The Enlightenment’s Dark Side

How the Enlightenment created modern race thinking, and why we should confront it.
Inside the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, in Montgomery, AL.

The Pain We Still Need to Feel

The new lynching memorial confronts the racial terrorism that corrupted America—and still does.

Introducing Reconstruction

The new Slate Academy finds the seeds of our present politics in the period after the Civil War.

America’s Painful, Historic Contempt for Black Soldiers

Donald Trump writes the latest chapter in a long history.

Why Obama Voters Defected

New findings explain how Trump won them over—and why he probably wouldn’t next time.

Donald Trump Sees Himself in Andrew Jackson. They Deserve Each Other.

The president deserves the Jackson legacy, but not for the reasons he'd like.

Bernie Sanders Is Right That Reparations Would Be Divisive

But the Vermont senator’s political revolution depends on white America, too.

When People Flee to America’s Shores

We are a nation of immigrants and refugees. Yet we always fear who is coming next.

Slavery Myths Debunked

The Irish were slaves too; slaves had it better than factory workvers; black people fought for the Confederacy; and so on.

This Haunting Animation Maps the Journeys of 15,790 Slave Ships in Two Minutes

315 years. 20,528 voyages. Millions of lives.

Our Commemoration of the Civil War’s End Celebrates a Myth

The emancipation of black Americans has been written out of our celebration of the Civil War's end.

The Unlikely Paths of Grant and Lee

The two men met at Appomattox. The loser would become a role model, the victor an embarrassment.