In the Colonial period, Virginia addressed the free black as "anyone who displays the physical attributes of his or her African paternity was to be considered as a full-blooded Negro." The free black population of antebellum Virginia had been ab
We at HarpWeek hope this site will serve as a valuable resource which provides an important perspective on the multifaceted history of black Americans, generates a deeper understanding and respect for the subject, and sparks further interest in its study
American visual satire-- or to use a less elegant term, political cartoons-- embarked on the road towards artistic maturity during the Civil War. Increasingly sophisticated, extremely popular, published cartoons reflected the most wrenching episode of Ame
In 1932 the American Government promised 400 men - all residents of Macon County, Alabama, all poor, all African American - free treatment for Bad Blood, a euphemism for syphilis which was epidemic in the county. Treatment for syphilis was never given to
While the study participants received medical examinations, none were told that they were infected with syphilis. They were either not treated or were treated at a level that was judged by PHS researchers to be insufficient to cure the disease.
When the Pullman Sleeping Car Company began leasing rail cars to the railroads in 1867, it had hired newly freed slaves to work on them. For nearly a century, it continued hiring almost exclusively African-Americans. While patrons dined and slept in the P
This collection of Charlottesville images, made available by the Special Collections Department of Alderman Library, contains hundreds of photographs of African Americans and African-American life in the early 20th century.
