In the Middle Ages, the lives of saints were the closest thing to bestsellers: stories copied, read aloud, and performed across Europe. They offered the faithful models of virtuous suffering, miraculous healing,... Read more »
It is nighttime. There are black-and-white shots of blurry torches, dim outlines of crowds shuffling. Against these backdrops, the 2022 film I’ll Be Back! displays five intertitles, telling the story of François... Read more »
I Have Avenged America: Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Haiti’s Fight for Freedom is a new biography by Professor Julia Gaffield of William & Mary. The book sheds light on the life and legacy of... Read more »
Emancipation Day is a special holiday in Washington, DC. Observed annually on April 16, the day is meant to commemorate President Abraham Lincoln’s signing of the 1862 bill that legally ended slavery... Read more »
Scholars of slavery have long confronted the inherent politics of the archive. We often rely on documents that were produced by slaveholders or institutions that supported slavery, which have narrowed our historical... Read more »
In his 1925 essay “The Negro Digs Up His Past,” Arturo Schomburg writes, “There is the definite desire and determination to have a history, well documented, widely known at least within race... Read more »