Black History Matters
History written for readers, not for footnotes.
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Our power, our future. Eight deeply reported stories in Issue One — from Black Studies and Anita Hill to Sylvester, Haiti, Black Brazil, HBCU sports, and global racism. Join before November 1 and your $9.99/month rate is locked in for life.
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Black History Now
Black History Now
Assata Shakur, who escaped a New Jersey prison in 1979 and lived four decades under political asylum in Cuba, died in Havana in September 2025 at 78. Her life still divides Americans.
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Black History
On October 13, 1970, FBI agents arrested Angela Davis in New York after two months on the Ten Most Wanted list. Her trial, and her acquittal, became a global test of American justice.
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Black History
Bobby Seale, who co-founded the Black Panther Party with Huey P. Newton in Oakland in 1966, turned 90 on October 22, 2026. His legacy is one of organizing, survival programs, and community power.
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Black History Now
Twice in one October week, Paris cleared migrant camps beneath Métro Line 2. Officials call it sheltering; aid groups call it social cleansing.
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Black History Now
As Macron prepares to leave office, the far right leads the race, conservatives echo its language, and the left searches for a candidate, while Black students ask whether the Republic includes them.
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Education
Macron met France's student protesters for the first time and promised a Parcoursup overhaul. For the Black students who helped start the movement, Monday will show whether the promise is real.
Continue readingOur Purpose
Historianspeaks is a public history project devoted to making the Black past reachable — free of jargon, free of paywalls, and free of the flattened, one-note version of the story most of us were handed in school.
Through essays, conversation, and archival material, this site treats history as a working tool: something that explains the present and helps chart what comes next.
Blog
Weekly blogs on Black history—past and present that shape our contemporary lives.
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Podcast
Long-form conversations running from Reconstruction politics to popular culture. Latest episode: Juneteenth and a legacy of song.
Listen nowAcross the Centuries
From the marketplaces of West Africa through the age of sail, plantation colonies, Reconstruction classrooms, the Harlem street, and today’s block parties.
The African past
Kingdoms, scholars, and markets
15th century
Coastal trade and early contact
16th century
Arrival and resistance in the Americas
17th century
Arrival and resistance in a new world
18th century
Artisans and free communities
19th century
Freedom schools after emancipation
20th century
City life, music, and movement
21st century
Culture and community today
Stay Current
One dispatch a week: a new essay, a podcast episode, and something from the archive worth a second look.
