Friday at Auction Finds is readers’ questions day. I try to guide readers to resources for them to determine the value of their items. I’m not able to appraise their treasures, but I can do…
Category: slavery
Trying to biblically justify slavery in face of reality
Posted in Ephemera/Paper/Documents, and slavery
“The Duties of Servants.” On the surface, the broadside didn’t conjure the word “slavery” in my mind. But there it was among the slavery and abolition documents up for auction this week at Swann Auction…
Discovering grits, black history & the ‘big house’ in NC
Posted in Black history, Culture, slavery, and travel
Before we had even reached Asheville, NC, I had read on the web that the locals considered Tupelo Honey Café as one of the best in the city. So when a worker at our hotel…
A black church’s cemetery under a child’s playground
Posted in Black history, Culture, Death, and slavery
Amelia Brown was 26 years old when she died in Philadelphia in 1819. No one today knows who she was, how she lived, or whether she was married or had children. All we have is…
The error of asking “Django” to save black people
Posted in Black history, Movies, and slavery
I wasn’t too keen on engaging in all the intellectual back-and-forths swirling around Quentin Tarantino’s movie “Django Unchained,” but I broke down and went with my friend Kristin over the weekend to a discussion about…
A Georgia cotton plantation so close to home
Posted in Architecture/Buildings, Black history, and slavery
I almost stepped foot on a cotton plantation last week. I was headed to a bookstore in my hometown of Macon, GA, when at the foot of the exit off I-75, I spotted the sign…
On the trail of black history in Boston
Posted in Black history, Civil War, Military, and slavery
We had just arrived at the Visitors Center in Boston Common when the woman behind the counter mentioned the Black Heritage Trail tour starting at 2 p.m. It was about 15 minutes beforehand, and we were…
Remnants of slavery – auction ads & neck shackles
Posted in Black history, Ephemera/Paper/Documents, and slavery
I was flipping through a decade-old black history newsletter recently when I came across an article illustrated with two 19th-century ads announcing slave auctions. The headlines slapped me across the face because they were so jarring:…
A shout-out to women on their very own month
Posted in African American women, Art, Black history, Books, Civil War, Cooking, Ephemera/Paper/Documents, and slavery
I was reading an email a few days ago that reminded me that this month was Women’s History Month. Why are people whom society considers marginal given a small piece of the year to spotlight their…
The inscription on the paper in the photo was pretty clear. The question, though, was whether it was historically correct: “Badge worn by Sahra Douglas, Born Sept. 19 – 1817 A Slave Dyed May 12…