We begin our July Fourth special broadcast with the words of Frederick Douglass. Born into slavery around 1818, Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist movement. On July 5, 1852, in Rochester ...

“Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, ...

“In Slavery’s Wake,” at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, looks beyond the United States to tell a global story. By Jennifer Schuessler “In Slavery’s Wake,” a new exhibition ...

In 1857, an 18-year-old female slave, Lear Green, who had been repeatedly raped and forced into prostitution by her white owner, one James Noble, was surreptitiously placed in a wooden seaman’s chest ...

Engraving depicting the shooting of Major Pitcairn at the Battle of Bunker Hill by free black man Peter Salem, public domain. Slavery is the great exception to the rule of liberty proclaimed in the ...

W hat does it mean to study slavery? To study something means to make arguments based on evidence. But what counts as evidence, and who has the authority to make those determinations? In part because ...

This episode explores the 6th-century migration of the Slavs into the Balkans, a pivotal moment that reshaped the region. From the collapse of Roman power to the rise of early Slavic proto-states, we ...

A new Smithsonian book reckons with the enduring legacies of slavery and capitalism Jennifer L. Morgan Blueprint, Terry Boddie, 2017. This work juxtaposes an image of a housing development in Harlem, ...

Artist George Fuller created this painting in 1857, after witnessing a young Black girl being sold at auction in Augusta, GA, during his tour of the South. He never knew her name, and no historical ...

There’s a traditional narrative about the history of Black people and the law. It describes how slaves were entirely shut out of the legal system, disenfranchised and bereft of even a modicum of legal ...

The spread of the Slavs stands as one of the most formative yet least understood events in European history. Starting in the 6th century CE, Slavic groups began to appear in the written records of ...