Black History Now
Lou Meyers, Actor and Pianist
Lou Myers (Sept 26, 1935 - Feb 20, 2013). Actor, who was typically typecast as a grumpy old man, but he appeared in many movies, stage plays, TV sitcoms and dramas
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The Past is Present
History written for readers, not for footnotes.
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Black History Now
Studio Museum of Harlem
Sept 26, 1968: The Studio Museum of Harlem was founded in the Harlem neighborhood of NYC. It is the 1st such museum in the U.S. devoted to the art of African-Americans, specializing in 19th and 20th century work as well work of artists of African descent.
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Black History Now
Martha Minerva Franklin, Nurse and Organizer
Martha Minerva Franklin joined the ancestors (Oct 29, 1870 - Sept 26, 1968). A nurse, Ms Franklin graduated from Philadelphia's Women's Hospital Training School for Nurses in 1897 and was working in New Haven, CT. 10yrs later when she began organizing Black nurses and founded the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN)
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Black History Now
A. Leon Higginbotham, Lawyer and Federal Judge
Sept 26, 1962: President John F. Kennedy appointed Leon Higginbotham as a commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission in 1962
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Black History Now
Lieutenant Emily Perez, Highest Ranking Female Black and Hispanic Cadet in West Point History
Sept 26, 2006: 2nd Lieutenant Emily Perez, the highest-ranking Black and Hispani
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Black History Now
Buck Colbert Franklin, Attorney
September 25, 1960. Buck Colbert Franklin died. Buck Colbert was an attorney.
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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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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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