How It Feels to Be Colored Me
Zora Neale Hurston describes her sense of identity and experience being a black woman in this 1928 essay.
![Author Zora Neale Hurston wearing a hat with her head turned to her right.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-09/Zora_Neale_Hurston_1938_Wikimedia_Commons.jpeg?h=8e4088dc&itok=sQRUzvvP)
Pardon/Franchise Engravings by Thomas Nast
Wood engravings by Thomas Nast depict the tension between the demands of healing and justice during the Reconstruction era.
![Centerfold prints show Columbia considering why she should pardon Confederate troops who are begging for forgiveness when an African American Union soldier with an amputated leg does not have the right to vote.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-07/1865_PardonFranchiseColumbiaShallItrustthesemenandnotthisman_FH2125825.jpg?h=5d059bf2&itok=rLpFJ0P6)
"Shall We Call Home Our Troops?" (1875)
Wood engraving by Thomas Nast from Harper's Weekly depicting the reaction of the radical South toward African Americans after the North does not follow up their promises.
![Reaction of radical South toward Negro after North does not follow up her promises to the Negro.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-07/1875_ShallWeCallHomeOurTroops_FH140922_0.png?h=e9b139c1&itok=V7N6KFpC)
"The Birth of a Nation" Summarizes Reconstruction
Title cards, or intertitles, from The Birth of a Nation, a 1915 film portraying D.W. Griffith's racist vision of life in the South during the Civil war era.
![Title cards, or intertitles, from The Birth of a Nation, a 1915 film portraying D.W. Griffith's racist vision of life in the South during the Civil war era.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-07/1915_TheBirthofaNationtitlecardsdescribingReconstruction_FH2169421.png?h=ca3390b1&itok=EdxwGVd6)
Rohingya Refugees
Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees have fled persecution in Myanmar since 2017, often traveling to neighboring Bangladesh.
![Members of Myanmar's Rohingya ethnic minority walk through rice fields after crossing the border into Bangladesh near Cox's Bazar's Teknaf area, Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2017.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-07/2017_RohingyaRefugees_FH261963.jpg?h=c9f93661&itok=nEhl1UhO)
We Need a New American Founding
Scholar Eddie S. Glaude draws from the history of Reconstruction and the the Civil Rights movement to call for a “new American founding.” This reading is available in Spanish.
![The image of late Rep. John Lewis, a pioneer of the civil rights movement and long-time member of the U.S. House of Representatives, is projected on the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia, U.S.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-07/John_Lewis_Projected_Lee_Monument_Richmond_2020_FH2133438.jpg?h=31c0c765&itok=0SZs7dfW)
We Need a New American Founding (en español)
In Spanish, Scholar Eddie S. Glaude draws from the history of Reconstruction and the the Civil Rights movement to call for a “new American founding.”
![The image of late Rep. John Lewis, a pioneer of the civil rights movement and long-time member of the U.S. House of Representatives, is projected on the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia, U.S.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-07/John_Lewis_Projected_Lee_Monument_Richmond_2020_FH2133438.jpg?h=31c0c765&itok=0SZs7dfW)
Becoming American: The Chinese Experience Part One - Gold Mountain Dreams
Login Required
The first of a 3-part series explores the early years of Chinese immigration to the U.S.
![](/sites/default/files/brightcove/videos/images/posters/image_1288.jpg)
Glenn Ligon's Untitled: Four Etchings
Artist Glenn Ligon created Untitled: Four Etchings using quotations from writer Zora Neale Hurston's essay, "How It Feels to Be Colored Me" and Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man.
![Artist Glenn Ligon created Untitled: Four Etchings [B] using a quotation from writer Zora Neale Hurston’s essay, “How It Feels to Be Colored Me.”](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-07/D15968_Medium_res.jpg?h=c15025bd&itok=EIHlZetq)
Birthright Citizenship Worldwide (2015)
World map highlighting in green which countries recognize birthright citizenship.
![World map highlighting in green which countries recognize birthright citizenship.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-08/Map_21_World_Birthright_Citizenship_teaser.jpeg?h=1017c59c&itok=kKe6Lhko)
Doors to Opportunity
Read about the experiences of two young immigrants to the United States in the late 1800s and how race shaped the kind of education to each of them.