His name was Sturmann Yanghis. He was a 17-year-old South African brought by ship to the United States in 1860 with four other young men billed in the press as “wild African savages” who had “never before been brought into contact with civilization.” Each represented a different Indigenous group.

Sally H. Jacobs, “How U.S. institutions took an African teen’s life, then lost his remains,” Washington Post, December 3, 2023.

Her athletic performance in New York impressed onlookers of all colors and cracked opened the door for a new generation of Black players to come.

Sally H. Jacobs, “Sports Legend Althea Gibson Served Up Tennis History When She Broke Through in 1950,” adapted from Althea: The Life of Tennis Champion Althea Gibson, WOMEN WHO SHAPED HISTORY: A Smithsonian magazine special report, Smithsonian Magazine, August 8, 2023.

“When John Greene, believed to be an ancestor of Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, got off a schooner from Trinidad in Charleston, S.C., he was immediately enslaved and dispatched to a plantation, according to family lore. When John Howland, the 10th-great-grandfather of Jackson’s husband, Patrick Jackson, disembarked the Mayflower at Plymouth, Mass., he was given housing and several acres.”

Sally H. Jacobs, “Ketanji Brown Jackson’s ancestors were enslaved. Her husband’s were enslavers.,” Washington Post, June 19, 2023.

Althea Gibson was the first Black player to win Wimbledon. Soon, the block in Harlem where she grew up will bear her name.

Sally H. Jacobs, “Before Serena, There Was Althea,” New York Times, August 25, 2022.

On Monday, the U.S. Open will unveil a new statue of Gibson, who achieved many firsts for African-Americans in tennis.

Sally H. Jacobs, “Althea Gibson, Tennis Star Ahead of Her Time, Gets Her Due at Last,” New York Times, August 26, 2019.

One year after a Muslim teen’s brutal rape and murder, her community is still in mourning—and torn over whether her killing was a hate crime.

Sally H. Jacobs, “Why Nabra?,” Slate Magazine, June 10, 2018.

A five-month Globe investigation offers new details and insights into the two young men accused in the greatest act of terrorism in Boston history and the deeply dysfunctional family that produced them.

Part of the package that won a Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News in 2014.

Sally Jacobs, David Filipov and Patricia Wen, “The Fall of the House of Tsarnaev,” Boston Globe, December 15, 2013.