BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM There is something disquieting about the idea that a law governing slavery could still exist on the books in 2026. Not as an enforced law. Not as a policy. Just sitting there, formally unrepealed, in the archive of French legal history. That was the status of the Code Noir […]
The post France finally votes to strike the Code Noir from its books, its last…
Selective memory does not bring peoples together but fuels the very resentments it claims to soothe.
The peoples of Africa and the West Indies were treated with greater consideration than the simple people of the Vendée, who are still waiting for the crimes of which they were victims to be acknowledged.
Pope Leo XIV made a historic apology on Monday for the Holy See’s role in legitimizing slavery and for having failed to condemn it for centuries, calling the Vatican’s record a “wound in Christian memory.” Past popes have apologized for Christians’ involvement in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. But no pope had ever publicly acknowledged, much […]
(RNS) —Starting from the centrality of the human person, Pope Leo XIV offers a series of reflections to help guide the world through the challenges and risks posed by AI.
Martin Robison Delany: An Extraordinary, Sometimes Contradictory, Figure“Africa for Africans” Martin Robison Delany was one of the key African American figures both before and after the Civil War. Unfortunately, he is little-known today. Delany was born 6 May 1812, in … Continue reading →
The post Martin Robison Delany: An Extraordinary, Sometimes Contradictory, Figure appeared first on The…
Harriet Beecher Stowe – Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Books That Killed Their Authors On 5 June 1851, the first of 40 installments of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” were published in the abolitionist weekly newspaper The National Era. Originally subtitled … Continue reading →
The post Harriet Beecher Stowe – Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Books That Killed Their Authors appeared first on The Icarian.
Weekend Editor Eric O. Scott reviews Jeffrey E. Anderson's study of the historical evidence for the theology, organization, and ritual practices of the Voodoo religion of the Mississippi River Valley in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.
Continue reading Review: “Voodoo: An African American Religion” at The Wild Hunt.
Band of male, female and child captives driven into slavery by Arab slave traders. From ”The Life and Explorations of David Livingstone” c1875. Chromolithograph (Credit Image: © PHOTO12 via ZUMA Press) Subscribe to future audio versions of AmRen articles here. Continued from Part I. Prof. Flaig’s chapter on slavery under Islam is called “An Intercontinental […]
1,539 words There is a peculiar asymmetry in how the world discusses imperial and colonial history. Western nations—and England in particular—are routinely placed in the docket of historical judgement, expected to issue formal apologies, pay reparations, and carry the moral weight of empires long dissolved. Campaigns have mounted demanding that King Charles III formally apologize […]
I’m delighted to announce that we will be hosting a relaxed and informal event at 6 pm on 2nd June in the Beach Bar at the Labadi Beach Hotel, Accra, to discuss some of the arguments contained within my new … Continue reading →
Otis Westbrook Pickett Sr. (Author)
Egon Prof. Flaig: Weltgeschichte der Sklaverei (A World History of Slavery), Verlag C.H. Beck 2018 Third Edition, 245 pp., €11.96 (softcover) Egon Flaig’s Weltgeschichte der Sklaverei (A World History of Slavery) was first published in paperback in 2009 by C.H. Beck, a prestigious German publishing house, and is now in its third edition. The writer is […]
By 1860, the trans-Atlantic slave trade had long been outlawed, and most slaves in the United States were born on American soil. However, this didn’t prevent an avaricious pair of Americans from illegally purchasing 110 slaves in West Africa and bringing them to Mobile, Alabama. Under cover of darkness, the slaves were smuggled into the country and the ship, the Clotilda, was burned in order to…
The state of Virginia is trying to break with its racist past. It’s not pretending it doesn’t exist. But, better late than never, it’s trying to undo some of the damage still being perpetrated by Virginians and their legislators. Governor Abigail Spanberger signed a bill into law that stripped confederate-friendly organizations of their tax exempt […]
A new edition of the Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (the first edition was published in 2010) came out earlier this month from Yale University Press. From the publisher: In the first edition of Atlas… More
After Major General Gordon Granger ordered the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas on June 19th 1865 (what is now Juneteenth), former enslaved people started migrating to Texas cities like Houston.
Many from the surrounding Brazos River plantations found their way to what is now the Fourth Ward or Freedmen’s Town. They settled down in the area making houses and churches,…
Mississippi’s warts-and-all approach to reflecting its history as part of the state’s official commemoration of the nation’s 250th anniversaryis a stark contrast with what has taken place at the national level since President Donald Trumpreturned to the White House in January 2025.
The post Mississippi Reveals Its Full History for America’s Anniversary Year, a Contrast to Federal Efforts…
Subscribe to future audio versions of AmRen articles here. Robert C. Davis, Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast, and Italy, 1500-1800, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, 246 pp. As Robert C. Davis notes in this eye-opening account of Barbary Coast slavery, American historians have studied every aspect of enslavement of Africans […]
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I wish my townsmen to consider that, no matter whatever the human law may be, a government which deliberately enacts injustice and persists in it will become the laughingstock of the world. I say break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the
Eritrea players celebrate during their historic aggregate victory over Eswatini to reach the next round of AFCON 2027 qualifying. Source: CAF (fair use).
James Baldwin once wrote that he loved the…
The row comes as international pressure builds over colonial-era grievances, with the UK resisting calls for financial redress.
Some of our billionaires feel comfortable only in states of the neo-Confederacy.
The post Greed Flows South appeared first on The American Prospect.
In "What'd I Miss?" Ossie and his friend explore the meaning of facism — and wonder why they don't hear the term invoked more in discussions of American history.
The United States joined Israel and Argentina on Thursday in voting against a Ghana-led resolution that declared the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans the “gravest crime against humanity” and urged countries to pursue reparations. The nonbinding measure, backed by more than 120 nations, calls for formal apologies, compensation, and other forms of reparatory justice for […]
The post…
DeeDee Baldwin writes about her friendship with Sharon Leslie Morgan, a writer and researcher who spent the last years of her life in Macon, Mississippi.
The post Opinion | Mississippi Hallelujah: A Personal Remembrance of Sharon Leslie Morgan appeared first on Mississippi Free Press.
In recent years I have tried, but often failed, to use “alt text” in my work when posting images online. I have failed dismally to go back and try to annotate all of the many images I have posted in … Continue reading →
This resin and metal sculpture was created by sculptor Sandrine Plante-Rougeol for Memory Week 2019. This sculpture, acquired by the City of Bordeaux and inaugurated on December 2, 2019, is a tribute to the enslaved people, in remembrance of their suffering. So that we never forget these crimes against humanity—the slave trade and slavery itself—and so that they may never happen…
On Feb. 1, the Smith portrait was unveiled at the chapel named for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at a vespers service attended by descendants of the Smith family.
A review of Matt Walsh’s The Real History of Slavery. Over the past few years, conservative podcaster Matt Walsh has made several documentaries that challenge leftist dogmas. His new series, Real History with Matt Walsh, aims to “confront the lies used to rewrite America’s past,” and to “challenge decades of propaganda, question untouchable stories, and […]