Playwright August Wilson delivered this speech on June 26, 1996, at the 11th biennial Theatre Communications Group national conference at Princeton University.
The first Black Southerner to have a book of poetry published, Horton's plea for freedom personifies liberty and beseeches her to stamp out oppression and break his chains.
With the Emancipation Proclamation, President Lincoln freed all enslaved people in “rebellious” states, forbid the military from repressing their freedom and sanctioned their military service for Union forces. This decree made emancipation a clear objective of the American Civil War.
This lesson is the first lesson of the series The Color of Law: The Role of Government in Shaping Racial Inequity. In this lesson, students examine the local, state and federal policies that supported racially discriminatory practices and cultivated racially segregated housing.
This Reconstruction-era broadside shows the ways in which African Americans were intimidated and threatened in order to maintain a racially stratified society.
Vanessa Hua is a freelance writer and editor in Southern California. She has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Asian American Journalists Association.