What's New
The latest features and additions to HistorianSpeaks.
October 16, 2026
Black Thread preview: the full Britain series is live
Parts 3 and 4 of our Black Britain series are now published: Brixton, Peckham, and Scarman, and Still Rising: Black Britain's Global Resilience. Still Rising is the featured free preview of Black Thread, our magazine launching November 1. Founding members who join before November 1 keep the $9.99 monthly rate for life.
Read the preview →October 16, 2026
Invite a founding member
Our founders page is live for the launch: share it with friends and colleagues so they can become founding members of Black Thread before November 1 and lock in the founding rate for life.
Visit the founders page →October 15, 2026
Black Britain: a four-part series
Parts 1 and 2 are now live: Black Britain before Windrush, and Windrush's postwar story and the broken promise. Friday, October 16: Brixton, Peckham, and Scarman in the morning, followed by Still Rising: Black Britain's Global Resilience as the featured free preview of Black Thread. The series introduces the magazine ahead of its November 1 launch.
Browse the blog →October 15, 2026
Black Creatives: 154 people and 106 photos
The Black Creatives Directory now includes 154 people, with photographs on 106 entries. The first group of 25 biographies has been reviewed: 22 were rewritten using museums, archives, Britannica, and other established institutions, while three already had suitable sources. The remaining 129 biographies are queued for review in batches, without Wikipedia as a biography source.
Explore Black Creatives →October 2026
New timeline banners
Original collage paintings now open the African Origins, Culture and Technology in Africa, and Africa Before the Agricultural Age sections of the timeline, with more period artwork on the way.
See the timeline →October 2026
France school uprising coverage
Two new pieces on the student protests sweeping France: a student-centered account of the blockades, overcrowded classrooms and underfunding in Seine-Saint-Denis, and a profile of Mayor Bally Bagayoko standing between students and riot police — plus a downloadable infographic, Education Under Siege, in the photo library.
Read the coverage →October 2026
Every archived blog is now editable
All 1,857 posts brought over from the earlier site can now be opened and edited from the writing desk — search any title, press Edit, and save to publish the update at the same link.
Read the blog →October 2026
Easier sharing and saving
A compact Share everywhere panel now follows every blog post, with Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Threads and Bluesky, and infographics carry a Save button so you can download them straight to your phone.
Try it on any post →October 2026
A reorganized menu
The site menu is now grouped into Explore, Content and About drop-downs, with a matching footer, larger touch targets and clearer keyboard navigation for accessibility.
About the site →October 2026
New: HBCU Directory
Every Historically Black College and University operating today, listed by state with links to each school's homepage, opening with a collage of Hampton, Morehouse, Morgan State and Howard from our photo archive.
Browse the HBCUs →October 2026
Listen to the timeline
Every timeline entry now has a Listen button that reads the date, title and story aloud, using the voice on your own device. Only one entry plays at a time, and a Stop button ends playback.
Try it on the timeline →October 2026
A new look for the Black History Map
The map page opens with a full-color collage of events from around the world: the March on Washington, the Greensboro sit-ins, the Haitian Revolution, the Empire Windrush arriving in Britain, Angolan independence and the 1888 end of slavery in Brazil.
Open the map →October 2026
New artwork across the site
The timeline now opens with a painting of the global Black experience, from the Nile Valley and Mali to Haiti, Brazil, Europe and the civil rights movement. The blog has a new collage with Harriet Tubman, Toussaint Louverture, Zora Neale Hurston, Nelson Mandela and Angela Davis.
See the timeline →October 2026
About Us photo gallery
The About Us page now features portraits of Sojourner Truth, Zora Neale Hurston, Paul Robeson, Ella Baker, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr.
Visit About Us →October 2026
More museums in the Mid-Atlantic
New listings include the National Great Blacks In Wax Museum, the Louis Armstrong House, the Paul Robeson House, Mother Bethel's Richard Allen Museum, The Colored Girls Museum, the Banneker-Douglass-Tubman Museum, the Josiah Henson Museum, the Mitchell Center for African American Heritage and the National Museum of African Art.
Browse the museums →October 2026
New: Museums of the Black Experience
A guide to more than 100 museums, memorials and historic sites, covering African American history across the United States and the Black experience around the world. Names in other languages include English translations.
Browse the museums →October 2026
New paintings on the timeline
Original paintings now illustrate the Bornu Empire, the Kingdom of Kongo, the Oyo, Mutapa, Dahomey and Ashanti empires, the Siddis of India, Black Tudor England, Africans in Medieval Europe, the Central Sahel and Nile kingdoms and more.
See the timeline →September 2026
Jefferson, Hemings and the new DNA evidence
Our timeline entry on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings now includes Annette Gordon-Reed's scholarship and the Smithsonian's new genome study of Jefferson's hair.
Read the entry →September 2026
Reconstruction and beyond: nine new entries
New and expanded entries on the Freedman's Savings Bank, the Buffalo Soldiers, the Colored National Labor Union, the Fisk Jubilee Singers, the Colfax Massacre, the Colored Farmers' Alliance, the American Negro Academy, the Niagara Movement and Oscar De Priest.
Explore the timeline →September 2026
New: Interactive Black History Map
Every timeline entry, now more than 250, is pinned to a place on a world map. Filter by historical period and click any pin to read more.
Open the map →September 2026
New: Global Black History Timeline
A timeline running from ancient Africa to today, covering Africa and the Atlantic, Caribbean, Latin American, European, Indian Ocean and US Black experiences.
Start the timeline →