Black Women's Anti-Rape Activism
The feminist anti-rape movement began in the late 1960s at the height of women’s liberation. As rape crisis centers relied on federal grants aimed at prosecution of those committing sexual violence, f...
8 Sep 202547min
Ideological Exclusion & Deportation
The First Amendment to the US Constitution says that Congress cannot make law abridging the freedom of speech, but by as early at 1798, Congress was restricting immigration to the country on the basis...
25 Aug 202555min
Genealogy in Early America
Both Abigail Adams and Benjamin Franklin took trips in England to trace their family histories, and they weren’t alone among 18th century Americans, many of whom took a keen interest in genealogy and ...
11 Aug 202540min
Catholicism in the American Colonies
Before American independence and the Bill of Rights promising religious freedom, the American colonies were English territory governed by English religious law that mandated worship according to the B...
28 Jul 202546min
Madeleine Pollard, Jane Tucker, and the Sex Scandal that Brought Down a Congressman
In August of 1893, Madeleine Pollard sued Congressman William C.P. Breckinridge of Kentucky for breach of promise, claiming that he had promised to marry her but then had married another woman. By the...
14 Jul 202542min
The Enslaved Mariners on the Crews of Brazilian Slave Ships
On the slave ships that sailed between Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, and the West Coast of Africa from the 16th through the 19th Centuries, the crews included not just white sailors but also Black marine...
31 Mar 202545min
Ruth Reynolds & Puerto Rican Independence
Ruth Reynolds, born in the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1916 to a strict Methodist family, may have seemed an unlikely ally to the cause of Puerto Rican independence, but she devoted her life to wha...
24 Mar 202545min
Wages for Housework
In March 1972, Selma James distributed a pamphlet that declared: “If we raise kids, we have a right to a living wage. . . WE DEMAND WAGES FOR HOUSEWORK. All housekeepers are entitled to wages. (Men to...
17 Mar 202542min
