What stands out with the enslavement of African heritage people as the labor force of choice during the settlement of the Western Hemisphere as compared to slavery throughout world history is the unique concept of confining slavery to a single… Continue Reading →
The month of March marks Women’s History Month, and one of the most important milestones in the history of women in America is on August 18, 1920, when the 19th Amendment to the United States’ Constitution is ratified guaranteeing American… Continue Reading →
In 1780, a group of African men assembled in Newport, Rhode Island to organize and charter America’s first mutual aid society for Africans known as the Free African Union Society. The Society’s lofty mission included providing funds for indigent families,… Continue Reading →
For our county’s first 250 years, millions of enslaved Africans lived and worked within the original thirteen colonies and the ever-expanding United States of America. Rhode Island was one of the earliest and most active shipping sites in the… Continue Reading →
One of the least researched and publicly presented subjects in the history of WWI has been the contributions of African American women both home and abroad. Throughout the war years, women of color contributed to the war effort in important… Continue Reading →
As President Woodrow Wilson in August of 1917 declared war on Germany saying, “The world must be made safe for democracy,” the United States would enter the war in Europe. That statement would particularly resonate at home to America’s African American… Continue Reading →
By 1918, as America entered the First World War, the political and military consensus was that African American soldiers would not fight alongside white soldiers in combat. Although American soldiers of color were ready to fight and die for their… Continue Reading →
In all the years that I have worked researching and interpreting slave cemeteries, the most interesting and baffling discovery I have come across is the matching burial markers in Newport, RI and Dorchester, MA of a young slave girl named… Continue Reading →
Newport, Rhode Island in the mid-18th century embodied two marked ironies. Settled a century earlier on the principles of religious freedom and civil liberties, the fledging colony would attract many of the world’s most persecuted religious minority groups including Quakers,… Continue Reading →
Brown University Choices Program – The American Revolution: Experiences of Rebellion
TedxNewport – Newport’s African Burying Ground
Click on image to view pdf.
A Matter of Truth is a comprehensive analysis of the role the City of Providence and State of Rhode Island played in supporting a “separate and unequal” existence for African heritage, Indigenous and people of color.
Please contact RIBHS at origins@riblackheritage.org if you would like a print version.
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In The Name of History
Many times, when you live and were raised in a historic community like my home in Newport, Rhode Island, you take for granted the significant sites and structures in the place you call home. My family has lived on Vernon… Continue Reading →