
Journey to Freedom
Enslaved refugees sought freedom in Union contraband camps during the American Civil War.

Enslaved refugees sought freedom in Union contraband camps during the American Civil War.

A real-life drama performed before an audience of four.

From daring Civil War hero to Reconstruction-era political pioneer, the life of former slave Robert Smalls was as amazing as it was significant.

Portraits of Frederick Douglass, the most photographed American of the nineteenth century, illuminate his life and career as an abolitionist.

Much of what is widely embraced about the famous activist and orator is mythology, while the truth lives in the shadows.

Galvanized by new electoral laws after the Civil War, thousands of Black men ran for public office both locally and nationally.
Josiah T. Walls was one of them.

It was never built. And thus, in our age of toppling monuments, it never came down. But in October 1868, Thomas Nast imagined a monument to racial violence that continues to haunt us.

“I thank God for making me a man, but Delany thanks Him for making him a Black man.” — Frederick Douglass

How race has shaped our memory of the Civil War and Emancipation

Susie Baker and the drive for education equality before Brown v. Board of Education