On November 16, 1900, a crowd of over three hundred white men gathered near Limon, Colorado, to watch a horrifying spectacle. A 15-year-old Black boy named Preston John Porter Jr. was chained to a steel rail and burned alive....
Andrew Jackson Beard was an African American inventor whose brilliance shone despite being born into a world that denied him education. A self-taught genius, Beard created life-saving innovations in agriculture and railroad engineering, leaving behind a legacy that still...
In an era when many pastors stood on the fence, or worse, used the Bible to justify slavery with verses like “Slaves, obey your masters as you would Jesus”, one man chose to defy both his peers and the...
Saint Frances Academy was founded in 1828 by Mary Elizabeth Lange, later known as Mother Mary Lange, at a time when educating Black people was frowned upon. It stands today as the first and oldest continually operating Black Catholic...
Harriet Jacobs’ story is one of the most extraordinary acts of survival in American history. To escape her master’s relentless sexual abuse and also slavery, she spent seven years hiding in a tiny attic, unable to stand or move...
York was an enslaved African American whose courage and skill helped the Lewis and Clark Expedition discover the vast lands of the Louisiana Territory and reach the Pacific Coast. He hunted, built shelters, navigated rivers, and won the admiration...
In 1848, when America was still entangled in the chains of slavery, a girl named Caroline Still was born into a home where freedom was more than an idea, it was a calling. Her father, William Still, one of...
Theodore Parker was far from a typical 19th-century preacher. A bold reformer and one of the most outspoken voices against slavery in pre–Civil War America, he challenged both church and society with his radical beliefs. While most ministers of...
When the US entered World War II in 1941, Americans were called to do their part for the war effort. Factories shifted production to weapons, families rationed food, and ordinary people were urged to donate blood for wounded soldiers....
On August 8, 1946, just one year after returning home from serving his country in World War II, United States Army Corporal John Cecil Jones was tortured and lynched by a white mob near Minden, Webster Parish, Louisiana. He...
