Jefferson was not a benevolent slave owner and doesn’t need any apologists
More than one year ago, a discussion on Twitter regarding the enslaved woman Sally Hemings (owned by Thomas Jefferson) led me to post here a text discussing how problematic is to…
Enegrecendo o Museu do Louvre : Beyoncé, Jay Z e os Legados da escravidão
O vídeo da música Apes**t de Beyoncé e Jay Z reanima o diálogo sobre a escravidão e seus legados. A música é parte do novo álbum conjunto do casal Carter. Longe…
Blackening the Louvre Museum: Beyoncé, Jay Z, and the Legacies of Slavery
The video of the song Apes**t by Beyoncé and Jay Z revives the conversation about slavery and its legacies. The song is part of the couple’s new joint album as…
The Value of Enslaved Bodies: A Short Review of The Price for the Their Pound of Flesh
Women History Month is still here and I avidly read during the weekend the new book The Price for the Their Pound of Flesh by historian Daina Ramey Berry. It is…
Slave by Another Name ? Or How Evil is to Use the Term “Slave”
For long time now we have had this discussion on the use of the word “slave” and “enslaved” to refer to men, women, and children who had the legal status…
Quick Notes on Why Queen Njinga Matters
This is not an elaborate review, but to honor Women’s History Month, let me tell you why you should read Njinga of Angola: Africa’s Warrior Queen, a biography just published by Africanist historian Linda M.…
The problem of using the term “mistress” to refer to enslaved women
The issue regarding the status of enslaved women as “mistresses” is generating discussion on social media, this time because of a tweet by a Washington Post‘s journalist Krissah Thompson on her…
Meet Ona Judge: Never Caught by Erica Armstrong Dunbar
The last time I wrote a post here was almost one year ago. As February 2017 comes to an end, and I have been reading so many great books published…
Memory as a Response to the Problem of Slavery
This text is based on my intervention in the final roundtable of the 2015 Gilder Lehman International Conference held at Yale University, on October 30-31, 2015. I thank David Blight and…
Memory and Slavery: Chico Rei, An “African King” in Brazil
Memorializing slavery and making slavery part of official initiatives remains a problem in a country like Brazil, where slavery was outlawed only in 1888. Obstacles prevent this painful past to…