Unsung History

Latest Episodes:

Ruth Reynolds & Puerto Rican Independence Mar 24, 2025

Show notes

Ruth Reynolds, born in the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1916 to a strict Methodist family, may have seemed an unlikely ally to the cause of Puerto Rican independence, but she devoted her life to what she saw as her “sacred and patriotic duty” as an American to convincing her country to withdraw from Puerto Rico “so that our nation may stand before the world free from any suggestion of imperialist ambition.” Facing surveillance by the FBI and insular police and even incarceration for her views, Reynolds never backed down from her solidarity, but she was always careful to listen to the people of Puerto Rico and never to impose her view on them. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Lisa G. Materson, Professor of History at the University of California, Davis, and author of Radical Solidarity: Ruth Reynolds, Political Allyship, and the Battle for Puerto Rico's Independence.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is the original mid-19th century fast-tempo arrangement of “La Borinqueña,” which later as a slower arrangement became the regional anthem of Puerto Rico; the performance is by the United States Navy and is in the public domain; it is available via Wikimedia Commons. The episode image is from the arrest of Carmen María Pérez González, Olga Viscal and Ruth Reynolds, January 4, 1951, taken by Benjamin Torres, and archived at the Centro de Investigaciones Históricas, Universidad de Puerto Rico; the photograph is in the public domain.

Additional Sources:

“Ruth M. Reynolds Papers,” Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Centro Library & Archives, Hunter College, CUNY.
“Puerto Rico at the Dawn of the Modern Age: Nineteenth- and Early-Twentieth-Century Perspectives,” Library of Congress.
“Puerto Rican Independence Movement [video],” American History TV, C-Span, April 13, 2018.
“Remembering Don Pedro: An Online History of Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos.”
“Puerto Rico’s Independence Movement: What Americans need to know about the PIP and Puerto Rico's Independence,” by Javier A. Hernandez, LA Progressive, Originally posted January 27, 2025 and updated February 12, 2025.
“How the U.S. silenced calls for Puerto Rico's independence [video],” by Bianca Gralau, August 26, 2021.
“The Case for Puerto Rican Independence,” by Alberto C. Medina, Current Affairs, April 5, 2024.

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Wages for Housework Mar 17, 2025

Show notes

In March 1972, Selma James distributed a pamphlet that declared: “If we raise kids, we have a right to a living wage. . . WE DEMAND WAGES FOR HOUSEWORK. All housekeepers are entitled to wages. (Men too).” Soon it was a global movement, with Wages for Housework branches in the United Kingdom, Italy, the United States, and several other countries, and autonomous groups like Black Women for Wages for Housework and Wages Due Lesbians. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Emily Callaci, Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of Wages for Housework: The Feminist Fight Against Unpaid Labor.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Get yourself a broom and sweep your troubles away,” composed by Albert Von Tilzer, with lyrics by James Brockman and Billy Rose, and performed by Frank Crumit and Frank E. Banta, in New York on December 19, 1924; the recording is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is a Wages for Housework poster drawn by Jacquie Ursula Caldwell in 1974, From the collection of Silvia Federici copyright Creative Commons, available via Wikimedia Commons.

Additional Sources:

“A Woman’s Place,” Selma James, 1953.
“Women and the Subversion of the Community: A Mariarosa Dalla Costa Reader,” by Mariarosa Della Costa, 2019.
“Statement of the International Feminist Collective,” July 1972.
“Wages Against Housework,” by Silvia Federici, 1975.
“All Work and No Pay [video],” Made by the Wages for Housework Campaign with the BBC TV's Open Door series, 1976, posted by Global Women’s Strike, January 15, 2023.
“The women who demanded wages for housework - Witness History, BBC World Service [video],” Witness History, BBC World Service, February 12, 2014.
“Covid-19 has made housework more visible, but it still isn’t valued,” by Kevin Sapere, The Washington Post, April 8, 2021.
“Wages for Housework is 50. This is the change it has inspired,” by Leila Hawkins, Nadja.co, April 16, 2022.
“‘They say it is love, we say it is unwaged work’ – 50 years of fighting to be paid for housework,” by Rosa Campbell, Gloria Media, December 19, 2022.
“The ‘true value of women’s work,’” by Kristina García, Penn Today, July 26, 2023.
Care Income Now

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Amelia Bloomer Mar 10, 2025

Show notes

Amelia Jenks Bloomer was many things: writer and publisher, public speaker, temperance reformer, advocate for women’s rights and dress reform, and adoptive mother. She was not the inventor of the trousers for women that came to bear her name – bloomers – although she wore them and wrote about them for many years. Throughout her life, even as poor health often stood in her way, Amelia Bloomer took action, never waiting for someone else to do what was needed. I’m joined in this episode by writer Sara Catterall, author of Amelia Bloomer: Journalist, Suffragist, Anti-Fashion Icon.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Lily of the prairie,” composed and with lyrics by Kerry Mills, performed by Billy MMurray and the Haydn Quartet on July 7, 1907, in Camden, New Jersey; this recording is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is an illustration of Amelia Bloomer from Illustrated London News with the description: "Amelia Bloomer , Originator Of The New Dress. — From A Daguerreotype By T. W. Brown,” published August 27, 1851; the illustration is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons.

Additional Sources:

“Amelia Bloomer Didn’t Mean to Start a Fashion Revolution, But Her Name Became Synonymous With Trousers,” by Lorraine Boissoneault, Smithsonian Magazine, May 24, 2018.
“Amelia Bloomer – Publisher and Advocate for Woman’s Rights,” VCU Libraries Social Welfare History Project.
“Amelia Bloomer: Topics in Chronicling America,” Library of Congress.
“Amelia Bloomer (1818-1894),” by Arlisha R. Norwood, NWHM Fellow, National Women’s History Museum, 2017.
“Amelia Bloomer,” National Park Service.
“Petition of Amelia Bloomer Regarding Suffrage in the West,” by Linda Simmons, National Archives.
“Life and writings of Amelia Bloomer,” by D. C. Bloomer, United States: Arena Publishing Company, 1895. Via Project Guternberg.

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The Color Line Mar 03, 2025

Show notes

My guest today is Dr. Martha S. Jones, the Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor, professor of history, and a professor at the SNF Agora Institute at the Johns Hopkins University and author of The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir. In this book, Prof. Jones researches her family’s past to understand how each generation encountered and negotiated the color line, beginning with her great-great-great-grandmother who survived enslavement and raised a free family.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode audio is “Family trouble blues,” composed by Olman J. Cobb, and performed in New York on May 5, 1923, with Lizzie Miles on vocals and Clarence Johnson on piano; the recording is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is Jennie Holley Jones and family, from the cover of The Trouble of Color.

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The Women of the Universal Negro Improvement Association Feb 24, 2025

Show notes

The Universal Negro Improvement Association is often most closely associated with Marcus Garvey, but from the beginning, the work of women was essential to the development of the organization. Amy Ashwood co-founded the UNIA with Garvey, and it was her connections and capital that launched the Negro World newspaper, but after her brief marriage to and divorce from Garvey, she was removed from the UNIA and the newspaper. Other women, like Garvey’s second wife, Amy Jacques Garvey, and actress Henrietta Vinton Davis, played important and public roles in the UNIA, especially during Garvey’s incarceration, but their contributions aren’t as widely remembered as Garvey’s. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Natanya Duncan, associate professor of history and director of Africana studies at Queens College CUNY, and author of An Efficient Womanhood: Women and the Making of the Universal Negro Improvement Association.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode audio is "Explanation of the Objects of the Universal Negro Improvement Association," a studio recording made by African-American leader Marcus Garvey in New York in July 1921, and adapted from his longer speech "A Membership Appeal from Marcus Garvey to the Negro Citizens of New York;" it is in the public domain and available via Wikimedia Commons. The episode image is a photograph of Henrietta Vinton Davis, published in Women of distinction: remarkable in works and invincible in character by L. A. Scruggs in 1893; the image is in the public domain and is available via Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library.

Additional Sources:

“Women of the Universal Negro Improvement Association,” by Dr. Melissa Brown, BlackFeminisms.com.
“Uncovering the Silences of Black Women’s Voices in the Age of Garvey,” by Keisha N. Blain, Black Perspectives, November 29, 2015.
“Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind,” PBS.
“Theorizing (with) Amy Ashwood Garvey,” by Robbie Shilliam, Chapter in Women’s International Thought: A New History, edited by Patricia Owens and Katharina Rietzler, 158–78. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.
""Negro Women Are Great Thinkers as Well as Doers": Amy Jacques-Garvey and Community Feminism, 1924-1927," by Ula Y. Taylor, Journal of Women's History 12, no. 2 (2000): 104-126.
”Black History Month: Amy Jacques Garvey,” by Emily Claessen, King’s College London, October 20, 2023.
“The inside story of the pardon of Marcus Garvey,” by DeNeen L. Brown, The Washington Post, February 1, 2025.
“Henrietta Vinton Davis: Lady Commander Order of the Nile,” by Meserette Kentake, Kentake Page, August 15, 2015.
"“If Our Men Hesitate Then the Women of the Race Must Come Forward”: Henrietta Vinton Davis and the UNIA in New York," by Natanya Duncan, New York History, vol. 95 no. 4, 2014, p. 558-583.
“Laura Adorkor Kofey research collection,” New York Public Library.
“After 85 years, slain minister's Jacksonville legacy lingers,” by Steve Patterson, Jacksonville.com, March 7, 2013.

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The Racist History of Property Taxes in the United States Feb 17, 2025

Show notes

After emancipation, formerly enslaved Black Americans knew that the key to economic freedom was land ownership, but as soon as they began to acquire land, local tax assessors began to overassess their land and exact steep penalties if they couldn’t pay the resulting inflated property taxes. For the past 150 years, all over the country, the same story has played out, with African Americans paying disproportionately higher property taxes, whether due to systemic inequities or corrupt local officials, while at the same time receiving dramatically fewer public services. And due to a Depression-Era law, aimed at limiting the tax bargaining powers of large property owners, Black Americans have been unable to seek redress against discriminatory property tax assessments in the US Supreme Court. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Andrew W. Kahrl, Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Virginia, and author of The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Baby won't you please come home blues,” written by Charles Warfield and performed by Bessie Smith on April 11, 1923, in New York; the recording is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is a sign in Harlingen, Texas, photographed in 1939, by Lee Russell; available via the The New York Public Library on Unsplash; free to use under the Unsplash License.

Additional Sources:

“How do state and local property taxes work?” The Tax Policy Briefing Book.
“History of Property Taxes in the United States,” by Glenn W. Fisher, Economics History Association.
“America Used to Have a Wealth Tax: The Forgotten History of the General Property Tax,” by Carl Davis and Eli Byerly-Duke, ITEP, November 2, 2023.
“It’s Time to End the Quiet Cruelty of Property Taxes,” by Andrew W. Kahrl, The New York Times, April 11, 2024.
“Prop 13 and Inequality: How the 1978 Tax Reform Law Drives Economic and Racial Disparities” by Jonathan Vankin, California Local, November 29, 2022.
“The Lock-in Effect of California’s Proposition 13,” By Les Picker, The NBER Digest, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2005.
“Property tax burdens fall on nation’s lowest-income homeowners, study finds,” UChicago News, Mach 9, 2021.
“The Assessment Gap: Racial Inequalities in Property Taxation,” by Carlos Avenancio-León and Troup Howard, The Washington Center for Equitable Growth, June 10, 2020.

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Ericka Huggins & the Black Panther Party Feb 10, 2025

Show notes

For Ericka Huggins, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which she attended at just 15 years old, was a turning point in her life, inspiring her toward activism. She later joined the Black Panther Party, and after being incarcerated as a political prisoner, served as Director of the acclaimed Oakland Community School and became both the first Black person and the first woman appointed to the Alameda County Board of Education. She continues her activism work today in the fields of restorative justice and social change. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Mary Frances Phillips, Associate Professor in the Department of African American Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and author of Black Panther Woman: The Political and Spiritual Life of Ericka Huggins.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is Vinyl Funk by Alisia from Pixabay, free for use under the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is “Ericka Huggins at Occupy Oakland Protest on November 2, 2011,” by Clay@SU on Flickr, CC by 2.0.

Additional Sources:

“Ericka Huggins”
“Hggins, Ericka,” Archives at Yale.
“Ericka Huggins (January 5, 1948),” National Archives.
“The 1963 March on Washington,” NAACP.
“How the Black Power Movement Influenced the Civil Rights Movement,” by Sarah Pruitt, History.com, Originally posted February 20, 2020, and updated July 27, 2023.
“Black Panther Party,” National Archives.
“The Black Panther Party: Challenging Police and Promoting Social Change,” Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
“(1966) The Black Panther Party Ten-Point Program,” BlackPast.
“Black Panthers’ Oakland Community School: A Model for Liberation,” by Shani Ealey, Staff Writer, Black Organizing Project, November 3, 2016.
“Black Panthers ran a first-of-its-kind Oakland school. Now it’s a beacon for schools in California,” By Ida Mojadad, The San Francisco Standard, August 7, 2023.

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Land Displacement & the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians Feb 03, 2025

Show notes

Thousands of years ago, a band of Cahuilla Indians migrated south into the Coachella Valley, calling the area Séc-he, meaning boiling water. The Mexicans translated this as agua caliente (hot water), which is the name still used today. As the United States extended its territory into California, the Agua Caliente were forced onto a reservation, and then, as the Southern Pacific Railroad was granted land in the region, the reservation was carved up into a checkerboard pattern. It took decades of legal fights and government intervention, but today Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians continues its work to retain its cultural heritage and stewards more than 34,000 acres of ancestral land. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Michael Albertus, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, and author of Land Power: Who Has It, Who Doesn't, and How That Determines the Fate of Societies.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Dramatic Nostalgic Sad Piano and Cello” by Yevhen Onoychenko from Pixabay; it is free for use under the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is the Agua Caliente Reservation; this media is available in the holdings of the National Archives and Records Administration, cataloged under the National Archives Identifier (NAID) 298622.

Additional Sources

Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians.
“Dawes Act,” National Archives.
“S.555 - Indian Gaming Regulatory Act,” 100th Congress (1987-1988).
“Cahuilla,” UNESCO World Atlas of Languages.
“Keeping Cahuilla Alive,” by Joan Page McKenna, me yah whae, Spring/Summer 2019.
Agua Caliente Cultural Museum
“Agua Caliente Cultural Plaza, Palm Springs, Calif.,” by Kate Nelson, Time Magazine, July 25, 2024.

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The History of Interracial Marriage in Mississippi Jan 27, 2025

Show notes

In 1865, when Black people in Mississippi first gained the legal right to marriage, so-called Black Codes outlawed interracial marriage, punishable by life in prison. Five years later, Republicans in the Mississippi state legislature repealed the Black Codes and legalized interracial marriage, but the law was reversed again ten years later when Democrats took control. In 1890, a new state Constitution, erasing all the racial progress of the 1868 one, enshrined a prohibition on interracial marriage that lasted until the Supreme Court ruling in Loving v. Virginia. Through it all, though, interracial couples in Mississippi formed lasting unions, started families, and in some cases even legally wed, despite the legal constraints against them. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Kathryn Schumaker, Senior Lecturer in American Studies at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, and author of Tangled Fortunes

The Hidden History of Interracial Marriage in the Segregated South.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Mississippi Moon,” written and performed by Gus Van and Joe Schenck; this recording was created in New York on January 3, 1923 and is in the public domain; it is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode artwork is a photo by Monet Garner on Unsplash and is free to use under the Unsplash License.

Additional Sources:

“‘Unlawful Intimacy’: Mixed-Race Families, Miscegenation Law, and the Legal Culture of Progressive Era Mississippi.” by Kathryn Schumaker, 2023. Law and History Review 41(4): 773–94. doi: 10.1017/S0738248023000317.
“Mississippi Miscegenation Laws,” Facing History and Ourselves.
“Civil Rights Act of 1866, ‘An Act to protect all Persons in the United States in their Civil Rights, and furnish the Means of their Vindication,’” National Constitution Center.
Miss. Code Ann. § 97-29-1 Adultery and fornication; unlawful cohabitation.
“Mississippi Rises Again,” by Don Winbush, Time Magazine, November 16, 1987.

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The Panama Canal Jan 20, 2025

Show notes

The completion of the Panama Canal in 1914 positioned the United States as a global power, but the U.S. didn’t complete the feat single-handedly. It required land from Panama, equipment and information from the failed earlier effort by the French, and, importantly, tens of thousands of laborers from around the Caribbean. Decades later the Panamanians finally gained control of the canal zone and then the canal itself, but the labor – and sacrifice – of the Afro-Caribbean workers still deserves greater recognition. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Julie Greene, Professor of History at the University of Maryland, and author of Box 25: Archival Secrets, Caribbean Workers, and the Panama Canal.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Through the Panama Canal,” composed by J. Louis Von der Mehden and performed by Prince’s Band on January 7, 1914, in New York; the recording is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is “Panama Canal,” photographed by Harris & Ewing in 1913; the image is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.

Additional Sources: