An interview with Matthew Karp about his book, This Vast Southern Empire, and the international politics of American slavery. By Timothy Shenk.

Gene Demby thought a visit to Ghana for a wedding would be fun and uncomplicated, but it sent him down a road of introspection about black fatherhood and its connection to America’s original sin.

In the 19th century freed slaves from Brazil, Cuba and Sierra Leone returned to Nigeria. It was the birth of the Yoruba nation and identity! Read about Nago and Lukumi in Lagos.

One hundred and fifty years after the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in the United States, the nation’s first black president paid tribute to “a century and a half of freedom—not simply for former slaves, but for all of us.” It sounds innocuous enough till you start listening to the very different kinds of political rhetoric around us… By Maya Jasanoff.

The Great Dismal Swamp was once a thriving refuge for runaways. By Richard Grant.

To understand why, despite the recent funeral orations, liberalism is very much alive, you have to go back to the 1860s and the abolition of slavery in two key countries. To be precise, 1863, when – in one of the great coincidences of history – the proclamations of liberty for the American slaves and the Russian serfs came just five weeks apart.

The role of maps in visualizing United States Census results is actually a practice that originated 150 years ago, in the crisis between North and South.

“The injuries of slavery and its aftermath are palpable across these villages and farm communities, and the region’s relationship with Tubman’s legacy, and that of the Underground Railroad is, to the outsider, surprisingly fraught.” By Katie Ryder. (July 14, 2016)

Bill O’Reilly, historian, has had quite the week. On Tuesday night, responding to Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention, the Fox News host pointed out—just as a point of interest!—that slaves working on the construction of the White House’ were joined by free black, white, and immigrant labor, and that they were “well-fed and had decent lodgings provided by the government.” On Wednesday night, O’Reilly brought up the subject again, expressing wonder at the pushback he got for his comments. He berated the media, professing an...

The slaves who built the White House got no pay—but their owners got up to $60 a year. So here’s what America really owes the builders’ descendants. By Michael Daly.

Eunus and the First Servile War against Rome. By Mike Dash.

When three Confederate officers decided to go ashore for a night in Charleston, they left their gunboat in the hands of an enslaved pilot. It was a critical mistake. By Christopher Dickey.

James Earl Jones Reads Frederick Douglass’ Historic Speech

On its 150th anniversary, the Tennessee whiskey distillery concedes that its official history didn’t tell the whole story of its origins.

Move could increase sex trafficking and reduce quality of life for prostitutes. By Darren Geist.

With Freedom on the Move, historians hope to reveal patterns of escape and capture, while giving anyone the chance to learn about the individual heroism of runaway slaves.

Propaganda is cheap to produce on the web. And a purposeful lie in an age of "viral content" not only can race around the world in a day but resurface time and time again with surprising resiliency. 

Journalists at The Associated Press knew that labor abuses in Thailand's seafood business were an awful but open secret. They wanted to tell the story of an industry rife with human trafficking, abuse, slavery and murder. And they wanted to make the world pay attention. The best way to do that was to find those captives and follow the fish they caught on its journey to American tables, said Martha Mendoza, a national reporter at the AP and a Pulitzer Prize winner.

In Thailand thousands of "sea slaves," held captive in shoddy fishing vessels, trawl for cheap forage fish used in canned pet food. In Pakistan, children as young as five are sold or kidnapped and forced to stand knee-deep in water, packing clay into molds to make bricks. In Ghana, poisonous dust and exposure to toxic chemicals and mine collapses threaten the health and safety of children who work in the artisanal gold mines.

The Life and the Adventures of a Haunted Convict is the earliest known prison memoir by an African-American writer. Written by Austin Reed in the 1850s, it was discovered at an estate sale in 2009.