Black History Now
Amiri Baraka, Black Arts Poet and Theorist
Born in Newark on October 7, 1934, Amiri Baraka moved from the Beats to the Black Arts Movement and helped define a generation of Black writing.
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The Past is Present
History written for readers, not for footnotes.
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Black History Now
Crispus Attucks: From Runaway to the Revolution’s First Martyr
In 1750, a man named Crispas ran from slavery in Framingham and vanished from the record. Twenty years later, Crispus Attucks became the first man to fall in the American Revolution.
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Black History Now
Thelonious Monk at 109: The Genius Who Played It His Way
Born October 10, 1917, Thelonious Monk helped invent bebop, survived years of being silenced, and left jazz a language all his own.
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Black History Now
Maurice Bishop and the Legacy of the Grenadian Revolution
Stephen G. Hall's essay on Maurice Bishop and Grenada's 1979 revolution, now updated through 2026: the October 1983 killings and invasion, the long reckoning, and a Grenadian and diaspora inheritance.
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Black History Now
Walking to Vote: Greensboro's Students and the Long Shadow of Louisiana v. Callais
Students from N.C. A&T, UNC Greensboro and Bennett College marched to the polls after losing their campus voting sites, and the Supreme Court's Callais ruling helps explain why.
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Eight Names, One Short List: Black Candidates for Governor in 2026
A record eight Black major-party nominees are running for governor on November 3. Tight sketches of each, and why the office has been so hard to reach.
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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.
Blog
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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