Listen to firsthand accounts of how Black Americans fought to end slavery and shape Reconstruction

Hear the stories of Black congressmen who served during Reconstruction

This podcast explores the Black congressmen of the 1870s, like Hiram R. Revels and Joseph Rainey, many of whom were born into slavery and symbolized the hope of a more racially equal post-Civil War America.

What happened after the Civil War?

After the massive devastation and scorched earth wartime methods of the Civil War, the US entered its Reconstruction era. Listen to this podcast to learn what that entailed and who was affected.

Hear the story of Truth's life

This podcast traces Truth's life from slavery in New York to her status as an abolitionist icon—covering her daring escape, legal victories, landmark speeches, and lasting impact on racial equality and women's rights.

Abolitionists shaped American history from the Revolution to the Civil War

Abolitionists of all backgrounds organized against slavery from the founding era onward. Historian Manisha Sinha argues that their decades of activism fundamentally shaped American democracy and made emancipation possible.

Explore how free speech and justice coexist and sometimes clash

From the abolition of slavery to South African apartheid, this podcast explores how censorship has historically been used to suppress racial justice movements—and to promote them—and asks whether free speech is a foundation for, or a threat to, equality.

What's the role of forced prison labor in a land where slavery is illegal?

Companies across the South profited off the forced labor of people in prison after the Civil War. This hourlong investigative podcast episode explores the role forced (and often unpaid) prison labor has played in the US since slavery was abolished.

Hear firsthand stories from the Civil War

Historian and storyteller Fred Kiger narrates detail-rich episodes exploring overlooked people and moments of the Civil War—bringing listeners onto battlefields and into strategy rooms and offering insight into the lives of those who lived the conflict.

The Reconstruction Amendments aimed to rebuild the nation and secure freedom after slavery

Ratified between 1865 and 1870 after the conclusion of the war, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments abolished slavery, guaranteed citizenship and equal protection, and extended voting rights to Black men—transforming the Constitution's definition of liberty and equality.

How baseball shaped Black America during Reconstruction

A cornerstone of the budding Black culture following the Civil War was baseball, with several clubs springing up in Black neighborhoods and leaders like Frederick Douglass cheering on the players, including his son, who played for a team in Washington. This detailed history of the early Black leagues unpacks how the game enhanced the upwardly mobile community—and why that fact led to the segregation of what would become Major League Baseball.

More than 2,000 Black Americans were victims of racial terror lynchings from 1865 to 1876

The Equal Justice Initiative documented over 2,000 lynchings of Black people during Reconstruction—violence that attempted to restore white supremacy, suppress Black political power, and terrorize communities in the aftermath of emancipation.

Hear about the individuals who have reshaped the Constitution throughout American history

This multi-episode podcast series from The Washington Post explores how debates, court decisions, and influential individuals have shaped the Constitution as Americans pushed the nation to live up to its founding ideals.

Hear about the violent week after Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination

This podcast from The Atlantic revisits the seven days after Dr. King was killed in 1968, when widespread violent unrest swept the country and reshaped the direction and legacy of the Civil Rights movement.

What impact did WWI have on the US civil rights movement?

One of the great hypocrisies in American history involve the expectation of African-Americans to defend liberty in several wars while being deprived of it when they returned home to, as this article puts it "disfranchisement, segregation, debt peonage and racial violence." The writer reflects on World War I and how it affected the fight for civil rights in the USA.

Learn about political conventions held before the Civil War by Black Americans to organize for civil rights

Beginning in 1830, free Black men and women across the US and Canada held "Colored Conventions"—state and national political meetings that served as a cornerstone of 19th-century Black organizing for civil and human rights.

Experience the political intrigue that followed Lincoln's assassination in 1865

It is April 15, 1865, and Abraham Lincoln is dead. Follow Secretary of War Edwin Stanton in this historical fiction audio drama as he hunts Lincoln's killer and battles to preserve the Union's fragile legacy in the aftermath of the assassination.

What was life like as a slave in the US?

Over 2,500 former slaves were interviewed by writers and journalists in the late 1930s as part of the US Federal Writer's Project. The collection recorded images and firsthand verbal accounts of life as a slave, eight of which are highlighted in this article at the Library of Congress. See the humanity in each of these individuals with their firsthand accounts.

That time British slavers killed enslaved people and filed for insurance reimbursement

In 1781, a British slave ship tossed 132 enslaved Africans overboard, leaving them to drown. This 52-minute podcast explores the context behind the massacre and its implications. The slavers of the ship named Zong sought insurance reimbursement for...

Black women played a central but often overlooked role in the suffrage movement

Although the women's suffrage movement is often portrayed as a white story, Black women like Truth, Ida B. Wells, and Mary Church Terrell fought for voting rights—frequently facing racism within the movement itself.

Hear the stories of some of the 577 people enslaved at Mount Vernon

Washington inherited his first slaves at age 11 and enslaved 123 people at the time of his death. This eight-part podcast traces the lives of eight of them, using their stories to examine how slavery complicates Washington's legacy today.

Approximately 180,000 African Americans served in Union forces

About 180,000 Black soldiers—roughly 10% of the Union army—served in the United States Colored Troops after 1863. Despite lower pay and discrimination, they were crucial to the Union victory.

Was the Civil War really about states' rights?

The Civil War was fought over slavery, and Confederate leaders and supporters admitted as much in the build-up to the war and after. But later on, after the South's defeat, the lie of the Lost Cause was pushed—and it persists to this day. This four-minute video details the story of the Lost Cause, "state's rights", Confederate monuments, and the machinations behind them.

Hear how the first moon landing was saved

This podcast series explores Apollo 11 through firsthand stories from the engineers, mission controllers, and astronauts who made the moon landing possible, culminating in 13 minutes of NASA archive audio leading up to the landing.

Hear the untold colonial backstories of the British Museum’s most famous artifacts

This podcast from VICE’s Unfiltered History Tour visits the British Museum’s prized objects through accounts from experts and communities from which they were taken.

Hear from those who reported on the ground in Minneapolis amid immigration raids

In this podcast episode, journalists reporting from Minneapolis describe ICE enforcement actions, street protests, and community fallout—offering firsthand accounts of how immigration crackdowns are unfolding in the Midwestern city.

What was the impact of the Haitian Revolution of 1791?

This 53-minute podcast explores the context surrounding the Haitian Revolution, a 13-year rebellion led by the then-French colony's enslaved population. The Spanish colonized the Caribbean island after Christopher Columbus landed on it in 1492,...

Explore an interactive map of battles from the American Revolution, along with detailed summaries of each engagement

Watch a 1934 short film starring jazz legend Cab Calloway, a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance's music scene

Abraham Lincoln was almost assassinated weeks before his inauguration as he traveled from Illinois to DC through Baltimore in 1861; it took two independent claims for Lincoln to be convinced the threat was real

The American cockroach is actually from Africa, an apparent hitchhiker aboard ships carrying enslaved people, with evidence suggesting the bug may have arrived in the New World as early as the 1600s.

Hear 50 years of iconic hip-hop samples, the genre's foundational looped tracks

Hear about the 250-year history of the United States Postal Service, complete with some of its strangest deliveries, important innovations, and the figures that made it an American institution.

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

The story of Dollree Mapp, whose legal challenge over her 1957 conviction for possessing "obscene material" led to a major strengthening of the Fourth Amendment

Trace how the Bill of Rights, inspired by centuries of political theory, took shape between 1774 and 1789.

The first line of 'immortal' human cells, which can divide indefinitely and are used in scientific research, was nonconsensually taken from a Black woman.

Listen to an in-depth conversation on the links between Parkinson's disease and herbicide exposure and the challenging pace of scientific investigation.

The United States has had a tumultuous relationship with Cuba since its 1959 revolution, highlighted by a nuclear crisis and a decades-long trade embargo.

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

Play the role of a student in a game where you try to navigate college and remain debt-free, selecting different income levels, high school experience, race, ethnicity, and more.

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

20,000 letters to the advice columnist 'Dear Abby' provide insight into prevailing sex, religion, and LGBTQ fears, anxieties, and concerns from the 1950s onward.

See how Ebola tore through Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia in 2014-2016.

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, and became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

Recent research found that the brain doesn't seem to massively rewire following amputation—upending earlier beliefs about the cause of phantom limb pain.

Fish populations in the Great Barrier Reef have increased after installing waterproof speakers on the ocean floor that played recordings of sounds from healthy coral reefs.

Explore the archaeological treasures of Pompeii, the city buried under volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE.

Apollo astronauts left items in the moon's 'toss zone,' including golf balls, family photos, and bags of human waste, to make room for lunar rocks.

The first image of a black hole was captured by creating an Earth-sized virtual observatory from a network of eight radio telescopes.

Netflix profits when you're not watching, and its movies are designed that way—read a detail-rich critical essay exposing lesser-known Netflix takes