Justice

During the 1860 presidential election, political parties dueled over the intent of the framers.

By making health care broadly available, the government helps ensure our freedom.

A new proposal for reparations for slavery raises three critical questions: How much does America owe? Where will the money come from? And who gets paid?

An experiment in oral history of the present.

A new book frames this country’s tendency toward state-sanctioned murder as a unique cultural inheritance.

The devastating cruelties these stories reveal also contain a fundamental truth about prison.

Commitment to racial justice, not conciliation, is needed to save democracy.

It’s a simple process that recurs throughout history: workers see injustice, they organize each other, and they fight for change.

Mexican-American workers have a long tradition of radical organizing, stretching back to the days of the IWW and the mid-century Communist Party.

The story of John Wolcott Phelps and his push for Lincoln to emancipate all slaves.

Why did the man known as the “father of Black nationalism” defect to the Democratic Party during Reconstruction?

By the end of his life, inspired by the radicalism of the Black Panthers, Baldwin was again ready to proclaim himself a socialist.

From covid-19 to the 2020 election, the specter of America’s racist history influences many aspects of our lives.

Tens of thousands of mutual aid networks and projects emerged around the world in 2020. They have long been a tool for marginalized groups.

Limited education on Keller's life has implications for how students perceive people with disabilities .

Without a more fundamental transformation of criminal law, public defenders often provide only a limited form of equality and fairness before the law.

The celebration of Isabel Wilkerson’s ‘Caste’ reflects the continued priority of elite preferences over the needs and struggles of ordinary people.

Black women in Georgia have shaped local and state politics for more than a century.

Julia Gaffield reviews two books that discuss the transatlantic slave trade.

Today's heated political arguments over censorship and misinformation online are rooted in a 26-word snippet of a law that created the Internet as we know it.

An ex-minister named John Lyford arrived at the nascent colony hoping for a fresh start. But he couldn’t escape his past.

How the presumption of bystanders’ responsibility crystallized into the predominant opinion.

Appeals to childhood innocence helped enshrine undocumented kids’ access to education. But this has also inadvertently reinforced criminalization.

Ida B. Wells reported on lynching in the South, risking her own safety.

Why his reformist retelling of the Chicago Seven fails to tell the real story of the leftists on trial.

Hidden disenfranchisement is as much of a problem as long lines at the polls.

Joel Rhone reviews Eddie Glaude Jr.’s Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and its Urgent Lessons for Our Own

An overlooked corner of the Constitution hints at a right to be protected from infection.

History shows that the text is far more complex than the legal doctrine might indicate.

History suggests that what you see on the campaign trail, or even in a candidate’s past record, is not always what you get from a president once in power.