Black History Now
The Homestead Grays, Negro League Baseball Team
Oct 5, 1943: The Homestead Grays won their 1st Negro World Series championship by defeating the Birmingham Black Barons.
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Black History Matters
The Past is Present
History written for readers, not for footnotes.
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Johnny Mathis, Singer
Johnny Mathis (Sept 30, 1935). Singer who started his career with singles of standard music. He is one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century
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Black History Now
Standing Between Students and Shields: Mayor Bally Bagayoko and France's School Uprising
As high schoolers across France blockaded their schools over crumbling buildings and crowded classrooms, the first Black mayor of Saint-Denis placed himself between the students and the riot police.
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Elaine Massacre, 1919
Sept 30, 1919: The ‘Elaine Massacre’ occurs. There was a meeting of Black sharecroppers near Elaine, Arkansas.
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Black History Now
Fannie Lou Hamer, Civil Rights Actvist
Fannie Lou Hamer (Oct 6, 1917 - Mar 14, 1977). Voting/women's rights activist, community organizer, civil rights movement leader.
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Black History Now
Spot the Lie: How to Identify Misinformation and Disinformation
False stories spread faster than ever. Here are six habits and a list of trusted resources to help you tell fact from fiction.
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Why this platform exists
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.
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Black History Now
Weekly blogs on Black history—past and present that shape our contemporary lives.
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Podcast
The Historianspeaks Podcast
Long-form conversations running from Reconstruction politics to popular culture. Latest episode: Juneteenth and a legacy of song.
Listen nowAcross the Centuries
A collage of the Black past, in color
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
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