Developing
Guarding the Door: Scott Colom, "Sinators," and Medgar Evers's Mississippi
Latest: New map: where Colom's votes came from
Election 2026 · Nov. 6 morning update
Election Watch: Until Every Race Is Called
NBC projects Democratic control of both chambers: 249 House seats and 54 Senate seats so far. Mississippi and Alaska remain uncalled in the Senate; 28 House races remain uncalled. Follow the counts, Black-led analysis and the organizers who made it happen — 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.
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Become a founding memberDiaspora Dashboard · Week of October 26, 2026
This week in the global Black world
France
Second national day of marches under tight limits
Brazil
Lula wins the October 25 runoff
Haiti
Our Haiti series continues this week
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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
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Politics
The Liberty Road Corridor: Julian Jones and the Making of Black Suburban Power
Baltimore County elected its first Black county executive on a west-side base forty years in the making. The precinct map shows where the organizing lives.
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Black History Now
Othello Performance featuring Paul Robeson, 1943
In October 1943 Paul Robeson brought Othello to Broadway, setting a record for Shakespeare that still stands.
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Politics
The Florida Crossroads: How Close Florida Came, and What Writing It Off Cost
Southern Crossover, Part 3: Jolly lost by 1.5 points and Nixon by three in a state national Democrats skipped. Donalds's win raises the question of what representation means.
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2,000 Blogs In: What HistorianSpeaks Has Built
More than 2,000 stories on the global Black world since 2020, and what comes next.
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Politics
Second Line to the Polls: HBCU Students Are Building a Civic Infrastructure to Last
On the last day of early voting, Southern University's Human Jukebox led Baton Rouge to the ballot box. Across the South, HBCU students are assembling a civic infrastructure meant to outlast this election.
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Politics
The Rainbow Coalition, Counted: How a Black and Latino Ground Game Flipped Texas
Hinojosa and Talarico won Texas on the votes of Black women, Latino workers and young organizers, finishing what Barbara Jordan and Jesse Jackson started.
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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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Long-form conversations running from Reconstruction politics to popular culture. Latest episode: Juneteenth and a legacy of song.
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