Humans have shown that together we can overcome daunting problems, including deadly pathogens like smallpox. It is a lesson of international cooperation and respect that we should pay attention to.
Serena Williams challenged decades of stereotypes when she revealed her anger after she disagreed with a U.S. Open umpire. A racist caricature and calls to boycott her playing by umpires followed.
Enslaved workers used to grow cotton and mill flour. Now prisoners grind beef and crate eggs. Here, a historian explores Americans’ troubling habit of consuming the products of slave labor.
A renamed Brooklyn street celebrates Jean-Jacques Dessalines, a Haitian slave turned president. For centuries his legacy was tarnished by allegations that Haiti’s revolution led to ‘white genocide.’
Anne C. Bailey, Binghamton University, State University of New York
Toppling statues devoted to Confederate soldiers may be a joyous moment for protesters who fight white supremacy, but after the statues fall, structural racism remains, a scholar on slavery argues.
An African-American burial ground uncovered at a construction site in Texas has ignited debate on how to protect black history as suburban sprawl overtakes rural areas once farmed by enslaved workers.
Two men were convicted in 1859 of violating the Fugitive Slave Act. They had rescued a runaway slave from slave hunters in Ohio, one of the small acts of resistance that led to the Civil War.
Benjamin Ferron, Université Paris-Est Créteil Val de Marne (UPEC); Claire Oger, Université Paris-Est Créteil Val de Marne (UPEC) et James C. Scott, Yale University
In an exclusive interview, Professor James Scott discusses anarchism and State resistance by so-called “powerless” actors. Excerpts for The Conversation France.
Just as with so many other criminal justice policies, pretrial detention disproportionately affects African-American men and women, destabilizing black families in the process.
Lincoln’s description of the Union as a house divided is well-remembered today. But many Americans fail to heed its lessons about equality and the moral foundations of popular government.
Forty years ago, the Mormon church reversed restrictions on its members of African-American descent. Today, the church wants to celebrate the value of its diversity.