In colonial days right up to the early nineteenth century, Africans were legally kidnapped and sold as slaves in the new World. The United States banned this trade in 1808, and declared it an act of p [..]

On September 15, 1885, in a speech in Atlanta, Georgia, black educator Booker T. Washington told his audience that black people must postpone any attempt to gain political power until they had achieve [..]

Laws passed by southern legislatures to control freed blacks during the Reconstruction Era. The codes included severe punishments for vagrancy directed against freedmen who wandered away from their ho [..]

This organization, founded in Oakland, California, in 1966 by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton, advocated violence as the only way to achieve black power in a country dominated by white supremacists.

Term used by Southerners before the Civil War to describe members of the Republican party.

At the beginning of the Civil War, many Confederate officers and enlisted men brought slaves with them to cook and clean for them. These slaves, called "body servants," were very loy [..]

According to Harriet Janis and Rudi Blesh in They All Played Ragtime

Term applied to Northerners coming to the South to run schools for the freedmen, to reorganize political institutions in the South, or to conduct business. The name was derived from the carpetbags in [..]

This act brought a legal end to the "Jim Crow" laws of the South. Unfortunately, there is a big difference between de jure

This act brought a legal end to the "Jim Crow" laws of the South. Unfortunately, there is a big difference between de jure