This 4th of July, we are digging into Frederick Douglass’s speech “What to the slave is the fourth of July.” And we start by considering Douglass himself. Who better to help us understand than David Blight, the Sterling Professor of History, of African American Studies, and of American Studies and Director of the Gilder Lehrman…

This post is part 1 of our 4-part series on this year’s finalists for the annual Children’s History Book Prize. Join us here on our History Detectives blog over the next few weeks as we interview the authors to learn more about their amazing books. We invite you to read all four finalists, then help…

Freedom! Tyranny! Slavery! These were words you would have heard all the time in the Revolutionary Era. This Black History Month, let’s think about what it might have felt like as a person of African descent to choose sides in that crucial moment: whether to gamble on a European power promising you freedom or to…

The New-York Historical Society and DiMenna Children’s History Museum celebrate African American history year-round, but we, and most other cultural institutions, pay special homage in February for African American History Month. Why? African American History Month, or Black History Month, started with one man: a historian, author, and teacher named Carter G. Woodson (1875-1950). Dr. Woodson…

In the mid-1800s, New York City was already on its way to becoming the dynamic metropolis we know today. Manhattan was a city of half a million people and about 15,000 of these New Yorkers were members of a free black community. Although this community’s place in our city’s history is often forgotten, it was…

Today would have been the 77th birthday of legendary boxer and civil rights leader Muhammad Ali. New-York Historical has a legacy of interpreting Ali’s life, both on an ongoing basis through our Time Inc. Archive as well as through two specific exhibitions in 2017—“I Am King of the World”: Photographs of Muhammad Ali by George Kalinsky and…

On Saturday, January 19, we’re celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. weekend with a special program honoring the 50th anniversary of the Coretta Scott King Book Awards,  featuring acclaimed children’s author and five-time recipient Sharon Draper! In 1969 Coretta Scott King started the awards to further her and her late husband’s work towards peace and brotherhood…

Please note: Included below are links to two historical resources that include graphic language and racial slurs. When you visit Black Citizenship in the Age of Jim Crow, two of the first objects you’ll see are books: The First Dixie Reader, used in the South, and The Gospel of Slavery: A Primer of Freedom, used…