The Red Summer of 1919 & Black Resistance
In 1919, racial tensions in the US, exacerbated by changes brought about by the first wave of the Great Migration and by the return of Black soldiers who demanded equal citizenship from the country th...
3 Jun 202444min
The Reconstruction Era & its Aftermath
As the Civil War was drawing to a close, President Lincoln was preparing for what came after, with plans for reunification of the country, and he began to advocate for limited suffrage for Black Ameri...
27 Mai 202450min
The Southern Plantation System
Fictional depictions of Southern plantations often present romanticized visions of genteel country life, but for the people enslaved on plantations the reality was that of a forced labor camp. At the ...
20 Mai 202446min
Slavery & Incarceration in New Orleans
Shortly after New Orleans became a US city (via the Louisiana Purchase), the municipal council established one of the country’s first professional salaried police forces and began operation of Police ...
13 Mai 202441min
The Jazz Maestros of Jim Crow America
Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie came of age in a deeply segregated country, battling racism to become celebrated musicians, composers, and band leaders whose music lives on. Joining m...
6 Mai 202445min
Negro League Baseball
In its earliest years, the National League was not segregated, and a few teams included Black ballplayers, but in 1887 major and minor league owners adopted a so-called “gentlemen’s agreement” that no...
29 Apr 202446min
Log Cabin Republicans and the Gay Right
In 1977, a California state senator named John Briggs took to the steps of City Hall in San Francisco to announce a ballot initiative that would empower school boards to fire gay teachers based only o...
22 Apr 202445min
American Posture Panic
For several decades in the 20th Century, American universities, including elite institutions, took nude photos of their students, sometimes as often as twice a year, in order to evaluate their posture...
15 Apr 202447min
