abolitionism
US migrant flights to Liberia evoke troubling history of sending people deemed unwanted to the West African nation
In the 1800s, West Africa became a focal point for efforts to remove Black people from America. The arrival of free people later gave the country its name.
When a congressman beat a senator unconscious, America confronted the limits of free speech
The beating of Sen. Charles Sumner in 1856 by Rep. Preston Brooks over a speech against slavery sparked a nationwide debate over free speech, political violence and the relationship between the two.
The forgotten story of abolition in revolutionary France – the first emancipation
Decades before the United States, France outlawed slavery during the French Revolution – only to see it reimposed by Napoleon within a decade.
How America’s independence from England revolutionized US philanthropy
US charitable institutions rapidly changed in the 1780s as Americans established groups to support people in need and to reform society.