The American Temperance Movement remains an interesting and important topic. Considering the various attitudes that influenced laws about alcohol sale and consumption of the past are often referred to when reviewing issues related to liquor legislation...

What do you do if you accompany a friend on her research trip to Boston University’s Gotlieb Archival Research Center and end up finding a treasure trove of letters, news articles, hand written notes, and original drafts of nonfiction by one of your fa...

The American penitentiary model began as not merely a physical construct, but as a philosophical and religious one. Prisoners were to use their time in silence and isolation to contemplate their crimes/sins and to pursue God’s grace.

The relationship between music and religion is a site of increasing interest to scholars within Religious Studies. Monica Miller, Assistant Professor of Religion and Africana Studies at Lehigh University, explores the social processes and human activit...

When I think of the name “Billy Wilson” certain things come to mind immediately. I think of his sparkling career as director and choreographer of “Bubbling Brown Sugar” on Broadway. I am still stunned by his ability to shift from Broadway and back agai...

How were black women manumitted in the Old South, and how did they live their lives in freedom before the Civil War? Historian, Amrita Chakrabarti Myers (Associate Professor in the Department of History at Indiana University in Bloomington) answers thi...

If the moniker of the slave ship Amistad brings to mind images of Anthony Hopkins, Djimon Hounsou, and Morgan Freeman you are likely not alone. The monumental success of Steven Spielberg’s cinematic depiction of this antebellum event swept the nation w...

The Louisiana Purchase was a perfect illustration of the challenges, yet seemingly boundless opportunities that slavery presented statesmen like Thomas Jefferson. Napoleon Bonaparte had been dealt a significant military defeat at the hands of a slave r...

Andrei Williams‘ provocative new book on African American class divisions in Post-Reconstruction and Jim Crow America is sure to spark spirited debate among those interested in how the interplay of economic status and racial identity influence what has...

After his incendiary performance at the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival, Jimi Hendrix almost immediately went from obscure musician to pop superstar in America. But as Steven Roby and Brad Schreiber reveal in Becoming Jimi Hendrix: From Southe...

The moral arguments in defense of slavery hinged on the claim that it was the best arrangement for all parties involved, especially the slaves. Thomas Jefferson, for example, argued that the differences between black slaves and white masters were ‘fixe...

German military theorist Carl Von Clausewitz observed that many of the important variables in war exist in ‘clouds of great uncertainty’ which create disconnects and confusion that persist even after the fighting has ended.

Vladimir Alexandrov‘s new book The Black Russian (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2013) tells the epic and often tragic story of Fredrick Bruce Thomas, an African American born to recently freed slaves, who would go on to make a fortune in Russia as a club own...

Who is Motown’s first real star? The answer, of course, is Mary Wells, singer of such classics as “My Guy,” “Bye Bye Baby,” “The One Who Really Loves You,” “You Beat Me to the Punch,” and “Two Lovers,” among others.

In Hip Hop’s Amnesia: From Blues and the Black Women’s Club Movement to Rap and the Hip Hop Movement (Lexington Books, 2012), the second installment of his hip hop trilogy, Reiland Rabaka again discusses, in great detail,

Over the last year, this podcast has featured several authors who’ve examined the presidency of Barack Obama. John Sides, Daniel Kriess, and Enid Logan each wrote about the election campaign of the President. Michael P.

Andra Gillespie is the author of The New Black Politician: Cory Booker, Newark, and Post-Racial America (NYU Press, 2012). She is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Emory University and earned her Ph.D. from Yale University.

Historian Stephen Hall passionately engages in the history of nineteenth-century African American intellectual life in his first monograph, A Faithful Account of the Race: African American Historical Writing in Nineteenth-Century America (University of...

The Will of a People: A Critical Anthology of Great African American Speeches (Southern Illinois University Press, 2012) is a compendium of 22 orations delivered by African Americans over a span of over 265 years.

Stephen Caliendo and Charlton McIlwain are the authors of Race Appeal: How Candidates Invoke Race in US Political Campaigns (Temple University Press 2011). Caliendo is Professor of Political Science at North Central College and McIlwain is Associate Pr...

Digging up our roots seems to be the thing these days.  There are a host of genealogy resources available for anyone who cares to (re)discover their familial past.  Still, in the Americas people of African descent who want to take part in this digging ...

Where does rock ‘n’ roll begin? In The Chitlin’ Circuit and the Road to Rock ‘n’ Roll (W. W. Norton, 2011), Preston Lauterbach makes a strong case for its beginnings in the backwoods and small-town juke joints, fed by big-city racketeering,

Performance queen RuPaul once famously quipped that “we’re born naked; the rest is drag”–meaning everyone dons identity, performs one’s concept of self within our social networks, e.g., family, community, work.

What does it mean for a contemporary scholar to be trusted with the unfinished autobiography of a dance legend? How does one ensure that the integrity of their research matches the depth of life experience embodied in their subject’s narrative?

In December 1958, US Senator Hubert H. Humphery recalled that at some point during an eight hour meeting with Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet Premier “tore off on a whole long lecture” that the Senator wished he could remember because it was “the best sp...