Serri Graslie

From the people on our money to the effects of calling someone black, this week, we bring you four reads that illuminate a bit of history or pieces of regulation you may not have known about.

The rural Texas town was established as a "freedom colony" with land given to former slaves after the Civil War. O. Rufus Lovett photographed Weeping Mary and its residents for 11 years.

Homemade sodas are hot these days: Americans bought more than 1.2 million home carbonators last year. For the Fourth of July, we asked mixologist Gina Chersevani to help us tap into the trend with a soda float inspired by Independence Day.

Postwar marketing of convenience foods pushed our grandmothers to take many shortcuts in the kitchen that modern foodies might find unpalatable. Many involved Jell-O. Cookbook author Jeremy Jackson updated his grandma Mildred's famous strawberry cake recipe to remove this old-school secret ingredient.