Black History Now
Morgan State University Homecoming: A Celebration in Three Acts
Photos from Morgan State University's 2026 homecoming parade, where the band carried a tradition built over generations.
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Black History Matters
The Past is Present
History written for readers, not for footnotes.
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Education
The Machine That Decides: Why France's Students Want Parcoursup Gone
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
From the Suburbs to the Whole Country: France's October 17 Day of Action
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
Seydou Ba: A New Voice of France's Student Uprising
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
Still Rising: Black Britain's Global Resilience
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.
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Black History Now
Brixton, Peckham, and Scarman: Black South London and the 1981 Uprising
How Caribbean and African families built Brixton and Peckham, why aggressive policing of Black youth led to the 1981 uprising, and what the Scarman Report found—and missed.
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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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One dispatch a week: a new essay, a podcast episode, and something from the archive worth a second look.