Unsung History

The feminist anti-rape movement began in the late 1960s at the height of women’s liberation. As rape crisis centers relied on federal grants aimed at prosecution of those committing sexual violence, feminists worried about the conservatizing influence of those funds, and Black women in particular were not well-served by the developing model. Black women activists found their own methods to combat rape and to care for survivors. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Caitlin Reed Wiesner, Assistant Professor of History at Mercy University in Dobbs Ferry, New York, and author of Between the Street and the State: Black Women's Anti-Rape Activism Amid the War on Crime. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Emotional Piano Music,” by Mikhail Smusev, used under the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is “Black Women Matter,” taken on September 30, 2017, at the March for Racial Justice by Miki Jourdan; the image is available on Flickr and is available for use, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. Additional Sources: “Feminism: The Second Wave,” National Women’s History Museum, June 18, 2020.“How Ronald Reagan Tried to Shrink Government Spending,” by Christopher Klein, History.com, Published: November 21, 2024, and Last Updated: May 28, 2025.“A brief history of the Victims of Crime Act,” by Blair Ames, U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs, October 11. 2024.“The 2022 Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) Reauthorization,” Congress.gov.“What are Rape Crisis Centers and how have they changed over the years?” National Sexual Violence Resource Center, September 15, 2021.Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN). Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

The First Amendment to the US Constitution says that Congress cannot make law abridging the freedom of speech, but by as early at 1798, Congress was restricting immigration to the country on the basis of the ideological beliefs of the people who wanted to immigrate. While the reasons for restrictions have changed over time, as has the mechanism by which they’re enforced, the basic principle continues to today. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Julia Rose Kraut, legal historian and author of Threat of Dissent: A History of Ideological Exclusion and Deportation in the United States. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode music is “The Mask of Anarchy 1 (Strings)” by Victory Day from Pixabay in accordance with the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is "The Anarchist riot in Chicago: a dynamite bomb exploding among the police," by Thure de Thulstrup and published in the May 15th, 1886, Harper's Weekly 30 (1534): 312-313; image is in the Public Domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons. Additional Sources: “Nationality Act of 1790,” Immigration History, The Immigration and Ethnic History Society.“Alien and Sedition Acts (1798),” The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.“The Alien Enemies Act: The One Alien and Sedition Act Still on the Books,” by Scott Bomboy, National Constitution Center, March 17, 2025.“The Sedition Act of 1798,” History Art, and Archives, United States House of Representatives.“Haymarket Affair: Topics in Chronicling America,” Library of Congress.“May 4, 1886: Haymarket Tragedy,” Zinn Education Project.“Emma Goldman (1869-1940),” PBS American Experience. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Both Abigail Adams and Benjamin Franklin took trips in England to trace their family histories, and they weren’t alone among 18th century Americans, many of whom took a keen interest in genealogy and family connections. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Karin Wulf, Director and Librarian of the John Carter Brown Library, and Professor of History at Brown University and author of Lineage: Genealogy and the Power of Connection in Early America. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode audio is “Nothing like that in our family,” composed by Seymour Furth with lyrics by William A. Heelan and performed by Billy Murray on April 24, 1906; the audio is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is “Sampler,” by Sophia Dyer, 1819; the image is in the public domain and is available via the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Additional Sources: Crossings- Abigail Was Here (Devonshire)Benjamin Franklin to Deborah Franklin, 6 September 1758Genealogical Chart of the Franklin Family, [July 1758]Eliot’s BibleIsaiah Thomas Folio Bible, 1791How Genealogy Became Almost as Popular as PornWhy Are Americans Obsessed with Genealogy?Our Story Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Before American independence and the Bill of Rights promising religious freedom, the American colonies were English territory governed by English religious law that mandated worship according to the Book of Common Prayer. Even Maryland, which had been founded as a place for Catholics to worship freely, was majority Protestant and intolerant of public Catholicism by the time of the Revolution. Nonetheless, Catholics, including wealthy English landowners, Irish servants, and enslaved Africans, continued to live and worship throughout the American colonies, finding ways to keep their beliefs and customs alive. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Susan Juster, W. M. Keck Foundation Director of Research at the Huntington Library and author of A Common Grave: Being Catholic in English America. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Ave Maria,” composed by Charles Gounod and sung by Florence Hayward; the recording was made on January 30, 1905, in Philadelphia and is in the public domain and can be accessed via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is “The Founding of Maryland, 1634,” painted by Emmanuel Leutze in 1860; the painting is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons. Additional Sources: “Jefferson's Letter to the Danbury Baptists,” Library of Congress.“10 facts about U.S. Catholics,” byJustin Nortey, Patricia Tevington, and Gregory A. Smith, Pew Research Center, March 4, 2025.“Maryland's History,” Maryland Secretary of State.“The Catholic church in colonial days : the thirteen colonies, the Ottawa and Illinois country, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, 1521-1763,” by John Gilmary Shea, 1886.“American Catholic History Resources,” The Catholic University of America.“Catholicism in the Early South,” by Maura Jane Farrelly, Journal of Southern Religion 14 (2012).“Descendants of Jesuit Slaveholding and Jesuits of the United States Announce Historic Partnership,” Jesuit Conference of Canada and the U.S. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In August of 1893, Madeleine Pollard sued Congressman William C.P. Breckinridge of Kentucky for breach of promise, claiming that he had promised to marry her but then had married another woman. By the time of the trial, Pollard and the much-older Breckinridge had been involved in an affair for nearly a decade. Breckinridge’s legal team attempted to paint Pollard as an “adventuress,” going so far as to hire an undercover detective – Jane Tucker – to get dirt on Pollard, but it was Breckinridge’s reputation that suffered as a result of the revelations in the trial, especially with the women of Kentucky. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Elizabeth DeWolfe, Professor of History at the University of New England in Maine and author of Alias Agnes: The Notorious Tale of a Gilded Age Spy. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Wait until you see my Madeline,” composed by Albert Von Tilzer with lyrics by Lew Brown and performed by Billy Jones; the audio was recorded in Camden, New Jersey, on May 4, 1921 and is in the public domain and available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is a photo of Madeleine Pollard, by C.M. Bell, produced between 1873 and ca. 1916; the image is available via the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, and there are no known restrictions on publication. Additional Sources: “The Celebrated Trial, Madeline Pollard vs. Breckinridge, The Most Noted Breach of Promise Suit in the History of Court Records,” American Printing and Binding Company, 1894, via the Internet Archive.“The Court Case That Inspired the Gilded Age’s #MeToo Moment,” by Annie Diamond, Smithsonian Magazine, November 2018.“Sex, politics and broken promises grabbed headlines in Lexington in 1893,” by Liz Carey, The Lexington Herald-Leader, April 23, 2025."“Not Ruined, but Hindered”: Rethinking Scandal, Re-examining Transatlantic Sources, and Recovering Madeleine Pollard," by Elizabeth DeWolfe, in Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers, vol. 31 no. 2, 2014, p. 300-310. “BRECKINRIDGE, William Campbell Preston,” United States House of Representatives History, Art, and Archives.“W.C.P. BRECKINRIDGE DEAD.; Ex-Congressman's Public Career Ended After the Pollard Suit,” The New York Times, November 20, 1904. Related Episode: Sophonisba Breckinridge Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

On the slave ships that sailed between Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, and the West Coast of Africa from the 16th through the 19th Centuries, the crews included not just white sailors but also Black mariners, including a significant number of crewmen who were themselves enslaved. These enslaved mariners were not just a source of inexpensive labor but were also valued for their geographic, linguistic, and cultural skills, and they, in turn, could use the opportunity of labor on slave ships as a means of social mobility and eventually legal emancipation, or sometimes the chance for flight. Joining me in this episode to discuss these mariners is Dr. Mary E. Hicks, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Chicago and author of Captive Cosmopolitans: Black Mariners and the World of South Atlantic Slavery. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Bahia Sunrise,” used under the Envato Market License - Music Standard License. The episode image is “Night Chase of the Brigantine Slaver Windward by HM Steam-Sloop Alecto,” Illustration for The Illustrated London News, by Frederick James Smyth, May 1, 1858; the image is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons. Additional sources: “A Brief History of Brazil,” by José Fonseca, The New York Times 2006.“A Chronology of Brazilian History,” The Atlantic,” February 1956.“2.3 The African Slave Trade and Slave Life,” Brazil: Five Centuries of Change, Brown University Center for Digital Scholarship.“4.2 Slavery and Abolition in the 19th Century,” Brazil: Five Centuries of Change, Brown University Center for Digital Scholarship.“The Contraband Slave Trade to Brazil, 1831-1845,” by Robert Conrad, Hispanic American Historical Review 1 November 1969; 49 (4): 617–638. “‘We need to tell people everything’: Portugal grapples with legacy of colonial past,” by Sam Jones, Gonçalo Fonseca, and Philip Oltermann, The Guardian, October 5, 2020. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Ruth Reynolds, born in the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1916 to a strict Methodist family, may have seemed an unlikely ally to the cause of Puerto Rican independence, but she devoted her life to what she saw as her “sacred and patriotic duty” as an American to convincing her country to withdraw from Puerto Rico “so that our nation may stand before the world free from any suggestion of imperialist ambition.” Facing surveillance by the FBI and insular police and even incarceration for her views, Reynolds never backed down from her solidarity, but she was always careful to listen to the people of Puerto Rico and never to impose her view on them. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Lisa G. Materson, Professor of History at the University of California, Davis, and author of Radical Solidarity: Ruth Reynolds, Political Allyship, and the Battle for Puerto Rico's Independence. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is the original mid-19th century fast-tempo arrangement of “La Borinqueña,” which later as a slower arrangement became the regional anthem of Puerto Rico; the performance is by the United States Navy and is in the public domain; it is available via Wikimedia Commons. The episode image is from the arrest of Carmen María Pérez González, Olga Viscal and Ruth Reynolds, January 4, 1951, taken by Benjamin Torres, and archived at the Centro de Investigaciones Históricas, Universidad de Puerto Rico; the photograph is in the public domain. Additional Sources: “Ruth M. Reynolds Papers,” Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Centro Library & Archives, Hunter College, CUNY.“Puerto Rico at the Dawn of the Modern Age: Nineteenth- and Early-Twentieth-Century Perspectives,” Library of Congress.“Puerto Rican Independence Movement [video],” American History TV, C-Span, April 13, 2018.“Remembering Don Pedro: An Online History of Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos.” “Puerto Rico’s Independence Movement: What Americans need to know about the PIP and Puerto Rico's Independence,” by Javier A. Hernandez, LA Progressive, Originally posted January 27, 2025 and updated February 12, 2025.“How the U.S. silenced calls for Puerto Rico's independence [video],” by Bianca Gralau, August 26, 2021.“The Case for Puerto Rican Independence,” by Alberto C. Medina, Current Affairs, April 5, 2024. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In March 1972, Selma James distributed a pamphlet that declared: “If we raise kids, we have a right to a living wage. . . WE DEMAND WAGES FOR HOUSEWORK. All housekeepers are entitled to wages. (Men too).” Soon it was a global movement, with Wages for Housework branches in the United Kingdom, Italy, the United States, and several other countries, and autonomous groups like Black Women for Wages for Housework and Wages Due Lesbians. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Emily Callaci, Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of Wages for Housework: The Feminist Fight Against Unpaid Labor. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Get yourself a broom and sweep your troubles away,” composed by Albert Von Tilzer, with lyrics by James Brockman and Billy Rose, and performed by Frank Crumit and Frank E. Banta, in New York on December 19, 1924; the recording is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is a Wages for Housework poster drawn by Jacquie Ursula Caldwell in 1974, From the collection of Silvia Federici copyright Creative Commons, available via Wikimedia Commons. Additional Sources: “A Woman’s Place,” Selma James, 1953.“Women and the Subversion of the Community: A Mariarosa Dalla Costa Reader,” by Mariarosa Della Costa, 2019.“Statement of the International Feminist Collective,” July 1972.“Wages Against Housework,” by Silvia Federici, 1975.“All Work and No Pay [video],” Made by the Wages for Housework Campaign with the BBC TV's Open Door series, 1976, posted by Global Women’s Strike, January 15, 2023.“The women who demanded wages for housework - Witness History, BBC World Service [video],” Witness History, BBC World Service, February 12, 2014.“Covid-19 has made housework more visible, but it still isn’t valued,” by Kevin Sapere, The Washington Post, April 8, 2021.“Wages for Housework is 50. This is the change it has inspired,” by Leila Hawkins, Nadja.co, April 16, 2022.“‘They say it is love, we say it is unwaged work’ – 50 years of fighting to be paid for housework,” by Rosa Campbell, Gloria Media, December 19, 2022.“The ‘true value of women’s work,’” by Kristina García, Penn Today, July 26, 2023.Care Income Now Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Amelia Jenks Bloomer was many things: writer and publisher, public speaker, temperance reformer, advocate for women’s rights and dress reform, and adoptive mother. She was not the inventor of the trousers for women that came to bear her name – bloomers – although she wore them and wrote about them for many years. Throughout her life, even as poor health often stood in her way, Amelia Bloomer took action, never waiting for someone else to do what was needed. I’m joined in this episode by writer Sara Catterall, author of Amelia Bloomer: Journalist, Suffragist, Anti-Fashion Icon. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Lily of the prairie,” composed and with lyrics by Kerry Mills, performed by Billy MMurray and the Haydn Quartet on July 7, 1907, in Camden, New Jersey; this recording is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is an illustration of Amelia Bloomer from Illustrated London News with the description: "Amelia Bloomer , Originator Of The New Dress. — From A Daguerreotype By T. W. Brown,” published August 27, 1851; the illustration is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons. Additional Sources: “Amelia Bloomer Didn’t Mean to Start a Fashion Revolution, But Her Name Became Synonymous With Trousers,” by Lorraine Boissoneault, Smithsonian Magazine, May 24, 2018.“Amelia Bloomer – Publisher and Advocate for Woman’s Rights,” VCU Libraries Social Welfare History Project.“Amelia Bloomer: Topics in Chronicling America,” Library of Congress.“Amelia Bloomer (1818-1894),” by Arlisha R. Norwood, NWHM Fellow, National Women’s History Museum, 2017.“Amelia Bloomer,” National Park Service.“Petition of Amelia Bloomer Regarding Suffrage in the West,” by Linda Simmons, National Archives.“Life and writings of Amelia Bloomer,” by D. C. Bloomer, United States: Arena Publishing Company, 1895. Via Project Guternberg. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

My guest today is Dr. Martha S. Jones, the Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor, professor of history, and a professor at the SNF Agora Institute at the Johns Hopkins University and author of The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir. In this book, Prof. Jones researches her family’s past to understand how each generation encountered and negotiated the color line, beginning with her great-great-great-grandmother who survived enslavement and raised a free family. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode audio is “Family trouble blues,” composed by Olman J. Cobb, and performed in New York on May 5, 1923, with Lizzie Miles on vocals and Clarence Johnson on piano; the recording is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is Jennie Holley Jones and family, from the cover of The Trouble of Color. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

The Universal Negro Improvement Association is often most closely associated with Marcus Garvey, but from the beginning, the work of women was essential to the development of the organization. Amy Ashwood co-founded the UNIA with Garvey, and it was her connections and capital that launched the Negro World newspaper, but after her brief marriage to and divorce from Garvey, she was removed from the UNIA and the newspaper. Other women, like Garvey’s second wife, Amy Jacques Garvey, and actress Henrietta Vinton Davis, played important and public roles in the UNIA, especially during Garvey’s incarceration, but their contributions aren’t as widely remembered as Garvey’s. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Natanya Duncan, associate professor of history and director of Africana studies at Queens College CUNY, and author of An Efficient Womanhood: Women and the Making of the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode audio is "Explanation of the Objects of the Universal Negro Improvement Association," a studio recording made by African-American leader Marcus Garvey in New York in July 1921, and adapted from his longer speech "A Membership Appeal from Marcus Garvey to the Negro Citizens of New York;" it is in the public domain and available via Wikimedia Commons. The episode image is a photograph of Henrietta Vinton Davis, published in Women of distinction: remarkable in works and invincible in character by L. A. Scruggs in 1893; the image is in the public domain and is available via Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library. Additional Sources: “Women of the Universal Negro Improvement Association,” by Dr. Melissa Brown, BlackFeminisms.com.“Uncovering the Silences of Black Women’s Voices in the Age of Garvey,” by Keisha N. Blain, Black Perspectives, November 29, 2015.“Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind,” PBS.“Theorizing (with) Amy Ashwood Garvey,” by Robbie Shilliam, Chapter in Women’s International Thought: A New History, edited by Patricia Owens and Katharina Rietzler, 158–78. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.""Negro Women Are Great Thinkers as Well as Doers": Amy Jacques-Garvey and Community Feminism, 1924-1927," by Ula Y. Taylor, Journal of Women's History 12, no. 2 (2000): 104-126. ”Black History Month: Amy Jacques Garvey,” by Emily Claessen, King’s College London, October 20, 2023.“The inside story of the pardon of Marcus Garvey,” by DeNeen L. Brown, The Washington Post, February 1, 2025.“Henrietta Vinton Davis: Lady Commander Order of the Nile,” by Meserette Kentake, Kentake Page, August 15, 2015."“If Our Men Hesitate Then the Women of the Race Must Come Forward”: Henrietta Vinton Davis and the UNIA in New York," by Natanya Duncan, New York History, vol. 95 no. 4, 2014, p. 558-583. “Laura Adorkor Kofey research collection,” New York Public Library.“After 85 years, slain minister's Jacksonville legacy lingers,” by Steve Patterson, Jacksonville.com, March 7, 2013. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

After emancipation, formerly enslaved Black Americans knew that the key to economic freedom was land ownership, but as soon as they began to acquire land, local tax assessors began to overassess their land and exact steep penalties if they couldn’t pay the resulting inflated property taxes. For the past 150 years, all over the country, the same story has played out, with African Americans paying disproportionately higher property taxes, whether due to systemic inequities or corrupt local officials, while at the same time receiving dramatically fewer public services. And due to a Depression-Era law, aimed at limiting the tax bargaining powers of large property owners, Black Americans have been unable to seek redress against discriminatory property tax assessments in the US Supreme Court. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Andrew W. Kahrl, Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Virginia, and author of The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Baby won't you please come home blues,” written by Charles Warfield and performed by Bessie Smith on April 11, 1923, in New York; the recording is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is a sign in Harlingen, Texas, photographed in 1939, by Lee Russell; available via the The New York Public Library on Unsplash; free to use under the Unsplash License. Additional Sources: “How do state and local property taxes work?” The Tax Policy Briefing Book.“History of Property Taxes in the United States,” by Glenn W. Fisher, Economics History Association.“America Used to Have a Wealth Tax: The Forgotten History of the General Property Tax,” by Carl Davis and Eli Byerly-Duke, ITEP, November 2, 2023.“It’s Time to End the Quiet Cruelty of Property Taxes,” by Andrew W. Kahrl, The New York Times, April 11, 2024.“Prop 13 and Inequality: How the 1978 Tax Reform Law Drives Economic and Racial Disparities” by Jonathan Vankin, California Local, November 29, 2022.“The Lock-in Effect of California’s Proposition 13,” By Les Picker, The NBER Digest, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2005.“Property tax burdens fall on nation’s lowest-income homeowners, study finds,” UChicago News, Mach 9, 2021.“The Assessment Gap: Racial Inequalities in Property Taxation,” by Carlos Avenancio-León and Troup Howard, The Washington Center for Equitable Growth, June 10, 2020. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

For Ericka Huggins, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which she attended at just 15 years old, was a turning point in her life, inspiring her toward activism. She later joined the Black Panther Party, and after being incarcerated as a political prisoner, served as Director of the acclaimed Oakland Community School and became both the first Black person and the first woman appointed to the Alameda County Board of Education. She continues her activism work today in the fields of restorative justice and social change. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Mary Frances Phillips, Associate Professor in the Department of African American Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and author of Black Panther Woman: The Political and Spiritual Life of Ericka Huggins. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is Vinyl Funk by Alisia from Pixabay, free for use under the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is “Ericka Huggins at Occupy Oakland Protest on November 2, 2011,” by Clay@SU on Flickr, CC by 2.0. Additional Sources: “Ericka Huggins”“Hggins, Ericka,” Archives at Yale.“Ericka Huggins (January 5, 1948),” National Archives.“The 1963 March on Washington,” NAACP.“How the Black Power Movement Influenced the Civil Rights Movement,” by Sarah Pruitt, History.com, Originally posted February 20, 2020, and updated July 27, 2023.“Black Panther Party,” National Archives.“The Black Panther Party: Challenging Police and Promoting Social Change,” Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.“(1966) The Black Panther Party Ten-Point Program,” BlackPast.“Black Panthers’ Oakland Community School: A Model for Liberation,” by Shani Ealey, Staff Writer, Black Organizing Project, November 3, 2016.“Black Panthers ran a first-of-its-kind Oakland school. Now it’s a beacon for schools in California,” By Ida Mojadad, The San Francisco Standard, August 7, 2023. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Thousands of years ago, a band of Cahuilla Indians migrated south into the Coachella Valley, calling the area Séc-he, meaning boiling water. The Mexicans translated this as agua caliente (hot water), which is the name still used today. As the United States extended its territory into California, the Agua Caliente were forced onto a reservation, and then, as the Southern Pacific Railroad was granted land in the region, the reservation was carved up into a checkerboard pattern. It took decades of legal fights and government intervention, but today Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians continues its work to retain its cultural heritage and stewards more than 34,000 acres of ancestral land. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Michael Albertus, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, and author of Land Power: Who Has It, Who Doesn't, and How That Determines the Fate of Societies. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Dramatic Nostalgic Sad Piano and Cello” by Yevhen Onoychenko from Pixabay; it is free for use under the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is the Agua Caliente Reservation; this media is available in the holdings of the National Archives and Records Administration, cataloged under the National Archives Identifier (NAID) 298622. Additional Sources Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians.“Dawes Act,” National Archives.“S.555 - Indian Gaming Regulatory Act,” 100th Congress (1987-1988).“Cahuilla,” UNESCO World Atlas of Languages.“Keeping Cahuilla Alive,” by Joan Page McKenna, me yah whae, Spring/Summer 2019.Agua Caliente Cultural Museum“Agua Caliente Cultural Plaza, Palm Springs, Calif.,” by Kate Nelson, Time Magazine, July 25, 2024. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In 1865, when Black people in Mississippi first gained the legal right to marriage, so-called Black Codes outlawed interracial marriage, punishable by life in prison. Five years later, Republicans in the Mississippi state legislature repealed the Black Codes and legalized interracial marriage, but the law was reversed again ten years later when Democrats took control. In 1890, a new state Constitution, erasing all the racial progress of the 1868 one, enshrined a prohibition on interracial marriage that lasted until the Supreme Court ruling in Loving v. Virginia. Through it all, though, interracial couples in Mississippi formed lasting unions, started families, and in some cases even legally wed, despite the legal constraints against them. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Kathryn Schumaker, Senior Lecturer in American Studies at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, and author of Tangled Fortunes The Hidden History of Interracial Marriage in the Segregated South. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Mississippi Moon,” written and performed by Gus Van and Joe Schenck; this recording was created in New York on January 3, 1923 and is in the public domain; it is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode artwork is a photo by Monet Garner on Unsplash and is free to use under the Unsplash License. Additional Sources: “‘Unlawful Intimacy’: Mixed-Race Families, Miscegenation Law, and the Legal Culture of Progressive Era Mississippi.” by Kathryn Schumaker, 2023. Law and History Review 41(4): 773–94. doi: 10.1017/S0738248023000317.“Mississippi Miscegenation Laws,” Facing History and Ourselves.“Civil Rights Act of 1866, ‘An Act to protect all Persons in the United States in their Civil Rights, and furnish the Means of their Vindication,’” National Constitution Center.Miss. Code Ann. § 97-29-1 Adultery and fornication; unlawful cohabitation.“Mississippi Rises Again,” by Don Winbush, Time Magazine, November 16, 1987. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

The completion of the Panama Canal in 1914 positioned the United States as a global power, but the U.S. didn’t complete the feat single-handedly. It required land from Panama, equipment and information from the failed earlier effort by the French, and, importantly, tens of thousands of laborers from around the Caribbean. Decades later the Panamanians finally gained control of the canal zone and then the canal itself, but the labor – and sacrifice – of the Afro-Caribbean workers still deserves greater recognition. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Julie Greene, Professor of History at the University of Maryland, and author of Box 25: Archival Secrets, Caribbean Workers, and the Panama Canal. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Through the Panama Canal,” composed by J. Louis Von der Mehden and performed by Prince’s Band on January 7, 1914, in New York; the recording is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is “Panama Canal,” photographed by Harris & Ewing in 1913; the image is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. Additional Sources: “The Canal Builders: Making America's Empire at the Panama Canal,” by Julie Greene, Penguin Publishing Group, 2010.“Building the Panama Canal, 1903–1914,” Office of the Historian, US Department of State.“Panama Canal: Topics in Chronicling America,” Library of Congress.“History,” Panama Canal Authority.“Chief Engineers of the Panama Canal,” PBS American Experience.“How the Panama Canal Took a Huge Toll On the Contract Workers Who Built It,” by Caroline Lieffers, The Conversation, April 18, 2018.“Why the Construction of the Panama Canal Was So Difficult—and Deadly,” by Christopher Klein, History.com, Originally published October 25, 2021, and updated September 15, 2023.“The Panama Canal: The African American Experience,” by Patrice C. Brown, Federal Records and African American History (Summer 1997, Vol. 29, No. 2).“Panama Canal Centennial online exhibition,” University of Florida, George A. Smathers Libraries.“The Panama Canal and the Torrijos-Carter Treaties,”Office of the Historian, US Department of State. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In 1686, Susannah Mingo, Elizabeth Atkins, Dorothy Spendlove, and their children, all of whom were half-siblings, along with some of their children' s other half-siblings and their children's father, boarded a ship headed from Barbados to England, where they would live out their lives. It wasn’t unusual for a plantation owner like John Peers to impregnate both his enslaved Black laborers and his white servant, but it was unusual for him to acknowledge his illegitimate offspring, baptize them, bring them and their mothers with him across the ocean, and provide for them in his will, all of which John Peers did. This week we look at the story of a Barbados family, not via its patriarch, but rather through the lives of the five women who bore his children – Susannah, Elizabeth, Dorothy, and John's wives, Hester Tomkyns and Frances Knights (née Atkins). Joining me in this episode is Dr. Jenny Shaw, Associate Professor of History at the University of Alabama, and author of The Women of Rendezvous: A Transatlantic Story of Family and Slavery. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode music is “Calypso Island - P5,” by Audio Beats, purchased under Pond5's Content License Agreement; the Pond5 license authorizes the licensee to use the media in the licensee's own commercial or non-commercial production and to copy, broadcast, distribute, display, perform and monetize the production or work in any medium. The episode image is “A representation of the sugar-cane and the art of making sugar,” by John Hinton, 1749; the engraving is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540. Additional Sources: “On Barbados, the First Black Slave Society,” by Sir Hilary Beckles, Black Perspectives, African American Intellectual History Society, April 8, 2017.“Barbados profile - Timeline,” BBC News, January 4, 2018.“Barbados: Local History & Genealogy Resource Guide,” Library of Congress.“Barbados parts way with Queen and becomes world’s newest republic,” by Michael Safi, The Guardian, November 30, 2021.“Inside Barbados’ Historic Push for Slavery Reparations,” by Janell Ross, Time Magazine, July 6, 2023. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Henry Christophe, one of the heroes of the Haitian Revolution, was, from 1811 to his death in 1820, King Henry I of the Kingdom of Haiti, the first, last, and only King that Haiti ever had. This week we look at Christophe’s meteoric rise from being born enslaved on an island hundreds of miles from Haiti to fighting in the American Revolution to serving as a general in the Haitian Revolution to being king of all he surveyed, until it all came crashing down around him. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Marlene Daut, Professor of French and African Diaspora Studies at Yale University and author of The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Maestro Walter's Brass Band, Final March - JEZI OU KONNEN,” by Félix Blume, from Death in Haiti; the audio is available under Creative Commons CC BY 3.0. The episode image is a portrait of Henry Christophe from 1816 by Richard Evans; the painting is in the Musée du Panthéon National Haïtien; the image is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons. Additional Sources: “The Haitian Revolution Timeline,” by Kona Shen at Brown University, 2022.“The United States and the Haitian Revolution, 1791–1804,” Office of the Historian, Foreign Service Institute, United States Department of State.“How Toussaint L’ouverture Rose from Slavery to Lead the Haitian Revolution,” by Kedon Willis, History.com, Originally posted August 30, 2021, and updated, August 18, 2023.“Inside the Kingdom of Haiti, ‘the Wakanda of the Western Hemisphere,’” by Marlene Daut, The Conversation, Originally published January 23, 2019, and update November 16, 2022.“Rare document sheds light on historical black queen,” The University of Central Lancashire, September 26, 2019.“Atlantic freedoms: Haiti, not the US or France, was where the assertion of human rights reached its defining climax in the Age of Revolution,” by Laurent Dubois, AEON, November 7, 2016.“The Play That Electrified Harlem,” by Wendy Smith, Library of Congress. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

If you were to head to Paris in the mid-eighteenth Century and ask for a restaurant, you might be handed a bowl of meat bouillon, prepared in such a way as to improve vigor and perhaps even sperm production. Restaurant referred first to the broth itself and then to the eateries in which men, and less frequently women, could eat said broth. As restaurant came to mean the luxurious establishment at one which could eat an elaborate menu of delicate food items prepared by talented chefs, sex stayed the menu, and restaurants and the city’s sex workers formed a mutually beneficial relationship to serve diners’ appetites. Even as restaurants jumped across the pond to the US, the correlation remained. As a word of warning, this episode may not be appropriate for younger ears. Joining this episode is Dr. Rachel Hope Cleves, Professor of History at the University of Victoria and author of Lustful Appetites: An Intimate History of Good Food and Wicked Sex. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Sugar Blues,” composed by Clarence Williams with lyrics by Lucy Fletcher; this performance is by Leonare Williams and her Dixie Band, recorded on August 10, 1922, in New York City; the audio is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress. National Jukebox. The episode image is a digitized image from "Tableaux de Paris ... Paris qui consomme. Dessins de P. Vidal," published in Paris in 1893.; the digital version is available via the British Library and is in the public domain. Additional Sources: “When Did People Start Eating in Restaurants?” by Dave Roos, History.com, Originally published May 18, 2020, and updated August 20, 2023.“Revolutionary broth: the birth of the restaurant and the invention of French gastronomy,” by Joel Abrams, The Conversation, August 25, 2021.“Are Oysters an Aphrodisiac?” by Alicia Ault, Smithsonian Magazine, February 13, 2017.“Looking to Quell Sexual Urges? Consider the Graham Cracker,” by Adee Braun, The Atlantic, January 15, 2014.“Segregating Restaurants,” by Kimberly Wilmot Voss, PhD, NY Food Story. “The Ornate Ice Cream Saloons That Served Unchaperoned Women,” by Jessica Gingrich, Atlas Obscura, June 22, 2018“History,” The Berghoff.“8 Restaurants And Bars Where U.S. History Was Made,” by Mercedes Kane, The Takeout, June 22, 2022.“National Statistics,” National Restaurant Association.“A restaurant wanting a ‘grown and sexy’ vibe bans diners under 30,” by Emily Heil, The Washington Post, June 10, 2024. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

On March 4, 1933, Frances Perkins was sworn in as the 4th Secretary of Labor. It was the first time in United States history that a woman served in the Cabinet, only 13 years after the ratification of the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote. Perkins came into office with a long list of to-do items, and she succeeded in accomplishing nearly all of them in her long tenure, as a central architect of many of the programs of the New Deal, especially the Social Security Act. More quietly, but no less importantly, Perkins also worked to institute more humane policies around immigration, especially as the rise of Nazism in Europe created a refugee crisis of Jews attempting to flee to the US. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Rebecca Brenner Graham, a postdoctoral research associate at Brown University and author of Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins: Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The additional audio is from a radio address of America’s Town Meeting of the Air from December 19, 1935, titled “Should We Plan for Social Security,” in which Frances Perkins defends the new legislation; the audio is available on the Social Security Administration website, and there is no known copyright. The mid-episode music is “Minimal Piano” by Sakartvelo from Pixabay, free for use under the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is Frances Perkins, c. 1935-1936. Courtesy Mount Holyoke College Archives and Special Collections Additional Sources: “Who Was Frances Perkins? Meet the Trailblazing Workers’ Rights Advocate Whose Homestead Just Became a National Monument,” by Sarah Kuta, The Smithsonian Magazine, December 19, 2024.“The Woman Behind the New Deal,” The Frances Perkins Center.“Frances Perkins,” Social Security History, the Social Security Administration.“Frances Perkins became the First Female Cabinet Member,” Library of Congress.“Frances Perkins: Breaking Glass Ceilings in the Cabinet,” by Rebecca Brenner Graham, The White House Historical Association. “Frances Perkins,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC.“A Proclamation on the Establishment of the Frances Perkins National Monument,” The White House, December 16, 2024. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands