Oney Judge was born around 1773 on Mount Vernon, the Virginia plantation of the most celebrated hero of the American Revolution: George Washington. She was the daughter of Betty, a black seamstress (enslaved), and Andrew Judge, a white tailor (an indentured servant). We have no images of the girl, but she was described as having a light complexion. Oney spent her early years in the slave quarters on the plantation until age ten, when she was...

Last month, a moment that was important to American history got lost in the swirl of the usual economic doom saying, political punditry, celebrity worship: On November 1, President Obama signed a proclamation designating Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia, a national monument. It is not glamorous or sexy or controversial, but it is significant. Using his authority under the Antiquities Act, (Theodore Roosevelt used it in 1906 to establish...