Developing
Guarding the Door: Scott Colom, "Sinators," and Medgar Evers's Mississippi
Latest: No statewide recount, a silent incumbent, and a crowd on Farish Street
Election 2026 · Mississippi canvass watch
Mississippi Senate: Every Ballot Counted
With 97% counted (AP), Scott Colom leads Cindy Hyde-Smith by 2,574 votes as Mississippi canvasses its remaining ballots. Follow the county map and count analysis, and share your voting experience.
Editorial Note: Democracy is not imperiled by those lining up to vote; it is imperiled by the systems designed to lock them out. Read: Two Elections, Two Realities
Black History Matters
The Past is Present
History written for readers, not for footnotes.
Read the blogFounding members: the first 50 to join Black Thread lock in $9.99/month for life — with founder recognition. Students: $4.99/month with a school email →
Become a founding memberDiaspora Dashboard · Week of November 8, 2026
This week in the global Black world
United States
Southern grassroots organizing powers the midterm results
Mississippi
Colom leads as the last ballots are counted
Haiti
Salvadoran troops arrive as the mission shifts
Get the Sunday Dispatch in your inbox
Free every week. Founding members get the full Black Thread magazine for $9.99/month.
The New Magazine
Black Thread — Coming November 1
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. Be one of the first 50 founders and your $9.99/month rate is locked in for life.
Prefer PayPal?
Keep the magazine and the free site going with a monthly or one-time gift.
Or give monthly:
Developing coverage
Developing
The Crown in the Caribbean: What King Charles's Tour Reveals About the Bahamas, Guyana and Antigua
Latest: Manchester’s slavery history and Black resistance challenge comforting abolition narratives; the Caribbean tour ends without a reported reparations settlement.
Developing
Act III: France's Students March Again on October 31
Latest: up to 1.6 million march as unions join the students; 448 arrests; Lecornu meets unions Monday.
Black History Now
Latest from the blog
Politics
The Silver State Firewall: Aaron Ford, the Culinary Union and Nevada's First Black Governor
Ford becomes the first Black governor elected west of the Mississippi, powered by a 90-year-old union of hospitality workers.
Continue readingBlog
The Organizers: Profiles of the People Who Carried the South
The victories of November 3 were built by organizers, not consultants. Meet the Black grassroots leaders named across our Southern Black Organizers series — who they are, what they built, and where they work.
Continue reading
Politics
Beyond Cable News: How Black Podcasters Captured the 2026 Political Conversation
Pushed off or out of cable, Black political voices built their own rooms. In 2026 those podcasts became where many Black voters went for the election.
Continue reading
Politics
The Socialist Mayors: Janeese Lewis George, Nithya Raman and Why Bowser and Bass Leave Differently
Washington and Los Angeles both elected democratic socialist mayors. What sets Lewis George apart from Bowser, why Karen Bass lost to Nithya Raman, and what both new mayors must now deliver.
Continue reading
Global
Two Thousand Troops and a Shifting Mission: What El Salvador's Haiti Deployment Really Means
After an ambush left four Salvadoran service members missing, Bukele sent more than 2,000 soldiers to Haiti. A century of foreign forces explains why Haitians are asking who commands them, and when they get to vote.
Continue reading
Black History
Denial at the Door: Juliette Derricotte and the Deadly Logic of Segregated Hospitals
In November 1931, Fisk University's dean of women and a student died after a Georgia hospital refused to treat Black patients. Their deaths exposed Jim Crow medicine.
Continue readingOur Purpose
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.
Start reading
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
Stay Current
Join our mailing list
One dispatch a week: a new essay, a podcast episode, and something from the archive worth a second look.