What is Juneteenth and why are 42 states and the District of Columbia celebrating it this year?

As a literary scholar and cultural historian who has spent a lifetime searching out African Americans' lost, forgotten and otherwise unheralded tales, I was honored to serve as a historical consultant on Steve McQueen's "12 Years a Slave," most certainly one of the most vivid and authentic portrayals of slavery ever captured in a feature film.

Why didn't more than one black person serve in the Senate during the Reconstruction era -- a condition that persisted until this year?

Spanish Florida was the African-American slaves’ first Promised Land.

The growth of the cotton economy and the internal slave trade in America forced families to separate and migrate once again.