Justice

On Christmas Eve 1955, Jacqueline Smith died from an illegal abortion at her boyfriend Thomas G. Daniel’s apartment.

How the ban on booze gave rise to prejudiced policing, the penal system, and the modern American right wing.

Recovering black radicalism.

If radicalism meant insecurity, and immigration meant radicalism, the government's course was clear.

Historian Richard Breitman tracked the efforts of Anne Frank's family to seek refuge in the US while immigration rules and public attitudes towards immigrants were changing.

The notion that gun control has racist origins is popular in gun rights circles. Here's what's wrong with the claim.

The fears that were conjured by nativists 80 years ago are chillingly similar to what we're hearing today.

We are a nation of immigrants and refugees. Yet we always fear who is coming next.

Since the 1950s, disparities along class and racial lines have defined the nation's drug policy.

Judicial dissent in the Supreme Court has a long history.

The Confederate flag remains the symbol of our unfinished reckoning with race and violence for good reason.

How history textbooks reinforced narratives of racism, and the fight to change those books from the 1940s to the present.

A primary source set and teaching guide created by educators.

A look at the American public's ambivalent opinion of the death penalty.

America put drastically more people in prison over the past few decades than at any time in the nation's history.

Discussion of the Hart-Cellar Act that was passed 50 years ago.

The idea of an unfettered right to carry weapons in public originates in the antebellum South, and its culture of violence and honor.

The Irish were slaves too; slaves had it better than factory workvers; black people fought for the Confederacy; and so on.

A law designed to repair flaws in the fabric of American justice also created new ones.

In the late 19th century, statesmen feared that Catholics were something less than civilized (and less than white).

Politicians are suddenly eager to disown failed policies on American prisons, but they have failed to reckon with the history.

He was the Chinese-American cook who became the father of ‘birthright citizenship.’

An excerpt from a discussion between Malcolm X and Robert Penn Warren on guilt and innocence.

Inclusion and humanitarianism used to be part of the immigration policy of the United States.

SWAT teams were created in the 1960s to combat violent events. Since then, the specialized teams have morphed into something very different.

A botched voter purge prevented thousands from voting—and empowered a new generation of voting-rights critics.

Would the Founders have protected people we execute now?

It is only recently that domestic abuse was identified as a serious, public social problem.

The Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage by framing it as a historical evolution of liberty, dignity, and equality under the Constitution.

"You're taking over our country" echoes long-held narratives and has renewed prominence in conservative discourse.