Anti-Racism, #BlackLivesMatter, and Civic Action

Kathleen Brown examines the origins of racism and slavery in British North America from the perspective of gender.

Gabriel's Rebellion tells the dramatic story of what was perhaps the most extensive slave conspiracy in the history of the American South.

Keep On Keeping On offers a detailed examination of how African Americans and the NAACP in Virginia successfully pursued a legal agenda that provided new educational opportunities for the state's black population in the face of fierce opposition from segregationists and the Democratic Party of Harry F. Byrd Sr.

Israel on the Appomattox tells the story of liberated Blacks and the community they formed, called Israel Hill, in Prince Edward County, Virginia.

It's 1895 in Virginia, and a white woman lies in her farmyard, murdered with an ax. Suspicion soon falls on a young Black sawmill hand, who tries to flee the county.

Joshua Rothman examines the full spectrum of interracial sexual relationships under slavery--from Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings, and the intertwined interracial families of Monticello and Charlottesville to commercial sex in Richmond, the routinized sexual exploitation of enslaved women, and adultery across the color line.

Frederick Douglass recalled that slaves living along Chesapeake Bay longingly viewed sailing ships as "freedom's swift-winged angels." In 1813 those angels appeared in the bay as British warships coming to punish the Americans for declaring war on the empire.