In December 1933, James Cordie Cheek, a Black teenager, was abducted from Nashville, Tennessee, and taken to Maury County, where a white mob castrated and lynched him. He had been accused of attempting to rape a white girl, but...
Dinah Salifou was a nineteenth-century African king who ruled the Nalu people in present-day Guinea and worked closely with French colonial authorities to strengthen his position. After years of military cooperation and diplomatic relations with France, he was arrested...
Benjamin Banneker was a self-taught Black mathematician, astronomer and almanac author born in Maryland in 1731. Through his scientific work, he challenged the racist belief that Black people lacked the intellectual ability to make important contributions to mathematics and...
Vuyisile Mini was a South African trade unionist, singer and anti-apartheid freedom fighter who fought against racial oppression and white minority rule. His involvement in the struggle led to his arrest and eventual execution by hanging at Pretoria Central...
Shirley Chisholm made history in 1968 when she became the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress, representing New York’s 12th Congressional District. Her election broke a major political barrier and marked the beginning of a congressional...
Bokar Biro Barry was fighting to preserve the independence of Fouta Djallon when French forces defeated his army in November 1896. He was captured and killed, and his head was severed from his body and sent to France. His...
On November 3, 1874, Black voters gathered at polling stations in Eufaula, Alabama, to participate in an election that would determine political control of Barbour County. Instead of exercising their voting rights peacefully, they were met with armed white...
The Thibodaux Massacre is one of the deadliest episodes of racial violence in American labour history. It took place in November 1887 in Louisiana, following a sugarcane workers’ strike over wages and working conditions. As tensions between Black workers...
Abram Colby was dragged from his bed to the woods by a white mob on October 29, 1869, where he was beaten with sticks and leather straps for more than three hours. Two days earlier, he had refused a...
In 1765, enslaved Africans aboard a slave ship called the Sally revolted against their captors while being transported from West Africa to the Caribbean to be sold into slavery. Their attempt to resist captivity was met with deadly force...
