Where do we draw the line between our own personal history – history with a small “h” – and the History we consider public knowledge – history with a big “H”? This is an important question for historical researchers of any caliber. It shapes the way we value (and the
The new film The Help, based on Kathryn Stockett’s novel of the same name, has been a box office success but has also been met with some thought-provoking criticism. A review in RD Magazine claims that the plot suggests black women need white women to give them a voice, while
Carla L. Peterson will be at the Brooklyn Weeksville Heritage Center this Saturday from 1:30-3:30pm to launch her book, Black Gotham: A Family History of African Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York City. Seats are limited, so be sure to RSVP to events@weeksvillesociety.org or call (718) 756-5250. Peterson will be giving
What if this were a Leap Year? Anyone with a birthday on February 29 would tell you that it hangs in there somewhere every year, even without a date on the calendar. Black History Month would have an extra day and Women’s History Month would have to wait. Instead, we’ll
In September 1955, shortly after Emmett Till was murdered by white supremacists in Money, Mississippi, his grieving mother, Mamie Till Bradley, distributed to newspapers and magazines a gruesome black-and-white photograph of his mutilated corpse. Asked why she would do this, Mrs. Bradley explained that by witnessing, with their own eyes,
Last Thursday, Adam Bradley, one of the editors of The Anthology of Rap, appeared on Minnesota Public Radio alongside Mark Anthony Neal and Toki Wright to discuss the past 30 years of rap and hip-hop and how they have risen to become the cultural tour-de-force we know today. Meanwhile, the
Boxing is arguably the most intense of individual sports—high stakes, blood, sweat, and (involuntary) tears, all eyes on you in the ring. It’s no mean feat to hold the title of world heavyweight boxing champion for nearly twelve years. In fact, it’s a record still held today, over sixty years
Not all slave owners were white. On the eve of the American Revolutionary War, South Carolina’s slave population was nearly double that of white Europeans, and while there were a still a handful of free blacks, “free” took a marginalized status in the face of color discrimination. Perhaps the richest
This afternoon at 4:30pm, Molly Rogers, author of Delia’s Tears: Race, Science, and Photography in 19th-Century America, will be interviewed by eminent historian David Blight about her book here on Yale’s campus. The book retells the story of seven South Carolina slaves who were photographed at the request of Swiss
Michelle Stein George Gershwin’s music is a near inimitable part of American culture. Though he lived a short life, dying at the age of thirty-eight, the work he composed during his life offered a long-lasting heritage and contribution to American musicals and concert pieces. In 1935, Gershwin’s American folk opera