John S. Jacobs was a fugitive, an abolitionist — and the brother of the canonical author Harriet Jacobs. Now, his own fierce autobiography has re-emerged. By Jennifer Schuessler One day in 1855, a man ...

Omar Ibn Said was 37 years old when he was taken from his West African home and transported to Charleston, South Carolina, as a slave in the 1800s. Now, his one-of-a-kind autobiographical manuscript ...

The autobiography of Omar ibn Said, the only known narrative by an American slave written in Arabic, is now on digital display at the Library of Congress. The manuscript and more than 40 other related ...

A portait of Omar Ibn Said made around the 1850s Photo courtesy of Yale University Library Omar Ibn Said was leading a prosperous life in West Africa at the turn of the 19th century, devoting himself ...

Saturday, May 25, 2025 -- John S. Jacobs was a North Carolina fugitive, an abolitionist and the brother of canonical author Harriet Jacobs. His own fierce autobiography has re-emerged. EDITOR'S NOTE: ...

When Josephine Anderson, a formerly enslaved Floridian, was visited by a white government interviewer in the fall of 1937, she told him a ghost story. Anderson described to Jules Frost a “white man” ...

One day in 1855, a man walked into a newspaper office in Sydney, Australia, with an odd request. The man, later described as a “man of color” with “bright, intelligent eyes” and an American accent, ...