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Jacob Lawrence stands as a giant in the field of American art. He was the first to devote himself to pictorializing the history of Black people in America—the heroes of struggle against slavery as well as ordinary people living within...

In Laura Wheeler Waring’s Portrait of Marian Anderson (1944), you can almost hear the renowned contralto’s voice soaring in the pastel room in which she stands. There is a vitality to this painting that evokes the performer behind the...

Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller (b. Philadelphia, 1877–d. Massachusetts, 1968) was a clay, plaster, and bronze sculptor, born to upper middle-class parents working in the hair industry in Philadelphia. During the year, she spent time in...

When African American portrait painter and formerly enslaved man Joshua Johnson (ca. 1763–ca. 1824) began his career during the 1790s, Baltimore was growing rapidly and developing into an economically prosperous, mercantile city of...

Between January and November 1773 an advertisement appeared in the Boston News-Letter . It alerted readers: “At Mr. M’Lean’s , Watch-Maker, near the Town-House, is a Negro Man whose extraordinary Genius has been assisted by one of the...

In this issue of History Now , we are reminded that artists play a critical role in narrating the story of the Black experience in America. These portraitists, sculptors, painters, and collage makers provide us with a visual...

Whatever else the Declaration of Independence encompassed—a proclamation of political sovereignty, an indictment against the King of England, an appeal for allies—its assertion that “all men are created equal” shines as the polestar...

The statistics on Black women-owned businesses in the United States are very impressive. A report from JP Morgan indicated that “the number of businesses owned by Black women grew 50% from 2014 to 2019, representing the highest growth...

Chicago is unique among major American cities in that its first non-Native American resident, as well as its first entrepreneur, was Black. Although much of the life of Jean Baptiste Point Du Sable (1745–1818) remains unknown, his...

Nothing about Madam C. J. Walker’s origins would suggest that she would become the most famous Black businesswoman and philanthropist of her day. Indeed, for most of her life, the woman known as Madam C. J. Walker lived in fairly...