Category: History

  • Faking Black identity: An American tradition The New Pittsburgh Courier Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 2015-06-27 Robert Fikes Jr., Reference Librarian San Diego State University, San Diego, California The recent case of Rachel Dolezal, the White woman who reinvented herself as African American and headed the Spokane, Washington NAACP, is just the latest sensationalized instance of “passing.”  Though…

  • Early Afro-Mexican Settlers in California C-SPAN: Created by Cable 2015-05-20 Host: California Historical Society Professor Carlos Manuel Salomon, author of Pio Pico: The Last Governor of Mexican California, talked about Mexicans of African descent who were some of the first non-Indian settlers in California. Many came from Sinaloa and Sonora, Mexico, with the Anza Expedition in…

  • Mexico’s hidden people Cable News Network (CNN) 2015-07-10 Abby Reimer, Special to CNN Photograph: Mara Sanchez Renero (CNN)—An estimated 200,000 Africans were brought to Mexico under slavery, which ended in the country in 1829. Yet Afro-Mexicans remain a marginalized and often forgotten part of Mexico’s identity. Photographer Mara Sanchez Renero first learned about Afro-Mexicans as…

  • Well known as an abolitionist stronghold before the Civil War, Massachusetts had taken steps to eliminate slavery as early as the 1780s. Nevertheless, a powerful racial caste system still held sway, reinforced by a law prohibiting “amalgamation”—marriage between whites and blacks. “The Fight for Interracial Marriage Rights in Antebellum Massachusetts” chronicles a grassroots movement to…

  • Historian Allyson Hobbs on the History of Racial Passing The 7th Avenue Project: Thinking Persons’ Radio 2015-06-28 Robert Pollie, Host, Creator and Producer The recent case of Rachel Dolezal – the “black” activist outed as white – may have seemed novel, but she’s actually part of an old tradition of racial passing in this country.…

  • Rag Radio 2015-07-03 – Historian Victoria Bynum on Southern History, Racial Violence & the Confederate Flag Rag Radio: Driving in the Left Lane! Cutting-edge alternative journalism, politics, and culture in the spirit of the Sixties underground press. KOOP 91.7 FM, Austin Texas Friday, 2015-07-03, 19:00-20:00Z (14:00-15:00 CDT) Thorne Dreyer, Host Victoria Bynum, Emeritus Professor of…

  • Brown Theology, Critical Race Theory, and the Laws of Burgos Jesus for Revolutionaries 2015-06-29 Robert Chao Romero, Associate Professor of Chicana/o Studies and Asian American Studies University of California, Los Angeles The fervent cries of Montesino soon reached the ears of King Ferdinand.   On March 20, 1512, the king ordered Governor Diego Columbus to silence…

  • Dolezal Controversy Sharpens Focus on Racial Identity University of Massachusetts Press 2015-06-26 The recent controversy concerning Rachel Dolezal’s racial identity steered many readers to a 2008 UMass Press book by Baz Dreisinger, Near Black: White-to-Black Passing in American Culture, which explores cases in which legally white individuals are imagined, by themselves or by others, as…

  • Race is a social fiction imposed by the powerful on those they wish to control.

  • Race in Rhode Island: Is race just an invention? The Providence Journal Providence, Rhode Island 2015-06-27 Paul Edward Parker Classifications were created to divide people, say educator, historian. When you ask “What is race?” don’t expect a simple answer. And, when you consider Latinos — Are they a race or an ethnicity? — plus America’s…