Democratic parties in four states have recently removed the names of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson from their annual fundraising dinners, a move now under consideration in at least five other states…
Dockworkers in Australia, pictured here alongside other trade union members in a march through central Melbourne, acted in solidarity with South African workers in the 1980s.
Reuters
The recent revelations about the savage treatment of Yazidi women at the hands of Islamic State, or ISIS, fighters is the latest in a shocking set of disclosures regarding the group’s behavior. It sadly…
Forgiveness, as we have seen in the aftermath of the Charleston killings, is a hallmark of the Black Church. But what psychic toll do these acts of forgiveness exact?
Nigerian author Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is hailed as one of the greatest novels ever set in Africa.
Akintunde Akinleye/Reuters
There’s a fierce debate underway about changing university curricula in Africa and the UK to be less Eurocentric. Three academics offer their suggestions for a decolonised reading list.
The young aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville, sketch by an unknown artist.
Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University
The Portuguese slave ship São José, which sank off Cape Town, was one of many vessels that either rounded the Cape or pulled into Table Bay for refreshment during the Transatlantic slave trade.
The horrors of slavery also spread to research: black bodies provided easy targets for medical experiments.
New African economic history is challenging earlier wisdom by showing, for example, that railways have had profound effects, both positive and negative on African societies.
Reuters/Thomas Mukoya
African economic history has had a renaissance and its most valuable contribution has been to show that Africans have not always been poor, nor are current poverty levels an inevitable destiny.
Stage-managed diplomacy in Haiti.
EPA/Alain Jocard
At the root of today’s racial troubles on campuses is the past, when most American universities were intimately connected to slave trade and slavery. Harvard, Princeton, Brown were no exception.
Emancipation is about financial security too
Harper's Weekly 1865
On an October day in 1894, a group of New York City’s leading doctors gathered to unveil a statue in honor of one of the greatest surgeons of his day and the founder of New York’s Women’s Hospital, J…
Over half of Australia’s imported goods come from the Asia Pacific, which has 78 million child labourers, including these three in a Bangladesh balloon factory.
EPA/Abir Abdhullah
The fragmentation of global production has dramatically increased the length and complexity of supply chains. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates that more than…
Picking cotton, the American south, 1873-74.
www.slaveryimages.org
While the idea that history is written by the victors is frequently quoted, it fails to sufficiently inform our cultural understanding of our past. History ought to be the story, not just of the winners…
The Slave Trade painted by a French abolitionist artist.
This article was published in 2014. An updated version was published in 2017 Foundation essay: This article was part of a series marking the launch of The Conversation in the US. Our foundation essays…
It’s not what you think.
science photo via Shutterstock
Theresa May’s much vaunted Modern Slavery Bill is designed to stamp out what she describes as a “disgusting trade in human beings”, and a new report on trafficking from the National Crime Agency (NCA…
The hidden Curiosity Cabinets of European racism.
Ada Nieuwendijk
Exhibit B was a live performance staged by non-professional black actors that has been touring around Europe. These actors were “displayed” in a series of 13 “tableaux vivants” that recall the troubling…