Yumi Doi, an activist with Group of Fighting Women, at a protest against sexual discrimination, Tokyo, June 1972

A Work in Progress

Two new books on the history of feminism emphasize global grassroots efforts and the influence of American women labor leaders on international agreements.
MLK in a police station

Martin Luther King Knew That Fighting Racism Meant Fighting Police Brutality

Critics of Black Lives Matter have held up King as a foil to the movement’s criticisms of law enforcement, but those are views that King himself shared.
Prisoners and guards in Attica State Prison

Honoring Attica After Half a Century

It’s time to demand law enforcement accountability for the death of unarmed citizens not just on America’s streets but also in our prisons.
A police officer stands with another officer in front of a house, as a hand holding a speculum appears in the foreground.

How Women Were Made to Suffer for Their Abortions Before Roe v. Wade

Interrogated, examined, blackmailed: how law enforcement treated abortion-seeking women before Roe.
Bell in 1980. He handled civil-rights cases, then came to question their impact.

The Man Behind Critical Race Theory

As an attorney, Derrick Bell worked on many civil-rights cases, but his doubts about their impact launched a groundbreaking school of thought.
Demonstrators outside the New York City offices of New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) on Aug. 31.
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The Supreme Court Ended The Eviction Ban But Not The Fight Against Evictions

Historically, the failures and limitations of federal policy have emboldened activists.

50 Years After Attica, Prisoners Protest Brutal Conditions

If this nation hopes to achieve a justice system that is just, it must remain ever vigilant for any echo from Attica.
The illustration “Vaccinating the Poor,” by Solomon Eytinge Jr

The Surprisingly Strong Supreme Court Precedent Supporting Vaccine Mandates

In 1905, the high court made a fateful ruling with eerie parallels to today: One person’s liberty can’t trump everyone else’s.
The book cover for Vice Patrol

Vice, Vice, Baby

The history of patrolling sex in public.
The “Martinsville Seven,” a group of seven Black men executed in Virginia, 1951.

A Virginia the Martinsville Seven Could Not Have Imagined

Governor Ralph Northam pardoned seven young Black men put to death in 1951— a step forward in addressing Virginia's imperfect criminal justice system.
Civil Rights March on Washington, people holding signs calling for integration

How White Violence Turned a Peaceful Civil Rights Demonstration Into Mayhem

Winfred Rembert on protesting in the Jim Crow South and getting arrested.
An illustration of broken and bloody pieces representing awareness of Missing and Murdered Native Women and Girls.

Traumatic Monologues

On the therapeutic turn in Indigenous politics.
Head of a man with a severe disease affecting his face by Christopher D' Alton, 1858. One of a collection of drawings by D' Alton of patients at the Royal Free Hospital, Grays Inn Road, London.

The Ugly History of Chicago’s "Ugly Law"

In the nineteenth century, laws in many parts of the country prohibited "undeserving" disabled people from appearing in public.
Picture of George W. Bush

How Memories of Japanese American Imprisonment During WWII Guided the US Response to 9/11

In the wake of 9/11, some called for rounding up whole groups of people but Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta knew the U.S. had done that before.
Pro-abortion protests
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Before Roe v. Wade, U.S. Residents Sought Safer Abortions in Mexico

Transnational networks have long helped pregnant people navigate treatment options.
Collage of women's rights symbolism. Woman outline waving flag.

Who Lost the Sex Wars?

Fissures in the feminist movement should not be buried as signs of failure but worked through as opportunities for insight.
Protest signs from the 1963 March on Washington

A Federal Job Guarantee: The Unfinished Business of the Civil Rights Movement

The 1963 March on Washington put a government guarantee to a job at the front of the civil rights agenda. It’s long past time to complete the work.
African American man teaching a boy to swim in a swimming pool.
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Black Swimmers Overcome Racism and Fear, Reclaiming a Tradition

Today, drowning rates are disproportionately high among Black children. What’s being done?
Old-time black and white pictures of Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir with a modern city background

How American Environmentalism Failed

Traditional environmentalism has lacked a meaningful, practical democratic vision, rendering it largely marginal to the day-to-day lives of most Americans.
Illustration by Molly Crabapple

Racial Metaphors

If colorblindness rests on the claim that the civil rights movement changed everything, the idea that racism is in our DNA borders on a fatalistic proposition that it changed nothing.
Roberto Clemente at bat

Pittsburgh Pirates Mark 50 Years Since Historic All-Black-and-Latino Lineup

Players, fans and authors recall the landmark 1971 starting nine.
Isaac Woodard, an African American army veteran, with his mother after being blinded by a South Carolina police chief in 1946.

After Victory in World War II, Black Veterans Continued the Fight for Freedom at Home

These men, who had sacrificed so much for the country, faced racist attacks in 1946 as they laid the groundwork for the civil rights movement to come.
Students with masks walking in a school hallway.
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Schools Enforce Dress Codes All the Time. So Why Not Masks?

Dress codes are about social control, not student wellbeing.
Close up illustration of Frederick Douglass

An American Conception of Justice

Historians have demonstrated how central racism has been to the formation of the U.S. But many of those same ideas have also been vital to combating white supremacy.
Curt Flood posed with a baseball bat.

The Ballplayer Who Fought for Free Agency

For his talents on the diamond and his determination off of it, Curt Flood deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.
The cover of Dunbar-Ortiz's book alongside a picture of Mexican workers awaiting entry into the U.S.
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The Border and the Contingent Status of Mexican Workers

An excerpt from the most recent book, "Not 'A Nation of Immigrants': Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion."
Tommie Smith on podium receives gold medal with fist raised, holding shoe.
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Rule 50 and Racial Justice

The long history of the international olympic committee's war on athletes' free expression.
Tarred as a “coolie race,” the Chinese were cast as a threat to free white labor. Train with fire around it and a face in the back.

America Was Eager for Chinese Immigrants. What Happened?

In the gold-rush era, ceremonial greetings swiftly gave way to bigotry and violence.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland meets with young people from the Rosebud Sioux Tribe on July 14
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Reckoning With American Indian Boarding Schools Requires Accountability, Not Pity

It’s a story of U.S. misdeeds, but also Native resilience.
Zoomed in 1949 map of Atlanta.

A Brief History of the Atlanta City Prison Farm

Slave labor, overcrowding, and unmarked graves — the buried history of Atlanta City Prison Farm from the 1950s to 1990s shows it’s no place of honor.