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"Who is Black? One Nation's Definition"

By F. James Davis. To be considered black in the United States not even half of one's ancestry must be African black. But will one-fourth do, or one-eighth, or less? The nation's answer to the question 'Who is black?" has long been that a black is any person with any known African black ancestry. This definition reflects the long experience with slavery and later with Jim Crow segregation. In the South it became known as the "one-drop rule,'' meaning that a single drop of "black blood" makes a person a black.

  • Historical Foundations of Race
  • Educators

"End of Slave Trade Meant New Normal for America"

Two hundred years ago this month, the United States abolished the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Eric Foner, a historian at Columbia University, takes listeners inside the historical moment tied to one of America's darkest eras. NPR.

  • Historical Foundations of Race
  • Educators

A History of Slavery in the United States

Slavery in what became the United States probably began with the arrival of "20 and odd" enslaved Africans to the British colony of Virginia, in 1619. It officially ended with the ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865.

  • Historical Foundations of Race
  • Educators

"Background Readings: Africans, Slavery, and Race"

Was it inevitable that Africans would be imported to the Americas to become slaves? Did European views about racial inferiority contribute to the fact of New World African slavery? By John Cheng.

  • Historical Foundations of Race
  • Educators

"How Race Survived U.S. History"

In this absorbing chronicle of the role of race in US history, David R. Roediger explores how the idea of race was created and recreated from the 1600’s to the present day. From the late seventeenth century—the era in which DuBois located the emergence of “whiteness”—through the American Revolution and the emancipatory Civil War, to the civil rights movement and the emergence of the American empire, How Race Survived US History reveals how race did far more than persist as an exception in a progressive national history.

  • Historical Foundations of Race
  • Educators

"Origins of Race"

Contemporary scholars agree that "race" was a recent invention and that it was essentially a folk idea, not a product of scientific research and discovery. This is not new to anthropologists. By Audrey Smedley.

  • Historical Foundations of Race
  • Educators

The Color Line

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. A lesson on the countless colonial laws enacted to create division and inequality based on race. This helps students understand the origins of racism in the United States and who benefits.

  • Historical Foundations of Race
  • Educators

"The Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson"

A new portrait of the founding father challenges the long-held perception of Thomas Jefferson as a benevolent slaveholder. By Henry Wiencek for Smithsonian magazine.

  • Historical Foundations of Race
  • Educators

"Created Equal: How Benjamin Banneker Challenged Jefferson on Race and Freedom"

When the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791, the liberties it provided were withheld from the hundreds of thousands of Africans living here in slavery. That same year, a free African-American, Benjamin Banneker, challenged the way blacks were seen and treated by whites in America in a public letter to Thomas Jefferson.

  • Historical Foundations of Race
  • Educators

"How Did Famous Philosophers Promote Racism in America?"

A new book examines the ideologies of Adam Smith, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke and how they perpetuated racist ideas and inequalities.
Joel Edward Goza, author of America’s Unholy Ghosts: The Racist Roots of Our Faith and Politics, in conversation with Houston Public Radio.

  • Historical Foundations of Race
  • Educators
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