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Black History Matters
History written for readers, not for footnotes.
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Global
Sixty-five years after the Paris police massacre of Algerian marchers, France's unfinished reckoning keeps 1961 alive in the students' and protesters' marches of 2026.
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Black History Now
Photos from Morgan State University's 2026 homecoming parade, where the band carried a tradition built over generations.
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Education
France's post-bac admission platform has become the central grievance of the 2026 school movement — and the anger cuts deepest where inequality already runs.
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Global
The demands born in Black suburban high schools have become a national agenda: hundreds of actions are announced for Saturday, October 17, over fuel, rent, groceries and public services.
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Black History Now
At 17, a Rosny-sous-Bois high school senior has become one of the most visible faces of France's fall 2026 student mobilization.
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Black History Now
CARICOM’s reparations campaign, Hilary Beckles, Mia Mottley, Jamaica’s petition to the King, and the Black Britons—from David Lammy to Sheku Kanneh-Mason—reshaping the nation.
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.