A Black Oral History Archive
A growing archive of firsthand accounts from Black people in America that tell a fuller, truer story of our nation.
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I Was Michael Jackson’s First Music Teacher. I Knew Right Away.
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My Cousin Emmett Till Was Bigger Than Life. I Was With Him the Night He Was Killed.
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I Grew Up Around James Baldwin. My Mom Always Laughed at One Thing About Him.
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The First Time I Marched, a Man Put a Cigarette Out on My Arm. I Didn’t Flinch.
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I Witnessed the ‘Whites Only’ Signs Come Down. Then I Saw What Replaced Them.
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I Was the First Black Graduate of UGA, and I Was Treated Like a Trespasser
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There Are Only Two Black Homesteading Communities in America. Mine Is One of Them.
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Once We Had the Same Resources as White Students, Everything Changed
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My Sit-Down With MLK’s Father in 1968 Sparked My Passion to Feed Atlanta’s Homeless
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I’m From Little Haiti, the Part of Miami Tourists Never See
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Featured Stories
Black Voters Thought the Battle Was Over. Alabama Had Other Plans.
Evan Milligan and fellow organizers detail the emotional toll of seeing years of hard-fought progress come under threat.
The Black Seniors Who Remember Atlanta Before the Stadiums
Longtime residents say decades of redevelopment have changed Southwest Atlanta in ways that can only be seen across a lifetime.
The Black Families Who Built Gary’s Middle Class
The story of Black Gary is also the story of families who turned steel paychecks into homes, pensions, and new opportunities for their children.
The work of preserving Black history doesn't end with these stories.
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