Tag Archives: slavery

The National Park Service has edited a page on its website that describes the Underground Railroad to reduce the emphasis on Harriet Tubman, instead highlighting “Black/White cooperation.” The Washington Post first reported the changes, noting that the government replaced a large portrait of Tubman as well as a quote at …

Vice President Kamala Harris’ home state of California is on track to reject a ballot measure that would ban forced labor in state prisons. Proposition 6 was an effort to ban slavery by creating voluntary work programs with a focus on rehabilitation. As of Wednesday evening, Proposition 6 was trailing …

A controversial education bill passed in a Florida House vote on Friday. One Republican lawmaker used the opportunity to wonder why educators don’t talk about how some slaves were paid for their labor. The bill, known as CS/HB 1291, would ban teacher preparation programs and similar courses that teach “identity …

On Tuesday night’s episode of Finding Your Roots, LeVar Burton was shocked to discover that he’s part-white. Burton, the renowned host of PBS educational series Reading Rainbow and star of Roots and Star Trek: The Next Generation, came into the show with questions about his family tree, since him and …

Bass Reeves has one hell of a story. Born into slavery in Arkansas, he was forced by his owner to fight on the Confederate side of the Civil War. He escaped — legend has it, he beat up his owner over a card game and ran off — and lived …

In the first episode of Hulu’s new docuseries The 1619 Project, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones strolls in her Air Jordans down a picturesque path in Williamsburg, Virginia. With the help of Woody Holton, a Professor of History at the University of South Carolina, Hannah-Jones explores how slaves in Virginia …

Shocking family revelations are part and parcel of Finding Your Roots, the PBS genealogy show hosted by Harvard academic Henry Louis Gates. Using a mixture of historical research and DNA analysis, the docuseries has taught us that comedian Larry David not only descended from a slave-owning ancestor who fought for …

In the new FX drama Kindred, a young Black woman named Dana finds herself time-traveling back and forth between Los Angeles in 2016 to a slave plantation in early 19th century Maryland. On some of these trips, Dana (Mallori Johnson) takes along Kevin (Micah Stock), a white man she has …

It’s too bad that Will Smith’s new movie, Emancipation (in theaters now, and set to be released on Apple+ Dec. 9), has to go down as his first movie since The Slap, because it doesn’t really make sense as a movie seen through that lens. This isn’t the humbled bit …