Alexis Clark
Alexis Clark writes about race, culture and politics during major events and eras in American history. She has written for The New York Times, Smithsonian, Preservation and other publications. She is the author of Enemies in Love: A German POW, A Black Nurse, and an Unlikely Romance, and an assistant professor at Columbia Journalism School.
Latest from this author
After fighting in the Civil War and later military engagements, the famous all-black regiments protected the National Parks.
Tubman applied intelligence she learned as an Underground Railroad conductor to lead the Combahee Ferry Raid that freed more than 700 from slavery.
Ordinances restricting train travel, intimidation and other Jim Crow tactics were enacted to hinder Black people from fleeing racial and economic oppression.
Representative Jordan's primetime remarks on the Constitution riveted the nation and underscored the grave role of serving as a check on the executive branch.
Facing a dwindling movement in Alabama, civil rights leaders recruited Black students to revive the march to end segregation.
When a rumor catapulted into an explosion of frustration and rage, a fabled Black neighborhood in Manhattan turned into a battleground.
Blackface became popular in the U.S. after the Civil War as white performers played characters that demeaned and dehumanized African Americans.
Greenwood Avenue featured luxury shops, restaurants, movie theaters, a library, pool halls and nightclubs.
Despite Jim Crow oppression, Walker founded her own haircare company that helped thousands of African American women gain financial independence.
Before the Tulsa Race Massacre, the city’s African American district thrived as a community of business leaders and visionaries.
A search for mass graves of the victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre highlights an event that some had tried to erase from history.
When the governor of Arkansas failed to integrate Central High School, President Eisenhower called in federal troops to protect the Little Rock Nine.
Some 1.2 million Black men served in the U.S. military during the war, but they were often treated as second-class citizens.
Before President Truman desegregated the U.S. military on July 26, in 1948, Black nurses had fewer—and less desirable—opportunities in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps.
D.W. Griffith’s controversial epic 1915 film about the Civil War and Reconstruction depicted the Ku Klux Klan as valiant saviors of a post-war South ravaged by Northern carpetbaggers and freed Black people.
Using white colleagues as front men, Bernard Garrett bought real estate, made millions and uplifted fellow blacks in pursuit of the American dream.
As racism impacted both sides of the Atlantic, ‘Brown Babies’, the children born to Black GIs and white European women, faced an uncertain future.
The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, made up of African American women, helped boost the morale of millions of Americans during WWII.