Antebellum - AAIHS

Enslaved African Americans hoe and plow the earth and cut piles of sweet potatoes on a South Carolina plantation, circa 1862-3 (Image courtesy of Library of Congress)

Mentha Morrison: A Story of Debt Peonage in Jim Crow Georgia

October 4, 2018October 8, 2018 La Toya Tanisha Francis and Patrick Rael black politics, Black women, Jim Crow, racism, South

Mentha Morrison wanted her husband back. The problem was not domestic, it was legal. Jackson Morrison owed the state of

Black Rights and Black Citizenship in Antebellum Baltimore

October 2, 2018October 3, 2018 Adam McNeil Activism, archives, Baltimore, freedom, race, racism

Throughout my life, I have grappled with the precarious and vulnerable nature of Black life in the United States and

Slave and Free Black Marriage in the Nineteenth Century

September 19, 2018September 25, 2018 Vanessa M. Holden Marriage, Post-Civil War, race, racism, slavery, white supremacy

A recent NPR article entitled “Same-Sex-Marriage Flashpoint: Alabama Considers Quitting The Marriage Business” ⁠included a photo of two African American

A Brief History of the “Black Friend”

July 30, 2018August 8, 2018 Tyler Parry Jim Crow, slavery, South

In June 2018, two news reports encapsulated a problem in American race relations: a white person says something racist, apologizes

Zora Neale Hurston’s ‘Barracoon’ and Africatown’s Sister Settlement

July 25, 2018July 31, 2018 Sharla M. Fett literature, slave trade, slavery, Zora Neale Hurston

More than ninety years after Zora Neale Hurston first met Cudjo Lewis, her manuscript Barracoon has finally been published. Hurston encountered