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Category: Civil Rights

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

World War I: African-American Soldiers Battle More Than Enemy Forces

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

This is a guest post by Ryan Reft, a historian in the Manuscript Division. “Interpreters were brought from everywhere to instruct our men in the French methods of warfare because be it known that everything American was taken from us except our uniform.” —Noble Sissle, 369th “Harlem Hell Fighters” Regiment The Library of Congress exhibition Echoes …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

African-American History Month: Curating Black History

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

In this post, historians from the Library and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture highlight how collection items shed light on the black experience. The post is reprinted from the January–February issue of LCM, the Library of Congress Magazine. The entire issue is available online. Adrienne Cannon is the Afro-American history …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

World War I: American Jazz Delights the World

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

This is a guest post by Ryan Reft, a historian in the Manuscript Division. In the afterglow of the armistice in 1918 that ended World War I, Europe, and particularly the city of Paris, exhibited a wild exuberance. In mid-January 1919, future civil rights pioneer and American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) officer Charles Hamilton Houston encapsulated …