Unsung History

Kelly Therese Pollock
Unsung History

A podcast about people and events in American history you may not know much about. Yet.

  1. The Racist History of Property Taxes in the United States

    5 DAYS AGO

    The Racist History of Property Taxes in the United States

    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. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

    56 min
  2. Ericka Huggins & the Black Panther Party

    FEB 10

    Ericka Huggins & the Black Panther Party

    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. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

    45 min
  3. Land Displacement & the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians

    FEB 3

    Land Displacement & the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians

    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. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

    40 min
  4. The History of Interracial Marriage in Mississippi

    JAN 27

    The History of Interracial Marriage in Mississippi

    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. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

    45 min
  5. The Panama Canal

    JAN 20

    The Panama Canal

    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: “The Canal Builders: Making America's Empire at the Panama Canal,” by Julie Greene, Penguin Publishing Group, 2010.“Building the Panama Canal, 1903–1914,” Office of the Historian, US Department of State.“Panama Canal: Topics in Chronicling America,” Library of Congress.“History,” Panama Canal Authority.“Chief Engineers of the Panama Canal,” PBS American Experience.“How the Panama Canal Took a Huge Toll On the Contract Workers Who Built It,” by Caroline Lieffers, The Conversation, April 18, 2018.“Why the Construction of the Panama Canal Was So Difficult—and Deadly,” by Christopher Klein, History.com, Originally published October 25, 2021, and updated September 15, 2023.“The Panama Canal: The African American Experience,” by Patrice C. Brown, Federal Records and African American History (Summer 1997, Vol. 29, No. 2).“Panama Canal Centennial online exhibition,” University of Florida, George A. Smathers Libraries.“The Panama Canal and the Torrijos-Carter Treaties,”Office of the Historian, US Department of State. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

    48 min
  6. The Women of the Rendezvous Plantation on Barbados in the 17th Century

    JAN 13

    The Women of the Rendezvous Plantation on Barbados in the 17th Century

    In 1686, Susannah Mingo, Elizabeth Atkins, Dorothy Spendlove, and their children, all of whom were half-siblings, along with some of their children's other half-siblings and their children's father, boarded a ship headed from Barbados to England, where they would live out their lives. It wasn’t unusual for a plantation owner like John Peers to impregnate both his enslaved Black laborers and his white servant, but it was unusual for him to acknowledge his illegitimate offspring, baptize them, bring them and their mothers with him across the ocean, and provide for them in his will, all of which John Peers did. This week we look at the story of a Barbados family, not via its patriarch, but rather through the lives of the five women who bore his children – Susannah, Elizabeth, Dorothy, and John's wives, Hester Tomkyns and Frances Knights (née Atkins). Joining me in this episode is Dr. Jenny Shaw, Associate Professor of History at the University of Alabama, and author of The Women of Rendezvous: A Transatlantic Story of Family and Slavery. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode music is “Calypso Island - P5,” by Audio Beats, purchased under Pond5's Content License Agreement; the Pond5 license authorizes the licensee to use the media in the licensee's own commercial or non-commercial production and to copy, broadcast, distribute, display, perform and monetize the production or work in any medium. The episode image is “A representation of the sugar-cane and the art of making sugar,” by John Hinton, 1749; the engraving is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540. Additional Sources: “On Barbados, the First Black Slave Society,” by Sir Hilary Beckles, Black Perspectives, African American Intellectual History Society, April 8, 2017.“Barbados profile - Timeline,” BBC News, January 4, 2018.“Barbados: Local History & Genealogy Resource Guide,” Library of Congress.“Barbados parts way with Queen and becomes world’s newest republic,” by Michael Safi, The Guardian, November 30, 2021.“Inside Barbados’ Historic Push for Slavery Reparations,” by Janell Ross, Time Magazine, July 6, 2023. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

    47 min
  7. Henry Christophe: The King of Haiti

    JAN 6

    Henry Christophe: The King of Haiti

    Henry Christophe, one of the heroes of the Haitian Revolution, was, from 1811 to his death in 1820, King Henry I of the Kingdom of Haiti, the first, last, and only King that Haiti ever had. This week we look at Christophe’s meteoric rise from being born enslaved on an island hundreds of miles from Haiti to fighting in the American Revolution to serving as a general in the Haitian Revolution to being king of all he surveyed, until it all came crashing down around him. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Marlene Daut, Professor of French and African Diaspora Studies at Yale University and author of The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe. 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 “Maestro Walter's Brass Band, Final March - JEZI OU KONNEN,” by Félix Blume, from Death in Haiti; the audio is available under Creative Commons CC BY 3.0. The episode image is a portrait of Henry Christophe from 1816 by Richard Evans; the painting is in the Musée du Panthéon National Haïtien; the image is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons. Additional Sources: “The Haitian Revolution Timeline,” by Kona Shen at Brown University, 2022.“The United States and the Haitian Revolution, 1791–1804,” Office of the Historian, Foreign Service Institute, United States Department of State.“How Toussaint L’ouverture Rose from Slavery to Lead the Haitian Revolution,” by Kedon Willis, History.com, Originally posted August 30, 2021, and updated, August 18, 2023.“Inside the Kingdom of Haiti, ‘the Wakanda of the Western Hemisphere,’” by Marlene Daut, The Conversation, Originally published January 23, 2019, and update November 16, 2022.“Rare document sheds light on historical black queen,” The University of Central Lancashire, September 26, 2019.“Atlantic freedoms: Haiti, not the US or France, was where the assertion of human rights reached its defining climax in the Age of Revolution,” by Laurent Dubois, AEON, November 7, 2016.“The Play That Electrified Harlem,” by Wendy Smith, Library of Congress. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

    46 min
  8. The Surprisingly Salacious History of the Modern Restaurant

    12/30/2024

    The Surprisingly Salacious History of the Modern Restaurant

    If you were to head to Paris in the mid-eighteenth Century and ask for a restaurant, you might be handed a bowl of meat bouillon, prepared in such a way as to improve vigor and perhaps even sperm production. Restaurant referred first to the broth itself and then to the eateries in which men, and less frequently women, could eat said broth. As restaurant came to mean the luxurious establishment at one which could eat an elaborate menu of delicate food items prepared by talented chefs, sex stayed the menu, and restaurants and the city’s sex workers formed a mutually beneficial relationship to serve diners’ appetites. Even as restaurants jumped across the pond to the US, the correlation remained. As a word of warning, this episode may not be appropriate for younger ears. Joining this episode is Dr. Rachel Hope Cleves, Professor of History at the University of Victoria and author of Lustful Appetites: An Intimate History of Good Food and Wicked Sex. 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 “Sugar Blues,” composed by Clarence Williams with lyrics by Lucy Fletcher; this performance is by Leonare Williams and her Dixie Band, recorded on August 10, 1922, in New York City; the audio is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress. National Jukebox. The episode image is a digitized image from "Tableaux de Paris ... Paris qui consomme. Dessins de P. Vidal," published in Paris in 1893.; the digital version is available via the British Library and is in the public domain. Additional Sources: “When Did People Start Eating in Restaurants?” by Dave Roos, History.com, Originally published May 18, 2020, and updated August 20, 2023.“Revolutionary broth: the birth of the restaurant and the invention of French gastronomy,” by Joel Abrams, The Conversation, August 25, 2021.“Are Oysters an Aphrodisiac?” by Alicia Ault, Smithsonian Magazine, February 13, 2017.“Looking to Quell Sexual Urges? Consider the Graham Cracker,” by Adee Braun, The Atlantic, January 15, 2014.“Segregating Restaurants,” by Kimberly Wilmot Voss, PhD, NY Food Story. “The Ornate Ice Cream Saloons That Served Unchaperoned Women,” by Jessica Gingrich, Atlas Obscura, June 22, 2018“History,” The Berghoff.“8 Restaurants And Bars Where U.S. History Was Made,” by Mercedes Kane, The Takeout, June 22, 2022.“National Statistics,” National Restaurant Association.“A restaurant wanting a ‘grown and sexy’ vibe bans diners under 30,” by Emily Heil, The Washington Post, June 10, 2024. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

    43 min
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About

A podcast about people and events in American history you may not know much about. Yet.

Information

  • Creator
    Kelly Therese Pollock
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2025
  • Episodes
    195
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2024 Unsung History
  • Show Website
    Unsung History

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