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Black History Across America

Freedom by Violent Means: Part II
The killing of a white slavecatcher by a group of armed black people prompted a vicious response from the federal government
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Victor Luckerson
Freedom by Violent Means: Part I
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 sparked a wave of violent resistance, leading to a killing in Christiana, Pennsylvania
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Victor Luckerson
Truthtelling in a Time of Lies
William Still, a conductor on the Underground Railroad, gave fugitive slaves the space to tell their own authentic stories
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Victor Luckerson
The Burning of Pennsylvania Hall
Abolitionists built a monument to liberty and free speech steps from Indepdence Hall in Philadelphia. Then a mob burned it the ground.
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Victor Luckerson
The First Black Voters
Black men could vote in many U.S. states after the American Revolution, but they soon battled a wave of disenfranchisement laws as the nation turned its…
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Victor Luckerson
Learn the Story of Black Wall Street
This article chronicles the history of Tulsa's Greenwood district, from its origins as Native American land to its rebuilding after the 1921 Tulsa Race…
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Victor Luckerson
Juneteenth: A Greenwood Story
How the neighborhood celebrated the holiday in the age of Jim Crow
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Victor Luckerson
The Game Is the Game
A popular gambling pastime known as the policy wheel dominated the economy of Depression-era Greenwood. Because it was criminalized, it also spawned…
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Victor Luckerson
Women's Work
When the Great Depression gripped Tulsa in the early 1930’s, it squeezed black women the hardest
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Victor Luckerson
The Other Black Wall Streets
Greenwood was not the only prosperous black business district in the early 20th century--not by a longshot
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Victor Luckerson
The Story of Black Wall Street: How They Rebuilt
Through a mixture of hubris and active malice, Tulsa city leaders undermined the rebuilding of Greenwood. Black people brought the neighborhood back…
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Victor Luckerson
The Story of Black Wall Street #024: Assessing the Damage
The challenge of ascribing a dollar figure to Greenwood's destruction began days after the massacre and continues to this day
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Victor Luckerson
© 2025 Victor Luckerson
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