Former enslaved persons have never received a dime for their labor. Nor have their descendants received reparations for the legacy of slavery.
Should the descendants be paid? By whom and how much?
Academic rigor, journalistic flair
Articles on US slavery
Displaying 1 - 20 of 30 articles
Founding Father and Princeton University president John Witherspoon told American colonists to resist the ‘slavery’ of British rule, even as he held slaves himself.
America’s complicated history with race can be told through the lives and times of Black Americans, a view that some GOP-controlled state legislatures want to restrict, if not outright ban.
Instead of using the secret routes along the Underground Railroad to find freedom in the North, thousands of enslaved Black people fled to free Black communities in Southern slaveholding states.
The GOP leadership renewed its pledge to resist public education that includes painful discussions on race and racism in America.
The events of Jan. 6, 2021, have been called an insurrection. The same word has often been used to describe the mostly forgotten rebellions against plantation owners by enslaved people.
Known as the military leader who saved America, Ulysses S. Grant left a legacy of fighting for the rights of enslaved people during and after the Civil War.
At a time when politicians across the country are debating how slavery in the US is taught, high school students are participating in mock slave auctions that are having severe consequences
Lawmakers are seeking to downplay the role that slavery played in the development of the United States, but history tells a different story.
Known as Juneteenth in Texas, Emancipation Days symbolized America’s attempt to free the enslaved across the nation. But those days were unable to prevent new forms of economic slavery.
Once owned by James Madison, the Montpelier plantation remains a model for presenting a full depiction of the life of the former president as well as the lives of those he enslaved.
Harriet Tubman has long been known as a conductor on the Underground Railroad leading enslaved Black people to freedom. Less known is her role as a Union spy during the Civil War.
Plantation museums could be ideal venues for students to learn about the nation’s history of race-based slavery, but only if they stop whitewashing the horrors of what took place on their grounds.
The 13th Amendment is given credit for freeing an estimated 4 million enslaved people during the Civil War era. It also enabled a prison system of free labor and involuntary servitude.
Sugar has deep links with slavery in the US, but Black workers weren’t the only ones affected. In post-Civil War Louisiana, Chinese workers also toiled cutting and processing cane.
Before the Civil War, US activists sought to combat slavery through sugar boycotts. Instead, consumption grew.
The romanticized notions of Southern gentility are increasingly at odds with historical reality as the lives, culture and contributions of the enslaved are becoming integral on tours of plantations.
James McCune Smith was the first African American to receive a medical doctorate from a university. He dedicated his life to fighting injustice.
Few people embody the contradictions of U.S. history like the author of the Star Spangled Banner, someone who denounced slavery as a moral wrong but rejected racial equality.
Few issues are as difficult to deal with in the classroom as slavery in the US. Here, a professor who trains teachers on how to present the topic offers some insights.
Top contributors
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Derek H. Alderman is a Friend of The Conversation.Professor of Geography, University of Tennessee
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Professor of History, Binghamton University, State University of New York
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Professor of History, Tufts University
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Professor of Practice in Education, Clark University
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Associate Professor of Public Policy, University of Connecticut
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Associate Professor of Geography, Georgia Southern University
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Professor of History, Brandeis University
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Senior Lecturer in American Studies, University of East Anglia
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Associate Professor of Research, University of Hertfordshire
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Assistant Professor of Geography, Columbus State University
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Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor of History, Dartmouth College
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Presidential Professor of Sociology and History, Graduate Center, City University of New York
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Professor of History, Arizona State University
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Bizot Family Professor of History, University of Memphis
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Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Science, Wilfrid Laurier University
