She saw him. She bought him. Then she married him. The backdrop for this couple’s courtship was the early 19th century. Eli Whitney’s cotton gin was new...
Read moreWith unearthing of infamous jail, Richmond confronts its slave past
The place called Lumpkin’s Slave Jail was indeed a jail, but it was much more than that. It was a holding pen for human chattel. In Richmond’s Shockoe...
Read moreWeb database catalogs slaves’ trans-Atlantic treks
Historians hope a new Web database will help bring millions of blacks closer to their African ancestors who were forced onto slave ships, connecting them to their...
Read moreNew book examines black slave’s art and life
David Drake’s pottery sells for thousands of dollars today, but in the 1800s, he was a black slave who made clay jars and pots at his owner’s request. His...
Read moreRichmond slave jail’s foundation found
With young black men used as bait, dogs were trained to track and pursue runaway slaves in the cobblestone courtyard of a Richmond slave jail. Hidden for more than a...
Read moreSlave Girl’s Story Revealed Through Rare Records
Nearly 250 years ago a 10-year-old African girl was kidnapped and transported to South Carolina, where she was renamed Priscilla and sold into slavery. Unlike the...
Read moreSlave Descendants Face Struggles
It’s hard to find ancestors who, in the eyes of the law, were property rather than persons. Descendants of American slaves must be tenacious to overcome the...
Read moreA black and white connection through common ancestry
After years of exchanging e-mails and long-distance phone calls, Norman J. Landerman-Moore and Ann Moore Black met face-to-face for the Western Region African...
Read moreFreedmen’s Plots
In the years of chaos and dislocation after the Civil War, a group of freed slaves clustered along a quiet road near Bethania. They tended garden patches in their...
Read moreTour unveils freed slave community
In the midst of Stones River National Battlefield lies the remnants of a community. Bricks from homes, broken dishes and pipes lie scattered in wooded areas. No one...
Read moreEven in Ford family, race divides generations
Was the matriarch of a Memphis political dynasty a white woman who married into a black family? Or was she a black woman with a white forefather buried in her...
Read moreOld Photographs of African Americans Unknown
Old Photographs of African Americans is a website dedicated to sharing those unknown family photographs with others, as well as submitters photographs, in hopes to...
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