The NAACP Anti-Lynching Committee One of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)’s earliest priorities was to end the lynching epidemic in the United States. In 1916, the NAACP established an Anti-Lynching Committee devoted to this purpose through the means of legislation and increasing public awareness. In 1918, as part of its […]

Throughout his 1938 collection, Uncle Tom’s Children, Richard Wright depicts scenes of violence against people of color. The pervasive threat of violence inescapably looms over people’s heads and results in behaviors attempting to avoid or minimize danger. In his autobiographical essay and fictional stories, Wright describes circumstances where violence occurs, illuminating the strict racial hierarchy […]

Through African/American: Making the Nation’s Table, the Museum of Food and Drink (MOFAD) has embarked on an ambitious mission to highlight African American culinary contributions to the American palate. Unable to debut back in 2020, the content has shifted to an online format but still provides a wealth of information. This exhibition works to complicate the stereotype […]

The GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco, California is credited as a pioneer in LGBTQ+ history.[1] The Society was founded in 1985 due to the urging of over sixty individuals at the San Francisco Main Library’s meeting. The organization set out to preserve and raise awareness of LGBTQ+ history in the San Francisco Bay Area. Initially dubbed the […]

In 1966, Congress passed the National Historic Preservation Act, which prevented the destruction of, and supported the preservation of, historic sites in the United States. The law was in response to the estimated loss of over 6,000 sites on the National Park Service’s (NPS) Historic American Buildings Survey (1933) after only a few decades.[i] This […]

In her book, Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America, Professor Melissa Harris-Perry discussed a psychological study that involved placing research subjects in a crooked room and observing their responses. When subjects were placed in a crooked room, they were asked to align themselves vertically while also sitting in a crooked chair. The […]

Sometimes it feels like our family name can take on a life of its own and define us before we have a chance to define ourselves. A major theme in Brown Girl Dreaming, a memoir of author Jacqueline Woodson’s childhood, is how her family’s surname and the responsibilities that came with it have shaped her […]