Patrick Henry was a Virginia patriot best known for his "Give me liberty or give me death!" speech on the eve of the Revolutionary War. He was also known as one of the most radical advocates of republican government. In this speech before the…

Patrick Henry, the Virginia patriot best known for his "Give me liberty or give me death!" speech, was also one of the leading Anti-Federalists. In this excerpt from a speech before the Virginia Ratification Convention, he makes the case for an…

Pauli Murray entered law school in 1941 with the "single-minded intention of destroying Jim Crow." Though on the frontlines of civil rights demonstrations and behind the scenes of many organizational meetings since the 1940s, Murray and other…

A nationwide rebellion brought the United States to a standstill in the summer of 1877. Eighty thousand railroad workers walked off the job, joined by hundreds of thousands of Americans outraged by the excesses of the railroad companies and the…

Restrictions on immigration, largely aimed at would-be migrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, gained considerable popular support during the 1920s. Anti-immigrant sentiment culminated in the Quota Act of 1921, which effectively reduced…

Restrictions on immigration, largely aimed at would-be migrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, gained considerable popular support during the 1920s. Anti-immigrant sentiment culminated in the Quota Act of 1921, which effectively reduced…

Russell Means, who was born on the Ogalala Sioux reservation in South Dakota, became a leader of the American Indian Movement (AIM) in the late 1960s. In often dramatic ways, AIM protested the government and society's treatment of Native Americans. …

The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (as it was originally called) was founded in Oakland by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton. The group's focus on "armed defense" often overshadowed their community activities, which included a free-breakfast…

Women and African Americans were demanding the rights of citizenship in the 1850s. At an 1851 women's rights convention in Akron, Ohio Sojourner Truth rose and asked the president, "May I say a few words?" She then conveyed to the audience a powerful…

In this address to Jonathan Trumbull, the Governor of the Colony of Connecticut who sided with the Revolutionary cause, the chief of the Oneida Indians declares his tribe's intention to remain neutral in the impending conflict. The Oneidas express…