Accessibility Statement
The historical record belongs to everyone. We are committed to making Black-History.com accessible to all readers, regardless of disability or assistive technology.
Our Commitment
Black-History.com is committed to ensuring that its website is accessible to people with disabilities. We aim to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA standards as a baseline for all published content.
Accessibility is not an afterthought for this publication. The history documented here — including the history of the disability rights movement, which drew explicitly on the civil rights movement's frameworks — belongs to everyone. We hold ourselves to the same standards of inclusion that animate our editorial mission.
Current Standards
We design and build to the following accessibility standards:
- Semantic HTML: Pages use proper heading hierarchy, landmark regions, and semantic elements to communicate structure to assistive technologies.
- Keyboard navigation: All interactive elements are reachable and operable by keyboard alone.
- Color contrast: Text meets WCAG 2.1 AA contrast ratios (4.5:1 for normal text, 3:1 for large text).
- Alternative text: Images include descriptive alternative text. Decorative images are marked as such.
- ARIA labels: Interactive components include ARIA labels where native semantics are insufficient.
- Focus indicators: All focusable elements display visible focus states.
Known Limitations
This site is in early development. Some sections are not yet complete, and accessibility review is ongoing. Known limitations include:
- Some archival images (particularly historical photographs and mugshots in the Good Trouble section) have limited contextual descriptions that are being expanded.
- The site does not yet have a skip-to-content link on all pages — this is in development.
- PDF documents linked from research sections have not been fully audited for accessibility.
Reporting an Issue
If you encounter an accessibility barrier on this site, please contact us. We take these reports seriously and will work to address issues promptly.
Contact: Use our contact form and include the URL of the page where you encountered the issue and a description of what the barrier is. We aim to respond within five business days.