Dorcas Allen was an enslaved African woman who killed her two youngest children in an Alexandria slave pen in 1837 rather than let them live in slavery. She reportedly tried to do the same to her older children and...
The church was built directly above the women’s dungeon. While enslaved Africans suffered in the darkness below, European traders, soldiers, and clergy conducted worship services, read scriptures, and sang hymns in the chapel above, indifferent, to the horrors beneath.
Elmina...
In the early hours of September 24, 1906, the body of a 30 year old Black man named Zeb Long was found hanging from a tree in East Point, Georgia. His death was not the result of any alleged...
Vernon Ferdinand Dahmer Sr. was not a national celebrity of the Civil Rights Movement, but his work struck at the very heart of white supremacy in Mississippi. At a time when Black political participation was met with terror, Dahmer...
On January 11, 1879, British troops crossed into Zululand, beginning the Anglo-Zulu War. It was a conflict the Zulu Kingdom did not ask for, but one that came after they refused to surrender their independence. The war ended in...
In the early 19th century, Richard Furman was one of the most influential Baptist leaders in the American South. Revered for his intellect and preaching, Furman left behind a legacy that is now deeply controversial: he defended slavery not...
In September 1906, Atlanta experienced one of the worst racial attacks in U.S. history. For three days, white mobs moved through the city attacking Black residents, destroying businesses, and killing people in the open. It is often called the...
On January 8, 1811, along the sugar plantations of Louisiana’s German Coast, enslaved Africans rose up in one of the boldest acts of resistance in American history. Led by Charles Deslondes, the uprising would become the largest slave rebellion...
The Maxim gun, invented in 1884 by American-born engineer Hiram Maxim, was the world’s first fully automatic machine gun. Capable of firing 500 to 600 bullets per minute, it gave small European forces a staggering advantage over much larger...
In the early nineteenth century, European missionaries poured into West Africa convinced they were bringing light to a “dark continent.” Many did not last long enough to preach. Disease, especially malaria, killed them with ruthless speed. Among the few...
