Malcolm X

What Made Malcolm X Dangerous

He challenged the violence of US power, abroad and at home. His radical internationalism, from Congo to Palestine, speaks to our moment.
A racially diverse group of children saying the Pledge of Allegiance while one holds an American flag.

Who Gets to Be an American?

Since the earliest days of the Republic, American citizenship has been contested, subject to the anti-democratic impulses of racism, suspicion, and paranoia.
David Souter

Justice David Souter Was the Antithesis of the Present

His jurisprudence has been overshadowed by that of his showier colleagues but was a model of principled restraint.
Cartoon drawing with Red Scare history written on New York City buildings.

When the Red Scare Came for Jessica Mitford

A graphic episode from "Do Admit: The Mitford Sisters and Me."
A National Police Week ceremony.

The Jim Crow Origins of National Police Week

Police brutality and corruption are painful realities. So are officers who die performing their duty. But the memorial in Washington fails to distinguish them.
Line drawings of related is school desegregation activism.

How Brown Came North and Failed

Half a century ago the civil rights movement’s effort to carry the campaign for school desegregation from the South to the urban North ended in failure.
RFK Jr speaking at a podium.

RFK’s Ideas About “Wellness Farms” for Young People Are Eugenic and Unconstitutional

RFK’s call for “wellness farms” revives a grim legacy of forced labor, racial injustice, and eugenics disguised as mental health reform.
LAPD building dedicated to William H. Parker.

The World Darryl Gates Made: Race, Policing, and the Birth of SWAT

The very features that made the LAPD appear more professional also expanded its reach and capacity for violence.

From Chinese Exclusion to Pro-Palestinian Activism: The History of Politically Motivated Deportation

Removal orders targeting student activists echo America’s long past of jailing and expelling immigrants because of their race, or what they say or believe.
Clark Mills’s statue of Andrew Jackson, Lafayette Park, Washington D.C., circa 1910–1925

Vance’s Junk History

When Donald Trump and his followers go in search of historical forerunners to justify their regime, they turn with striking regularity to the presidency.
Ella Jenkins at a School Assembly Service performance, c. 1962.

Ella Jenkins and Sonic Civil Rights Pedagogy

She translated Black freedom movements' ideals into forms that children could enjoy and grasp, nurturing their political consciousness through music-making.

A Chorus of Defiance

Fifty years after the Vietnam War’s end, lessons from the peace movement on mobilizing resistance.
Justice John Roberts.

The Supreme Court Could Take Another Shot at Voting Rights

If the justices take up a case on Virginia’s felon disenfranchisement law, they’ll be burrowing back to Reconstruction-era jurisprudence.
Filmmaker Oliver Stone speaks to journalists following a hearing with the House Oversight Committee at the US Capitol on April 1, 2025, in Washington, DC.

Oliver Stone Goes to Washington

Legendary filmmaker Oliver Stone says we’re closer than ever to finally piecing together the mystery of November 22, 1963.
Huddie Lesbetter's draft registration card.

Secret Recordings Show President Roosevelt Debating Military Desegregation with Civil Rights Leaders

More than a year before Pearl Harbor, President FDR heard arguments from the civil rights leaders of the era for the desegregation of the military.
U.S Department of Justice "Notice to Aliens of Enemy Nationalities"

What Is the Alien Enemies Act?

Trump is relying on a 1798 law with a bad history.
Chief Justice John Roberts.

So, How Much of Korematsu Did the Supreme Court “Overrule,” Exactly?

Chief Justice John Roberts called it “obvious” that the infamous decision has “no place in law under the Constitution.” Recent events suggest otherwise.
US and Mexican immigrant rights activists march through the Arizona desert to draw attention to unjust immigration policies.

What the Birth of the Sanctuary Movement Teaches Us Today

The birth of the sanctuary movement some 45 years ago can teach us a lot about how to respond to today’s attacks on immigrants.
Trans activist Sylvia Rivera during her “Y’all better quiet down” speech at an early gay pride rally in New York City, 1973.

Why Are Trans People Such an Easy Political Target? The Answer Involves a Surprising Culprit.

Making a whole group of people this vulnerable does not just happen overnight.
Bertrand Russell.

‘Vietdamned’

Can a new book rescue Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre’s activism from irrelevance?
Patrick Henry giving a speech to a crowd of Virginians.

What Spurred the South to Join the American Revolution?

How a dispute with a Scottish lord over westward expansion, gunpowder, and the future of enslaved labor made the southern colonies’ embrace the radical cause.
Painting by Hiroki Kawanabe titled Wide Street.

Legacies of Japanese American Incarceration

Brandon Shimoda’s book about the memorialization of Japanese internment camps also speaks to the brutal system of migrant detention that continues to this day.
Three Black men having a conversation.

Recovering the Forgotten Past of Black Legal Lives

Dylan C. Penningroth challenges nearly every aspect of our traditional understanding of civil rights history.
Book Cover of "An Ordinary White."

Basic Stuff About Reality

On David Roediger’s “An Ordinary White: My Antiracist Education.”
George W. Bush delivering a speech.

George W. Bush Lives on in Donald Trump’s Migrant Policies

The “war on terror” led to a sweeping curtailment of immigrants’ rights that swept up green card holders as well as citizens.
Harry Bridges surrounded by a group of men.

Before Mahmoud Khalil, There Was Harry Bridges

The U.S. government repeatedly tried to deport the midcentury labor leader over his alleged ties to the Communist Party.
Drawing of the fight between two congressional representatives titled "Congressional pugilists," 1798.

Alien Enemies, Alien Friends, and the Concept of “Allegiance”

With controversy raging over the Alien Enemies Act, how should we understand the concept it invoked?
Civil rights lawyers including Thurgood Marshall and Constance Baker Motley.

Trump's Attack on Lawyers and Law Firms Takes a Page Out of the Southern 1950s Playbook

American authoritarians fear the uniquely American power of litigation.

The Dark, McCarthyist History of Deporting Activists

Donald Trump is using decades-old laws to expel critics and opponents.
People attending a teach-in.

A Way to Honor the Teach-in Movement at 60

It’s time for another national teach-in movement.