers

The names of 50 victims of the 1887 Thibodaux massacre in Louisiana are among those inscribed on the new memorial.

A New Memorial Remembers the Thousands of African-Americans Who Were Lynched

Next month’s opening of the monument in Alabama will be a necessary step in reckoning with America’s deadly past

The Stephen Foster statue will be replaced with a monument in honor of an African American woman who made an outsized impact on Pittsburgh.

Monument to a Historic Black Woman Will Replace Racist Statue in Pittsburgh

A city task force is asking the public to help decide who should be honored

A Slave Cemetery May Have Been Discovered at a Plantation Near Annapolis

Archaeologists have found possible grave markers, and cadaver dogs have indicated the presence of human remains

A statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee is lowered to a truck for removal Friday, May 19, 2017, from Lee Circle in New Orleans.

How I Learned About the “Cult of the Lost Cause”

The mayor of New Orleans offers his reading list for anyone looking to better understand the real history of Confederate monuments

A statue of York with Lewis and Clark in Great Falls, Montana.

York Explored the West With Lewis and Clark, but His Freedom Wouldn’t Come Until Decades Later

In some ways, he encountered a world unavailable to the enslaved. But in others, the journey was rife with danger and degradation

Nathan Bedford Forrest

New Historic Marker Highlights Nathan Bedford Forrest’s Ties to the Slave Trade

An earlier marker only noted the Confederate general, widely believed to be the Ku Klux Klan’s first leader, became wealthy from his ‘business enterprises’

Cudjo Lewis, the last survivor transported to Alabama on the Clotilda

Cool Finds

Search Continues for Last American Slave Ship After Recent Wreck Ruled Out

The Clotilda illegally transported 110 enslaved people from present-day Benin to Alabama more than 50 years after the U.S. outlawed the slave trade

Choctaw chief Greenwood LeFlore had 15,000 acres of Mississippi land (above, his Mississippi home Malmaison) and 400 enslaved Africans under his dominion.

How Native American Slaveholders Complicate the Trail of Tears Narrative

The new exhibition ‘Americans’ at the National Museum of the American Indian prompts a deeper dive for historic truths

Slave sale, Charleston, South Carolina

When Emancipation Finally Came, Slave Markets Took on a Redemptive Purpose

During the Civil War, the jails that held the enslaved imprisoned Confederate soldiers. After, they became rallying points for a newly empowered community

This copy of David Walker’s “Appeal”, held in the collections of Emory University's Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library, was owned and signed by W.E.B. Du Bois.

The Book That Spooked the South

David Walker’s “Appeal” laid bare the ethical bankruptcy of slavery moreso than any other book of its time

Frederick Douglass, ca. 1875

Frederick Douglass’ 200th Birthday Invites Remembrance and Reflection

This Douglass Day, celebrate an icon’s bicentennial while helping to transcribe the nation’s black history

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