Sepia photo of a man in coat and tie wearing spectacles
Dr. Solomon Fuller - grandson of Virginians who bought their freedom & moved to Liberia - earned his MD from Boston University in 1897 & was invited by Alois Alzheimer to do research at the University of Munich in 1904. He was among the 1st neurologists to work on the disease now called Alzheimers.
Black and white photo of a woman standing in a front garden.
In 1952 Charlotta Bass was nominated for US Vice President. She advocated civil rights, women’s rights, & peace. A newspaper publisher, she challenged discrimination in housing, hiring & policing & championed the rights of all Americans. The Klan stalked her & sued her for libel & she won in court.
Smiling man wearing a tuxedo with a flower in his lapel.
In 1935 Dr. Percy Julian invented glaucoma medicine, a milestone in the history of US chemistry. Descended from enslaved grandparents, he was valedictorian at his university but not allowed to live in the residence halls & became “one of the most important scientists of the 20th century.”
Grainy black and white photo of a woman dressed in a white long sleeved, long skirted garment with cross body strap and a hat.
Rosa Castellanos (b. 1834 in Cuba) was a formerly enslaved nurse who was appointed Health Captain of the Liberation Army during Cuba’s independence wars. Known as La Bayamesa, Castellanos operated field hospitals that saved countless lives as she risked hers for her country.
My cousin just saw this and said it was amazing. The editor’s surname is Proenza. I can’t help but wonder if we’re related somewhere down the line. Of course I think everyone is related in some way, but the name Proenza fairly unusual. Thank you for sharing this.
I had the honor of writing an afterword for J19’s special issue honoring Frances E. W. Harper's bicentennial! It’s out now, edited by @rafaelwalker.bsky.social & Kristin Moriah, & it features 8 essays by a range of scholars on a range of topics. Harper left posterity so much!
Get into it!
Color photo of Professor Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor made by Smith College that observes in the text that she is the daughter of Richard Pryor & studies race, language, and citizenship to help explain the present.
Her new book, Something We Said, is amazing.
Page 230.
George McJunkin. #reader
I loved her last book, & I know I will love this book. It resonates with the central theme of American Founders – multiculturalism is not some recent artifact of political correctness, it’s historically accurate, it’s the demographic reality of our founding & development.
I wrote a middle school report on Lillian Hellman. I had no idea that she contested Parker’s wishes - disturbed on so many levels.
Two smiling women holding up each other's new books with bright red covers - procured from Richmond's excellent Fountain Bookstore.
Celebrating each other’s work. Carrie's got @brookenewman.bsky.social's The Crown’s Silence which explores how British monarchs cultivated transatlantic slavery. Brooke's got @carriegibson.bsky.social's The Great Resistance chronicling the enslaved people who continuously challenged this system.
The cover of the book American Founders: How People of African Descent Established Freedom in the New World. The image is a black and white portrait of a woman, seated in garden, wearing a military bodice and full skirt, gazing directly at the viewer. Some believe the woman is Susie King Taylor.
Black Americans continuously encouraged the US to live up to its ideals not only through the revolts & revolutions that brought slavery to an end throughout the hemisphere, but also as they defended the principles of democracy before & after slavery, on battlefields, in courts, in print & in deed.
The Black medics of the Freedom House Ambulance Service were the most highly trained field practitioners of emergency medical care in the country & revolutionized how we do emergency medicine in the US.
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/20/u...
Oil painting of three gentlemen wearing silks, gold, ruffs, and holding hats and spears. Made by the native Ecuadorian artist Andrés Sánchez Gallque in Quito in 1599, the painting is now held in the Museo de América in Madrid and part of the permanent collection of El Prado. It is the oldest known signed and dated paining from the Americas.
This 1599 portrait is Don Francisco de Arobe & his sons who ruled an independent settlement of self liberated Africans on Ecuador's coast. Like settlements of the self-liberated in Panama, Mexico, Colombia, Jamaica, Cuba, Suriname, Guyana & Florida, the state recognized it as an autonomous town.
This portrait of the Washington Family, George, Martha, Martha's grandchildren from her first marriage, and possibly enslaved body servant, Christopher Sheels, was made by Edward Savage & hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. Christopher Sheels was owned by Martha's estate & it's likely that George Washington Parke Custis inherited the ownership of this person (depicted here as instrumental to their intimate family life) upon Martha's death.
Portrait of the Washington family c. 1789. The identity of the Black gentleman is uncertain (see ALT). George Washington Parke Custis (bottom left) fathered children with 2 enslaved women from Mount Vernon - which is why at least 2 of Martha Washington’s great-granddaughters were born enslaved.
Pioneering American film performers kissing onscreen in black and white. This clip known as The Kiss was discovered in an archive & added to the US national film registry in 2018. A slightly longer version of the 28 second clip was found in Norway’s National Library in 2021.
Gertie Brown & Saint Suttle embrace in a silent film from 1898.
Grainy black and white photo of a man and woman, gazing toward the viewer, squinting in the sunlight.
The Jones family helped to preserve the Florida Keys. Israel from NC & Mozelle from the Bahamas (pictured) met in Miami & began purchasing & farming land in the Keys in 1897. Their son, Lancelot, sold their 277 acres to the NPS for preservation in 1970 despite much higher offers from developers.
Thank you for sharing this. I would love to see his documentary.
Black and white photo of 16 men, women, and children, beautifully dressed, posing in a line.
This photograph from 1895 includes some of the Bahamian families who helped to establish Coconut Grove, the founding neighborhood of what is now the city of Miami, Florida. The woman holding the child is Mariah Brown. She built one of the first homes in Miami in 1890; it’s now a historic landmark.
This portrait of the Washington Family, George, Martha, Martha's grandchildren from her first marriage, and possibly enslaved body servant, Christopher Sheels, was made by Edward Savage & hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. Christopher Sheels was owned by Martha's estate & it's likely that George Washington Parke Custis inherited the ownership of this person (depicted here as instrumental to their intimate family life) upon Martha's death.
Portrait of the Washington family c. 1789. The identity of the Black gentleman is uncertain (see ALT). George Washington Parke Custis (bottom left) fathered children with 2 enslaved women from Mount Vernon - which is why at least 2 of Martha Washington’s great-granddaughters were born enslaved.
Black and white portrait of a young woman in a light colored high necked dress wearing an elegant hat.
Nannie Helen Burroughs, educator, entrepreneur, women’s rights advocate, daughter of formerly enslaved parents, founded a school in Washington DC in 1901. She observed, “Education & justice are democracy’s only life insurance.”
“The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.”
~Ida B. Wells.
Image: University of Chicago Library, Special Collections Research Center.
“Capers’ experience in the American Revolution is… representative of those of a generation of arms-bearing Black Patriots who fought & bled to help achieve American independence.”
Black & white photo of a man wearing fur
Explorer Matthew Henson reached the North Pole in 1909. The expedition included Robert Peary and four Inuit men. Henson and his wife are buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
Dr. Gladys West, the pioneering mathematician whose work laid the foundation for modern GPS technology, has died. She was 95.
This bright abstract watercolor of vivid concentric circles reflects the artists mastery of color theory.
In 1924, Alma Thomas was the 1st graduate of Howard University’s Fine Arts program & the 1st woman in the US to hold bachelor’s degree in art. Her work has been collected by the Smithsonian, Metropolitan Museum of Art, & the White House. This piece sold at a Christie’s auction for 2.6 million USD.
Black and white portrait of a woman in military uniform.
Renowned performer Josephine Baker was a WWII hero & the 1st American woman awarded the Croix de Guerre. As an operative for the French Resistance, she collected intelligence, carried coded messages (in invisible ink on her musical scores), & sheltered Jewish refugees & resistance fighters.
Black and white photo of man in a shirt and tie, wearing glasses, raising one eyebrow as he gazes directly at the viewer.
“If we desire a society of peace, then we cannot achieve such a society through violence.”
Bayard Rustin
I loved this show and this cast.