Richard Mentor Johnson, a powerful U.S. senator from Kentucky who would later rise to the vice presidency, built a remarkable political career in early nineteenth century America. But his life was shadowed by a relationship he refused to conceal....
Robert Lewis Dabney was among the most influential Southern Presbyterian theologians of the nineteenth century. A pastor, seminary professor, and Confederate officer, he became a central figure in the effort to defend slavery and racial hierarchy through Christian theology...
Kissi Kaba Keita was a nineteenth-century African chief and war leader from the Kissi people of what is now southeastern Guinea. He is remembered for organizing armed resistance against French colonial expansion in the early 1890s. His refusal to...
In 1724, colonial Jamaica crossed a legal line that revealed how fragile justice was once race entered the picture. After a free Black man whooped a white attacker and successfully defended himself in court, Jamaica’s white-controlled Assembly responded not...
In the late 19th century, European empires were tearing through Africa, forcing ancient kingdoms into submission. From West Africa to the Great Lakes, monarchs were stripped of power as colonial flags replaced indigenous rule. Ethiopia stood out as a...
In the early nineteenth century United States, being legally free did not always mean being safe. For thousands of free Black Americans living in border regions, freedom existed under constant threat from kidnapping rings that supplied enslaved labor to...
In August 1823, one of the largest uprisings of enslaved Africans in the British Caribbean unfolded in the colony of Demerara-Essequibo, part of what is now Guyana. Known to history as the Demerara Rebellion, the event involved between 10,000...
Nduna Songea Mbano was a Ngoni sub-chief and key leader in southern Tanzania who played a central role in resisting German colonial rule during the early 20th century. His leadership during the Maji Maji Rebellion made him a symbol...
In 1958, the United States witnessed what is widely regarded as the most absurd “rape case” in its legal history. Known as the Kissing Case, the incident involved two African American children, nine-year-old James Hanover Thompson and seven-year-old David...
When people think of the Ku Klux Klan, they often imagine hooded mobs and night riders from the era of Reconstruction. What is less widely known is that the most powerful version of the Klan was not created in...
