Slavery (Historical)
After Abortion, Republicans Are Targeting the Right to Travel
When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, it did more than just supercharge the assault on the right to have an abortion. It also opened up a corresponding attack on the right to travel. That attack is a straightforward consequence of giving states the power to ban abortion. An abortion ban in Ohio, for […]
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Finding Traces of Harriet Tubman on Maryland’s Eastern Shore
Of the many feats Harriet Tubman accomplished, none awe me more as an historian than the estimated 13 trips she made to Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Each time, she stole family and friends from enslavement much in the way Tubman first secreted herself away to freedom in 1849. Born on the Eastern Shore, Tubman grew into […]
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What Is Juneteenth?
Juneteenth, an annual commemoration of the end of slavery in the United States after the Civil War, has been celebrated by African Americans since the late 1800s. President Biden signed legislation last year that made Juneteenth, which falls on June 19, a federal holiday, after interest in the day was renewed during the summer of […]
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Aristide Demanded French Pay Reparations to Haiti. He Ended Up in Exile.
A Painful Reckoning Haiti’s payments to its former slave masters added up for generations, costing its economy billions of dollars over time, The Times analysis found, and a little-known public bank called the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations collected the vast majority of the money. But after Haiti’s disastrous earthquake in 2010, Didier Le Bret, […]
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How Much Haiti’s Freedom Cost: Takeaways From a Times Series
The U.S. Treated Haiti Like a Cash Register When the American military invaded Haiti in the summer of 1915, the official explanation was that Haiti was too poor and too unstable to be left to its own devices. Secretary of State Robert Lansing made little effort to mask his contempt for the “African race,” casting […]
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The Root of Haiti’s Misery: Reparations to Enslavers
In 1789, before the slave rebellion, the marquis bought 21 recently kidnapped Africans before leaving for France. But he didn’t indicate where they were put to work, so the commission valued them at an average rate, down to the cent: 3,366.66 francs. In the end, it awarded Cocherel’s daughter, a newly married marquise, average annual […]
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Black American Jews Share Their Passover Traditions
According to a 2021 report from the Pew Research Center, there are about 5.8 million Jewish adults in the United States; the overwhelming majority identify as white and non-Hispanic. In a 2021 study commissioned by the Jews of Color Initiative, an organization devoted to supporting and empowering that community, 80 percent of roughly 1,100 self-identified […]
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Prince William and Kate Middleton’s Caribbean Tour Marred By Gaffes and Miscues
LONDON — In Belize, a visit to a cocoa farm was scotched after residents protested. In Jamaica, the prime minister declared his country was “moving on” from the British monarchy. In the Bahamas, the couple arrived to demands from a group calling for slavery reparations that they acknowledge Britain’s economy “was built on the backs […]
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My Artist Ghost
On an overcast late July day thick with humidity and dampening drizzles, I headed from Manhattan toward the Bulova Corporate Center, in Queens, in search of my ghost. Until 2017, the Queens Museum had a satellite gallery at Bulova and organized artist exhibitions there. Denyse Thomasos’ show was one of them. A brilliant abstract painter […]
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