Civil Rights marchers with signs for equal rights, housing, and integrated schools.

How a Group of Black Activists Inspired Solidarity and Struggle in Mississippi

Freedom Summer in the segregationist heart of the Deep South.

Louis Congo: Ex-Slave and Executioner of Louisiana

Although freed from slavery, Louis Congo's job as public executioner ensured him a life as a pawn of French officials and retaliation from those he disciplined.
Agnes Wilkinson, Ahmeenah Young, and Aishah Shahidah Simmons.

Black Power Meets Police Power

The experiences of Michael and Zoharah Simmons show that the fight against the carceral state is embedded in a larger project of building a just world.
Black Panther mural dating from 1996, side wall of Rick’s Barbershop, 3406 Jefferson Blvd., Los Angeles, 2011 (LOC).

George Jackson in a Global Frame

The story of George Jackson and his radical politics that challenged the American Government in an age of political repression.
Harold "Red" Grange, one of the biggest stars of the early NFL.

NFL Television Broadcasting and the Federal Courts

The NFL's control over entertainment.
Lizzie Fletcher, center, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other House Democrats applaud as Marilyn Strickland speaks on reproductive freedom.
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What the Next 50 Years of Reproductive Rights Activism Can Learn from the Last 50

Success moving forward requires building a more inclusive movement than what existed during the Roe v. Wade era.
Oscar Andrade prays at the Ironwood Forest National Monument near Marana, Ariz., before searching for a missing Honduran migrant, in September.
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Border Enforcement Has Been Deadly By Design

The Biden administration’s expanded use of Title 42 to expel asylum seekers will take a toll.
Empty classroom.

The Neoliberal Superego of Education Policy

Institutional reform is no match for pervasive structural inequality.
Beatrice Cogan, center, representing a criminal defendant in court.

The Grassroots of 'Roe'

My mother’s part in the 1970 repeal of New York’s abortion law is a lesson for today’s activists: all politics is local.
Painting of ships in Boston Harbor.

Pressured to Leave

Black refugees’ journey from Virginia to Boston after the Civil War.
Illustration of a happy Founder with flowers as eyes.

Happiness In America Isn’t What It Used to Be

"We have lost sight of some essential aspects of happiness that the founders clearly had in mind."
Bayard Rustin gestures at a zoning map.

Bayard Rustin: The Panthers Couldn’t Save Us Then Either

Rustin’s assessment of the lay of the political land was predicated on a no-nonsense understanding of the radicalism of the moment.
Banksy's Spy Booth depicting 3 spies listening in to a phone booth.

How the Drug War Convinced America to Wiretap the Digital Revolution

How the FBI's doomed attempt to stop criminal activity conducted via mobile phones shaped the regime of ubiquitous backdoor surveillance under which we live today.
A migrant child plays with a Captain America action figure by the U.S. border in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.
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U.S. Policies Like Title 42 Make Migrants More Vulnerable to Smugglers

Since the 1960s, border enforcement and deterrence policies have made migrants vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.
Crowd gathering on the National Mall to protest Nixon.

How World War II Pacifists Laid the Foundation for Future Struggles

The unconventional origins of the modern antiwar movement.
An illustration of Puritans in Springfield, Massachusetts.

The Witches of Springfield

Before Salem, this small town succumbed to the witch-hunting fever.
Donald Trump
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Trump’s Call to Suspend the Constitution Betrays the Lawlessness of Law and Order

Trump champions “law and order” while calling for the Constitution’s suspension. But there’s no tension between the two.
Protesters outside the Supreme Court on December 5, when oral arguments were heard in 303 Creative LLC v. Eleni.

The New Faith-Based Discrimination

A sharp uptick in challenges to U.S. antidiscrimination laws threatens decades of progress in extending civil rights to all.
Four white men kidnapping Black man

Kidnappers of Color Versus the Cause of Antislavery

Thousands of free-born Black people in the North were kidnapped into slavery through networks that operated as a form of “Reverse Underground Railroad.”
U.S. sailors stand among wrecked airplanes during the Pearl Harbor Attack
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Pearl Harbor was the Site of Black Heroism and Protests Against Racism

The history of segregation in the Navy — and its abolition — show how to combat institutionalized bigotry.
Black and white scale of justice.

The Blindness of ‘Color-Blindness’

When the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the future of affirmative action, I knew I had to be there.
Building of the old Pendleton Farmers' Society.

Ablaze: The 1849 White Supremacist Attack on a South Carolina Post Office

The bonfire was a public spectacle for Black people, as well as any white dissenters. It was a calculated warning.
Collage of eyes.

Who’s Watching

The evolution of the right to privacy.
Supreme Court justices with their heads in boxes made from the Constitution.

Originalism Is Bunk. Liberal Lawyers Shouldn’t Fall For It.

The more liberals present originalist arguments, the more they legitimate originalism.
Engraving of freed slaves arriving at Union lines, New Bern, North Carolina, 1863.

The Emancipators’ Vision

Was abolition intended as a perpetuation of slavery by other means?
J. Edgar Hoover (center) with President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, February 23, 1961.

J. Edgar Hoover Tried to Destroy the Left — and Liberals Enabled Him

The author of a new biography explains how liberals played an important role in enabling Hoover’s antidemocratic crusade.
Black and white photo of the young Mary Ellen next to an empty chair

Origins of Child Protection

Legend says that the campaign to save abused children in New York was driven by the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The truth is more complicated.
African American prisoners in Alabama post-Reconstruction.

How the Slavery-Like Conditions of Convict Leasing Flourished After the Collapse of Reconstruction

On the terror that filled the void left by the retreat of federal authority in the South.
Jalyn Hall (left) as Emmett Till and Danielle Deadwyler (right) as Mamie Till Bradley in the movie Till.

Two Recent Movies Help Us Connect the Dots Between Jim Crow and Fascism

With Kanye and Kyrie Irving dominating the news, the connections between victims of white supremacy are more relevant than ever.
J. Edgar Hoover in 1924.

How J. Edgar Hoover Went From Hero to Villain

Before his abuses of power were exposed, he was celebrated as a scourge of Nazis, Communists, and subversives.