In the year 1883, as European empires tightened their grip on Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium issued a letter to colonial missionaries that would later come to symbolize the most chilling fusion of religious evangelism and imperial conquest....
King Toera was the last independent ruler of the Menabe region in western Madagascar who was executed by French colonial forces in 1897 during their conquest of the island. After initially extending hospitality to the French, he was met...
Isaac Franklin and John Armfield were not just slave traders; they were industrialists of human misery and were the most influential and ruthless slave traders in the history of the United States. Operating in the 1820s and 1830s, they...
In September, 1855, the town of Franklin, Tennessee, was shaken by one of the most horrifying acts of cruelty ever recorded. A woman named Ellen Bordon, driven by jealousy over her husband’s attention to an enslaved Black woman in...
Sophiatown, also known as Sof’town or Kofifi, was a vibrant cultural and intellectual hub in Johannesburg, South Africa, before its destruction under apartheid. A unique freehold township, it was one of the few urban areas where Black South Africans...
Lemuel Walters was a Black man in Longview, Texas, who was lynched in June 1919 after being accused of making “indecent advances” toward a white woman. His murder was one of the many acts of racial violence that erupted...
Willie Francis was an African American teenager sentenced to death in 1945 after a flawed murder trial. At 17, he survived a botched execution, becoming the first known person to survive the electric chair. However, his appeals failed, and...
Thomas Moss was a successful Black entrepreneur and postman in Memphis, Tennessee, known for co-owning the People’s Grocery, a thriving business that provided an alternative to white-owned stores in the area. In 1892, Moss was falsely accused of inciting...
The Ohio River Uprising of 1826 was a bold act of resistance by approximately 75 enslaved Africans being transported south by Edward Stone, a notorious slave trader, and his associates. On September 17, while traveling down the Ohio River,...
Lucie and Thornton Blackburn were born into slavery in the United States, they escaped to freedom in Canada, where they not only built a new life but also made significant contributions to their adopted homeland. Among their many achievements,...
