President Roosevelt gives speech after being shot
“Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot—but it takes more than that to ...
Category: Narrative Nonfiction
Historical narrative nonfiction short stories.
Prudence Crandall opens a school for Black girls
“She was a slender young woman, with bright blue eyes, soft blond hair, and a special way of speaking, quiet, controlled –, ‘lady-like,’ as people said in the e...
William Harvey Carney: “the old flag never touched the ground!”
“Boys, I only did my duty; the old flag never touched the ground!” – William Harvey Carney — William Harvey Carney was born into enslavement in 1840...
Robert Smalls escapes enslavement
“One night when the officers are on shore, we’re going to take the boat, put you and the children aboard and sail it out to the bar. With my wearing Captain Rel...
The love of Theodore Roosevelt and Alice Lee
Standing 5’7″ and willowy with long wavy golden hair and blue-gray eyes, Alice Hathaway Lee was radiant, enchanting. Family members called her ̶...
Ida B. Wells challenges the narrative of lynchings
“I am only a mouthpiece through which to tell the story of lynching and I have told it so often that I know it by heart. I do not have to embellish; it makes it...
Emma Sharp walks 1,000 miles in 1,000 hours
Emma Sharp was a pedestrian, which in 19th century life was the term for an athlete competing in pedestrianism, one of the most popular sports in the western wo...
The story of Noor Inayat Khan
This is Noor Inayat Khan. She was a British spy during World War II who was captured by the Nazis and executed at the Dachau concentration camp. — Born in...
James Peck, a freedom rider
Bruised, battered, his face and clothing covered with dry crusts of blood, James Peck staggered as he walked. He still felt a bit disoriented after being beaten...
Jacques Plante becomes first goalie in NHL to wear a face mask
On November 1, 1959, Jacques Plante’s nose was broken by a shot three minutes into a game against the New York Rangers. He was taken to the dressing room ...