Slavery in the US

John Brown was a prominent leader in the American abolitionist movement during the decades leading up to the Civil War. He became known as the leading advocate for using violence to end American slavery after years of peaceful efforts...

Isadore Banks was a World War I veteran and a prosperous African American landowner in Arkansas. In 1954, he was brutally lynched, and despite the horrific nature of his murder, no one was ever brought to justice. Isadore Banks was...

On June 22, 1940, in the small town of Luverne, Alabama, Jesse Thornton, a 26-year-old African-American man, was lynched for allegedly failing to address a white man as "Mister." Thornton managed a chicken farm and had gone to town...

Passed by the South Carolina Assembly on the 10th of May, 1740, the Negro Act was a comprehensive set of laws aimed at controlling and subjugating the enslaved population within the colony. Among its most notorious provisions was the...

Lynched on January 15, 1889, in Jefferson County, Alabama, Meadows became a victim of a society plagued by racism, false accusations, and mob justice. The events leading to Meadows's lynching began on January 14, 1889, when a white woman reported...

Delphine LaLaurie was a prominent New Orleans socialite in the early 19th century who became infamous for the atrocities committed at her mansion, particularly after a fire in 1834 revealed the horrific conditions in which enslaved Africans were kept. Born...

Onesimus was an enslaved African who, in the late 17th century, was purchased and given as a gift to Puritan minister Cotton Mather. His extensive knowledge of inoculation, a practice he had undergone in Africa to prevent smallpox, would...

Born in the United States, James H. Gordon is best known for his courageous advocacy for social justice, particularly his efforts to end the dehumanizing exhibition of Ota Benga at the Bronx Zoo in 1906.

Harry Washington was an African who was enslaved by none other than George Washington, the future first President of the United States. However, Harry’s story transcends the chains of slavery, as he not only fought for his own liberation...

John Hartfield was a black man who met a gruesome fate in Ellisville, Mississippi, in 1919, for the supposed crime of being romantically involved with a white woman, Ruth Meeks. Born into a society deeply divided along racial lines, Hartfield...