Gun on the cover of Kellie Carter Jackson's book "Force and Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence."

Words to Weapons: A History of the Abolition Movement from Persuasion to Force

With "Force and Freedom," Carter Jackson makes a stimulating and insightful debut which will have a major influence on abolition movement scholarship.
Black tenant farmers working in a field
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Rural Black Land Loss Has Been a Problem for Seven Decades

Even as the civil rights revolution brought significant gains to Black residents of cities, the story was very different in rural places.
Black and white photo of two African American men standing in front of March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom sign.

The Obamas’ “Rustin”: Fun Tricks You Can Do on the Past

The project of “reclamation and celebration” proceeds from an impulse to rediscover black Greats who by force of their own will make “change.”
Students on a field trip threw boxes of mock tea overboard at the Boston Tea Party Museum in Boston.

The Boston Tea Party Was a Crime

Opposition to British policy was justified. Destroying 342 crates of tea worth nearly $2 million in today’s money wasn’t.
A still from The Exorcist of Chris, played by Ellen Burstyn, standing next to a priest.

Exorcising American Domestic Violence

The Exorcist in 1973 and 2023.
Members of the National Woman's Party prepare to lobby their senators and congressmen to vote for the Equal Rights Amendment, ca. 1923.

Equal Rights Amendment Was Introduced 100 Years Ago — and Still Waits

America’s feminists felt confident when the Equal Rights Amendment was put before Congress 100 years ago this week. For a century, it’s failed to be enacted.
Bayard Rustin by a sign that reads "integration means better schools for all".

Bayard Rustin Was No Hollywood Figurehead

This new biopic about the socialist organizer Bayard Rustin stops at the March on Washington. What is it leaving out?
SECRET stamped multiples times over the United States emblem.

The Troubled History of the Espionage Act

The law, passed in a frenzy after the First World War, is a disaster. Why is it still on the books?
Ronald Reagan signing anti-drug legislation as Nancy Reagan and legislators look on.
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America's War on Drugs Was Always Bipartisan—And Unwinnable

There was really only one big difference between liberal drug warriors and conservative ones.
People outside the Lafayette Theatre in 1936.

Movie Theaters, the Urban North, and Policing the Color Line

Confronting segregation as Black urbanites' fight for access and equality in northern cinemas.
Political cartoon of Trump praying at the foot of a Jefferson Davis statue.

What Happened When the U.S. Failed to Prosecute an Insurrectionist Ex-President

After the Civil War, Jefferson Davis, was to be tried for treason. Does the debacle hold lessons for the trials awaiting Donald Trump?
Betty Friedan circa 1975.

What Betty Friedan Knew

Judge the author of the “Feminine Mystique” not by the gains she made, but by her experience.
Antisemitism Is a Threat to Us All — And to Democracy

Antisemitism Is a Threat to Us All — And to Democracy

How fascists and authoritarians have used antisemitic conspiracy theories to harm Jewish communities and undermine democracy.
Old City Hall, Wall St., New York City.

Originalism and the Nature of Rights

When we try to recover the “original meaning” of constitutional amendments, we begin with deeply engrained premises about the nature of what we're looking for.
A diagram of the parts of a flintlock pistol.

Bad Facts, Bad Law

In a recent Supreme Court oral argument about disarming domestic abusers, originalism itself was put to the test.
Peter Waddell's "A Vision Unfolds" imaginatively depicts Benjamin Banneker advising President Washington and fellow surveyor Andrew Ellicott on the layout of the proposed federal capital.

Banneker’s Answer to Jefferson: “I Am an American”

The black naturalist, astronomer, surveyor, and almanac-writer Benjamin Banneker took issue with Thomas Jefferson’s attitude toward “those of my complexion.”
Italian Americans watch a policeman arrest a man
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The Surveillance of Immigrants Remade American Policing

Modern surveillance policing is rooted in approaches adopted a century ago.
Gen. Robt. E. Lee, 1886.

After the Civil War, Robert E. Lee Couldn't Run for President, but Trump Can?

Despite Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, a Colorado state judge stretches the word “officer,” permitting him to remain on the state’s ballot.
Photo of a crowded street in NYC with carts and vendors blocking the roads

How the NYPD Attempted to Navigate Cultural and Linguistic Barriers in the Early 20th Century

One of the biggest challenges for the NYPD, especially in the years following the turn of the twentieth century, was policing the newcomer immigrants.

The Men Who Started the War

John Brown and the Secret Six—the abolitionists who funded the raid on Harpers Ferry—confronted a question as old as America: When is violence justified?
A white mob poses for a photograph in front of the charred remains of the Daily Record building they burned.

Majority-Black Wilmington, N.C., Fell to White Mob’s Coup 125 Years Ago

The 1898 Wilmington massacre overthrew the elected government in the majority-Black city, killed many Black residents and torched a Black-run newspaper.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Conservatives’ Favorite Legal Doctrine Crashes Into Reality

Originalism is all the rage on the right, but a gun case at the Supreme Court is exposing its absurdity—even to the conservative justices.

The War on Ecoterror

Environmental radicalism, left and right.
Gun safety advocates rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2019
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What the Supreme Court Gets Wrong About the Second Amendment

Government, wrote Alexander Hamilton, should substitute “the mild influence” of the law for “the violent and sanguinary agency of the sword.”
Bayard Rustin speaking at an event.

Eclipsed in His Era, Bayard Rustin Gets to Shine in Ours

The civil-rights mastermind was sidelined by his own movement. Now he’s back in the spotlight. What can we learn from his strategies of resistance?
Still from "Rustin" film, on steps of Lincoln Memorial.

The Real History Behind Netflix's 'Rustin' Movie

A new film finally spotlights Bayard Rustin, the gay civil rights activist who organized the 1963 March on Washington.
The front of the Midgeville asylum in Georgia

What Makes a Prison?

Wherever we find the state engaged in potentially lethal repression, we find prison.
Photograph of 1964 GOP presidential nominee Barry Goldwater.

The Twisted History of the American Crime Anxiety Industry

Our political and cultural systems are obsessed with exploiting fears about crime. But it wasn’t always this way.
Prison hallway

The Silent Treatment: Solitary Confinement’s Unlikely Origins

Characterised today by the noise of banging, buzzers, and the cries of inmates, solitary confinement was originally developed from Quaker ideas.
African American factory worker assembling an automobile engine.

How the UAW Broke Ford’s Stranglehold Over Black Detroit

The UAW's patient organizing cemented an alliance that would bear fruit for decades.