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August 23, 2019

Unesco
Message from Ms Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO on the occasion of the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition
This  23  August,  we  honour  the  memory  of  the  men  and  women  who,  in  Saint-Domingue  in  1791,  revolted  and  paved  the  way  for  the  end  of  slavery  and  dehumanization. We honour their memory and that of all the other victims of slavery, for whom they stand.
National Geographic
How slavery flourished in the United States

See 400 years of data tracking the rise and fall of the slave trade. 

August 20, 2019

The Atlantic
The Hopefulness and Hopelessness of 1619

Her name was Angela, one of the first known Africans in British North America. His name was John, the first known antiblack racist in colonial America.

National Park Service
National Park Service To Commemorate 400 Years Of African-American History

National parks will offer special programs on Sunday, August 25, to commemorate the first landing of enslaved Africans 400 years ago in English-occupied North America at Virginia’s Point Comfort, now part of Fort Monroe National Monument. 

The Washington Post
Why the legacy of American slavery endures after more than 400 years

The Mayflower is the center of our founding myth. But the slave ships arrived first. A year before the Pilgrims made their famed journey to New England, signing the “Mayflower Compact” and thus inaugurating so many of the myths that we believe about our democratic origins, a very different ship disembarked in that older English colony to the south, Jamestown. Aug.

WNYC Studios
1619: The Truth About 400 Years of Slavery

August 1619. Four hundred years ago this month, the first group of enslaved Africans were forcibly brought by British colonists to what is now the United States. 

August 19, 2019

Public Radio International
A professor with Ghanaian roots unearths a slave castle’s history — and her own (PRI)

Rachel Engmann, a professor at Hampshire College, found her surname in a slave castle in Accra, Ghana, and decided to do some digging.

August 18, 2019

The Washington Post
Why we should remember 1619 (Washington Post)

Enslaved Africans were brought to Jamestown. Their descendants have led the fight for freedom.

PBS
The 1619 Project details the legacy of slavery in America (PBS)

Four hundred years ago this month, the first enslaved people from Africa arrived in the Virginia colony. To observe the anniversary of American slavery, The New York Times Magazine launched The 1619 Project to reframe America’s history through the lens of slavery. The project lead, reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones, joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss.

August 16, 2019

The Guardian
400 years since slavery: a timeline of American history (The Guardian)

Many Americans’ introduction to US history is the arrival of 102 passengers on the Mayflower in 1620. But a year earlier, 20 enslaved Africans were brought to the British colonies against their will.

August 15, 2019

Berkeley News
Berkeley to mark ‘400 Years of Resistance to Slavery and Injustice’ (Berkeley News)

The 400th anniversary of the forced arrival of enslaved Africans in the English colonies will be observed at UC Berkeley, not only this month — in August 1619, the first enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia by ship — but during the entire 2019-2020 school year, starting with a daylong symposium Friday, Aug. 30.

August 14, 2019

The New York Times Magazine
In order to understand the brutality of American capitalism, you have to start on the plantation (NYT)

Those searching for reasons the American economy is uniquely severe and unbridled have found answers in many places (religion, politics, culture). But recently, historians have pointed persuasively to the gnatty fields of Georgia and Alabama, to the cotton houses and slave auction blocks, as the birthplace of America’s low-road approach to capitalism.

The New York Times Magazine
Myths about physical racial differences were used to justify slavery — and are still believed by doctors today (NYT)

The excruciatingly painful medical experiments went on until his body was disfigured by a network of scars. John Brown, an enslaved man on a Baldwin County, Ga., plantation in the 1820s and ’30s, was lent to a physician, Dr. Thomas Hamilton, who was obsessed with proving that physiological differences between black and white people existed. 

August 13, 2019

New York Times
Watch: The Times Presents the #1619Project (New York Times)

The Fourth of July in 1776 is regarded by most Americans as the country’s birthday. But what if we were to tell you that the country’s true birth date, the moment that its defining contradictions first came into the world, was in late August 1619?

National Geographic Society
400 years ago, enslaved Africans first arrived in Virginia (NatGeo)

In late August 1619, “20 and odd” captive Africans first touched the soil at Point Comfort (now Fort Monroe National Monument), part of England’s new colony in Virginia. These men and women had been stolen from their homes in Africa, forced to board a ship, and sailed for months into the unknown.

August 1, 2019

Reuters
Retracing a slave route in Ghana, 400 years on (Reuters)

Nana Assenso stands at the grave of his uncle, remembering the man he loved but also a past that has haunted his family for generations. His uncle was called Kwame Badu, a name that has been passed on through the family in remembrance of an ancestor with that name who was captured and sold into slavery long, long ago.

July 26, 2019

ProPublica
Federal Government Wants to Hear From Heirs’ Property Owners (ProPublica)

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency this week announced two listening sessions on heirs’ property as it seeks public input on a relending program to clear titles and how to address obstacles to gaining access to certain FSA programs.

June 28, 2019

National Park Service
400 Years of African-American History Commission (National Park Service)

In August 1619, 20 enslaved Africans were brought to Point Comfort in the English colony of Virginia—this site is now part of Fort Monroe National Monument.

June 26, 2019

Haas Institute
Blog: Tensions over Reparations Expose Crisis of National Identity (Haas Institute)

The question of reparations for African Americans has entered the political discussion in a way it has never before. A number of candidates for the Democratic nomination for the presidency have publicly declared their support for a reparations plan. The array of voices affirmatively contributing to this conversation is growing across a range of publications and sources. On June 19, 2019, the US House of Representatives held a hearing to discuss reparations as a legislative proposal.

June 6, 2019

Daily Cal
UC Berkeley acknowledges 400th anniversary of African slavery with educational events (Daily Cal)

Through a series of educational events that constitute a yearlong program, the UC Berkeley campus will spotlight African American history after the passage of the 400 Years of African-American History Commission Act.