Black History

Looking to Black and Indigenous Foremothers to Resist Erasure

PUBLISHED 7/2/2026 by

Free Black women and Indigenous women are the foremothers of generations of African Americans. Yet they remain largely absent from the official story of American freedom. Their lives, contributions and descendants have been systematically erased—from colonial records and legal classifications to public memory itself.

That erasure began in the earliest colonial records. The 1620 Virginia census recorded “four Indians in the service of several planters,” alongside 15 Negro men and 17 Negro women, reducing people to categories that obscured their identities, families and histories. Over the centuries, laws, court decisions and public institutions repeatedly reinforced that disappearance.

The best celebration of 250 years of American freedom—after the fireworks and celebrations by a newly blue-painted Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool are over—could be a visit to a cool, air-conditioned archive. In the quiet, anyone can search the records for the full story, of the enslaved and freeborn, Indian and African. Anyone can defy censorship and erasure with an open mind and a pencil, no fees required. 

The Equal Rights Amendment and the First Amendment: A Roadmap for a Feminist Future

PUBLISHED 7/1/2026 by

Donald Trump’s jingoistic whitewashing of the 250th anniversary of the founding of our country will no doubt celebrate the 1773 Boston Tea Party, where the Sons of Liberty protested oppressive British import taxes. But throughout American history, women activists—the Daughters of Liberty to suffragists, journalists and civil rights advocates—have been making patriarchal governments tremble, by taking full advantage of the precious rights protected by the First Amendment: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to peaceably assemble, and the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. 

That same spirit must now drive the final push to secure the Equal Rights Amendment. Although the ERA has been ratified by the required 38 states, it has yet to be officially recognized as part of the Constitution.

The First Amendment gives us the tools to change that: by speaking out, organizing, protesting and demanding that elected leaders make constitutional equality a national priority.

For the People: The Case for a Cabinet-Level Department of Democracy

PUBLISHED 6/18/2026 by

For 250 years, women and marginalized communities have fought to expand democracy, yet the institutions of government still were not designed with their full participation in mind. That is why I propose a Department of Democracy: an independent, permanent institution dedicated to protecting voting rights, safeguarding civic participation and holding government accountable to the people it serves.

Just as the federal government maintains departments devoted to national defense and economic stability, it should establish a Department of Democracy with the authority to enforce voting rights protections, monitor threats to democratic participation and ensure every citizen has meaningful access to the ballot box. The goal is not to navigate a flawed system, but to redesign and strengthen democracy so it reflects the people who have always sustained it.

Through a Department of Democracy, we can build a durable safeguard against democratic erosion and create a government that is more representative, responsive and accountable for the next 250 years.

(This is part of a new miniseries FEMINIST 250: Democracy’s Feminist Future, a special Ms. series examining the next chapter of American democracy through a feminist lens. As the nation approaches its 250th anniversary, the series explores how women and marginalized communities have shaped democratic progress, what lessons history offers for the challenges ahead, and how a more inclusive, representative and equitable democracy can be built for the next 250 years.)

My Women’s Studies Department Is Closing. The Need for Feminist History Isn’t.

PUBLISHED 6/9/2026 by

In August, the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Texas at Austin will close. I joined the department last year after leaving the University of Iowa’s Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies department, which also closed this year. As programs in women’s studies, ethnic studies and Black studies disappear across the country, I’ve found myself reflecting on how I became a feminist historian—and why this work matters now more than ever.

Back in 2005, as an undergraduate student at San Francisco State University, I took a course on feminist activists and read Angela Davis’ Women, Race, and Class. Davis argued that the experiences of Black women could only be understood through the intersecting forces of race, gender and class—and that confronting racism, misogyny and poverty was essential to liberation. From that moment, I knew a feminist view of history could transform how I understood present-day inequality and how I wanted to teach those ideas to future students.

For years, I brought that framework into the classroom, helping students connect the histories of voting rights, reproductive justice, racial discrimination and gendered violence to the challenges they see unfolding around them today. As feminist studies and ethnic studies programs come under increasing attack, I remain convinced that this work is indispensable. Nearly 45 years after Davis historicized the triad of women, race and class, we still need that critical lens to understand our world—and to defend human dignity and justice within it.

A (Brief) History of Women’s Rights, 1600 to Present

PUBLISHED 6/3/2026 by and

From the Haudenosaunee women who successfully challenged warfare in the 17th century, to today’s feminist organizers defending democracy, reproductive freedom and civil rights, the struggle for women’s equality has never been a straight line. It is a story of persistence, resistance and collective action spanning centuries.

Compiled by editors at Ms. and researchers from the National Women’s History Alliance, this women’s history timeline traces the interconnected histories of feminism, abolition, labor organizing, civil rights, reproductive justice, LGBTQ+ liberation and democratic participation.

No timeline can fully capture more than 400 years of feminist history, let alone every movement, leader, victory and setback that has shaped the ongoing fight for equality. Rather than offering a comprehensive account, this chronology highlights pivotal moments and turning points that help tell the story of how women have expanded the boundaries of freedom, democracy and human rights in the United States and beyond.

The timeline is part of Ms. magazine’s FEMINIST 250: Founding Feminists project, a multimedia essay series marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence by examining the women and feminist movements that have worked to make the nation’s founding promises more fully realized. Through reported features, essays, interviews and historical analysis, FEMINIST 250 explores not only where we have been, but where we must go next to achieve true equality.

FEMINIST 250’s Parts 2 and 3—Feminist Lessons and Feminist Futures—drop this month on MsMagazine.com.

‘The South Belongs to Us’: Voices, Signs and Scenes From Montgomery’s Voting Rights Rally

PUBLISHED 5/19/2026 by

On the morning of Saturday, May 16, in Selma, Alabama, activists and organizers gathered near the Edmund Pettus Bridge before traveling to Montgomery for the “All Roads Lead to the South” national day of action protesting attacks on voting rights and Black political representation across the South.

The chants echoed through downtown Montgomery: “The power is with the people.” “We won’t go back.”

A Reparations Blueprint for a New Era of Civil Rights Rollbacks

PUBLISHED 5/12/2026 by

For more than a century, the survivors and descendants of the Tulsa Race Massacre have carried not only the trauma of racial violence, but the burden of fighting to prove that what was stolen from Greenwood was never fully repaired.

Civil rights attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons reflects on the organizing, coalition-building and collective determination behind the modern reparations movement in Tulsa—and why local movements rooted in community power may offer the clearest path toward justice.

Solomon-Simmons introduces “ThinkGreenwood,” a framework for reparatory justice grounded in self-determination, collective economics, mutual care and resilience.

“ThinkGreenwood is my gift to every Black town, neighborhood and community in this country where people seek to repair past harms and give themselves and their children a fair chance at a better life. It’s a blueprint for Black Power in the modern era that any group can use to build the same indomitable foundation that’s enabled Tulsa’s community to stay strong and united through decades of setbacks and disappointments.”

(Excerpted from Redeem a Nation: The Century-Long Battle to Restore the Soul of America by Damario Solomon-Simmons, out May 12, 2026.)

Justice Kagan Sounds the Alarm as Supreme Court Dismantles Voting Rights Protections: ‘Elected Politicians Picking Their Voters’

PUBLISHED 4/29/2026 by and

In a 6-3 decision in Callais v. Louisiana on Wednesday, the Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s current congressional map—drawn after the 2020 census to include a second majority-Black district—and, in doing so, weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the last remaining nationwide tool for challenging racially discriminatory voting laws.

‘Who Will Revere the Black Woman?’ Remembering Nancy, Cerina and So Many More

PUBLISHED 4/22/2026 by

Even though I did not know Nancy Metayer, my heart is utterly broken by the loss of her life and the violence of her death. The night before her funeral, I joined a virtual vèyè in her honor—a space to keep watch, to remember her impact and to hold one another in communal care.

That same day, news broke about Dr. Cerina Fairfax, also killed in her home. I did not know her either, and still, I was gutted.

Nor did I know Pastor Tammy McCollum, Ashly Robinson, Qualeisha Barnes, Davonta Curtis or Barbara Deer—Black women killed in just a matter of weeks. And to think these are only the names we know.

In moments like this, I find myself returning to a question first posed by Abbey Lincoln decades ago: “Who will revere the Black woman?” The reality of this violence—and the way it is so often explained away or softened—makes that question feel as urgent as ever.

Black feminists have long named the patterns, the structures and the stakes. And still, we are left mourning, naming and insisting: We will not let their lives be forgotten. We will continue the work in their honor—because we revere them.

Educating Women: A History of Access, Exclusion and Backlash

PUBLISHED 4/13/2026 by

The war against “radical gender ideology” has been staggering. The ascent of President Trump brought calls for the elimination of women’s and LGBTQ centers, rollbacks on Title IX protections, the exclusion of trans women from college sports and the purging of gender and sexuality studies from college curricula across U.S. higher education. These actions signal a massive backlash against decades of progress—and are inseparable from a broader assault on civil rights-era protections for people of color.

However, this moment is nothing new. It echoes an earlier race- and gender-based backlash over a century ago, when growing numbers of white middle-class women began to attend college. Against the backdrop of Black emancipation, increased migration and the expanding feminist movement, women’s education was cast as a threat—not just to patriarchy, but to the future of the white race.

Today’s backlash is the latest attempt to restore the status quo—to draw boundaries around who is entitled to higher education and to reinforce a racial and gender hierarchy that has always shaped access to learning in the United States.

(This essay is part of the FEMINIST 250: Founding Feminists series, marking the 250th anniversary of America by reclaiming the revolution through the women and gender-expansive people whose ideas, labor and resistance shaped U.S. democracy.)