During the era of American slavery, Christianity became both a tool for oppression and a source of hope for enslaved African Americans. Slaveholders leveraged the Christian faith, twisting its messages to reinforce submission and obedience to them. Out of...
The story of Celia is similar to that of Lena Baker, a black maid who was Sentenced to the Electric Chair for Defending Herself Against her Rapist Employer. However, unlike Baker, Celia was a slave with no legal rights,...
Benjamin Boardley, an African engineer and inventor born into slavery in March 1830, created a steam engine but was denied a patent by the U.S. government due to his enslaved status. As a result, he was forced to sell...
Elizabeth Hemings was an enslaved woman who was given as a wedding gift to John Wayles and Martha Eppes, she spent her life in servitude, eventually bearing children with Wayles, one of whom, Sally Hemings, would later gain prominence...
Phillis, was an enslaved African woman in colonial Massachusetts, who was executed by burning at the stake in 1755. Alongside her with another enslaved man, Mark, she was accused of poisoning her abusive enslaver, John Codman, in retaliation for...
William Gibbons, born around 1825 in Albemarle County, Virginia, was an African American who was enslaved by a professor at the University of Virginia.
Charles Colcock Jones was a slaveholder, and missionary who dedicated his life to teaching the Christian gospel to enslaved people with the specific goal of making them more obedient and submissive.
During slavery, it was common for families to be torn apart, with husbands, wives, children, and siblings sold to different plantations or regions of the country, sometimes never to see one another again. After gaining their freedom, many of...
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...
