Essays
1613-1865
The beginning of black history in the place that became New York City dates to June 1613 when Jan Rodrigues, a free sailor from Hispaniola…
1866-1915
During Reconstruction (1865–77), two migrations gradually changed not only the demographics of the city’s African-American population…
1916-1939
The First World War had started in Europe in 1914, but the United States entered it only in 1916. The conflict brought a halt…
1940-1959
Entry of the United States into World War II, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, led to the end of the Great Depression…
1960-2010
Despite the social measures of the domestic policy known as the Great Society of the 1960s, that decade and the following two were a period of decline…