As always, we invite you to share this post with students, colleagues, and anyone else who is interested in the legacies of slavery. A link here does not imply agreement or endorsement by the Council of Independent Colleges.
- Khafre Jay, “A Black Woman’s War: Lucy Parsons’ Rage Against the Machine,” Medium (June 25, 2024): LINK. Lucy Parsons, an African American woman, married a Confederate veteran turned Radical Republican and endured relentless opposition to their joint efforts to protest the nation’s inhumane labor laws.
- Amber Holland, “The Racial Wealth Gap is Persistent — and Growing,” Inequality (June 27, 2024): LINK. Researchers at Duke University have published a new study which show that the “wealth gap between Black and white households has not improved in over 50 years; in fact, it has slightly widened.”
- Emmanuel Felton, “California budget includes $12 million for reparations for Black residents,” Washington Post (June 28, 2024): LINK. “[The] $12 million included in California’s $300 billion budget is a fraction of what reparations activists wanted. Last year, a reparations task force established by the state legislature recommended billions in reparations, including $1.2 million in payments for lifelong Black California residents older than 50 years old.”
- Leonard N. Fleming, “DC reparations bill for descendants of slaves advances in City Council,” DC News Now (June 27, 2024): LINK. “This week, D.C. City Council advanced a bill that brings the District one step closer to providing reparations for African American descendants of slaves.”
- Nate Tinner-Williams, “New report details slavery in Archdiocese of St. Louis,” National Catholic Reporter (June 27, 2024): LINK. “The Archdiocese of St. Louis has released its long-awaited report on slavery, covering the various intersections between the practice and one of the oldest Catholic jurisdictions in the United States — including each of its first three bishops.”
- Phillip Martin, “Right-wing activists are targeting Black scholars, and the scholars are pushing back,” WGBH (June 27, 2024): LINK. Black women scholars — and not just former Harvard president Claudine Gay — are dealing with racist attacks and death threats by right-wing activists.
- Maya Pontone, “Is This the First Known Portrait Commissioned by an American Born Into Slavery?,” Hyperallergic (June 26, 2024): LINK. A painting of a mixed-race woman, Mary Ann Tritt Cassell, was unveiled last week at the Baltimore Museum of Art: “While formal solo portraits of Black Americans were highly uncommon during this period, this work holds a unique historical significance as likely the first known portrait commissioned by an American who was born into slavery.”
- Ruth Murai, “How 99 Black Americans Gained — Then Lost — Land on an Idyllic Georgia Island,” Mother Jones (June 22, 2024): LINK. Today, Skidaway Island off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, is wealthy and 93% white. It was once home to a Black utopia where thousands of formerly enslaved African Americans were issued federal documents entitling them to land — before it was taken away from them by President Andrew Johnson.
- “Retracing Asheville’s Black History,” Garden and Gun (June 26, 2024): LINK. The new Asheville (NC) Black Cultural Heritage Trail encompasses 14 stops across three historic Black neighborhoods, encapsulating stories from slave narratives, Reconstruction, and the Civil Rights Movement.
- Leola Hampton, “The buses we rode every September,” The Emancipator (June 19, 2024): LINK. A Black woman reflects on her experience participating in the desegregation of Boston’s schools 50 years ago: “Racism [still] influences laws, our regulations, our society’s institutional practices and even how we interpret and misinterpret history. Until we properly understand and address it, we will continue to have a legacy of distrust and hindered progress.”