slaves

A new exhibition in Louisiana is dedicated to honoring the 272 enslaved people sold by Georgetown founders in order to pay off school debts. 

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — A woman suing Harvard University over 19th century images of slaves she says were her ancestors has received the backing of descendants of the professor who commissioned the images in his attempt to prove blacks were inferior to whites. Dozens of descendants of professor Louis Agassiz have signed a letter saying […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Georgetown University students are considering a fee benefiting the descendants of enslaved people sold to pay off the school’s debts, an effort that would create one of the first reparations funds at a major U.S. institution. News outlets report undergraduate students will vote Thursday on a “Reconciliation Contribution” in the form of […]

BOSTON (AP) — Harvard University has “shamelessly” turned a profit from photos of two 19th-century slaves while ignoring requests to turn the photos over to the slaves’ descendants, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday. Tamara Lanier, of Norwich, Connecticut, is suing the Ivy League school for “wrongful seizure, possession and expropriation” of images she says […]

NEW YORK (AP) — A bronze statue of a 19th century doctor who did experimental surgery without anesthesia on enslaved African-American women was removed from Central Park on Tuesday. New York City’s Public Design Commission voted Monday to accept a mayoral panel’s recommendation to remove the statue of Dr. J. Marion Sims for relocation to […]

The announcement comes after Scholastic attempted to defend "A Birthday Cake For George Washington."

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Organizers have dropped the name “slave auction” from an annual charity event in Alaska, after the NAACP complained that the term was offensive. The Sunday night auction in the town of Sitka involved people bidding in an auction on volunteers’ time, with the winning bidders putting the volunteers to work doing […]

BEAUFORT, S.C. (AP) — Alumni of a school named for a slave who later became a South Carolina congressman say the school’s logo is offensive. The school is named after Robert Smalls, a slave who escaped and later captured a Confederate ship during the Civil War. He went on to serve five terms in Congress. […]

Ben Affleck has issued an apology for hiding information about his ancestors on the PBS show Finding Your Roots. The actor took to his Facebook page to discuss why…

Luxury brand, Louis Vuitton has come under fire for allegedly using racist comments against an African employee, reportedly saying, “Black people are slaves who eat dirt off the floor.” Mirror reports: Sales associate Oliver Koffi claims he was in a stock room packing a pair of shoes for a customer when his manager began the […]

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Scores of girls and young women kidnapped from a school in Nigeria are being forced to marry their Islamic extremist abductors, a civic organization reported Wednesday. At the same time, the Boko Haram terrorist network is negotiating over the students’ fate and is demanding an unspecified ransom for their release, a […]

While it’s great to see Black actors and filmmakers being acknowledged with Academy Awards and other accolades (congratulations to Lupita Nyong’o and “12 Years A…