Woman looking over a former plantation site

The Lost Graves of Louisiana’s Enslaved People

A story about the hidden burial grounds of Louisiana’s enslaved people, and how continued industrial development is putting the historic sites at risk.
Members of Mattachine Society

Harry Hay, John Cage, and the Birth of Gay Rights in Los Angeles

Five men sat together on a hillside in the late afternoon, imagining a world in which they did not have to hide.
Ariel view of Hlll District over the years

A Black Vision for Development, in the Birthplace of Urban Renewal

Pittsburgh’s Lower Hill District was razed by the federal government 65 years ago. Now developers are testing the question of how to correct for a racist past.
A Blair Mountain coal miner with his rifle slung over his shoulder, 1921.

A Century Ago, West Virginia Miners Took Up Arms Against King Coal

In 1921, twenty thousand armed miners in West Virginia marched on the coal bosses and were met with bombs and submachine guns.
Cover of 'The Swamp Peddlers'

How Schemers Built a State

Mark Massaro reviews Jason Vuic’s “The Swamp Peddlers: How Lot Sellers, Land Scammers, and Retirees Built Modern Florida and Transformed the American Dream.”
Ashton Villa in Galveston

Celebrating Juneteenth in Galveston

I had sung the Black National Anthem countless times, but hearing those words reverberate around me in this place, on this day, moved me in a new way.
“Natural Bridge, Virginia” (1860) by David Johnson. Oil on canvas.

Rekindling the Wonder of Natural Bridge, Once a Testament to American Grandeur

"Virginia Arcadia: The Natural Bridge in American Art,” at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, surveys the arch as icon and propaganda.
Dr. Lawrence Matsuda portrait, 2015, Painting by Alfredo M. Arreguin

Japanese Internment, Seattle in the 50s, and the First Asian-American History Class in Washington

Lawrence Matsuda talks about his family history, his experiences of discrimination, and his work in bilingual and Asian American representation in education.
Collection of photographs ranging including shareholders' meeting protests, the city of Rochester, and Kodak founder George Eastman.

The Rise and Fall of an American Tech Giant

Kodak changed the way Americans saw themselves and their country. But it struggled to reinvent itself for the digital age.

Wild Rice Waters

The resurgence of the wild rice harvest seeks to tells the story of settler colonialism, tribal kinship and ecological stewardship.
Old cars piled up under a bridge overpass.

New York: The Invention of an Imaginary City

How nostalgic fantasies about the “authentic” New York City obscure the real-world place.
Workers cover a statue of Christopher Columbus in Chicago before the start of a Juneteenth march on June 19, 2020. The memorial was later removed.

When Monuments Go Bad

The Chicago Monuments Project is searching for ways to resolve its landscape of problematic statues and make room for a new, different kind of public memorial.
Black employees photographed at St. Luke Penny Savings Bank

The Forgotten Stories of America's Black Wall Streets

A century after the Tulsa Race Massacre, what happened there is finally more widely known—but other "Black Wall Street" stories remain hidden.
Poet Amanda Gorman recites a piece at Biddy Mason Memorial Park on Aug. 18, 2018, at a gathering to mark the 200th birthday of Biddy Mason, a key figure in the establishment and development of downtown Los Angeles. (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images)
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California Is Finally Confronting Its History of Slavery. Here’s How.

Los Angeles is finding success at reshaping its commemorative landscape.
Refugees after Tulsa Race Massacre

How 24 Hours of Racist Violence Caused Decades of Harm

A century after a white mob attacked a thriving Black community in Tulsa, digitized census records are bringing the economic damage into clearer focus.
Chinatown architecture

The Surprising Reason Why Chinatowns Worldwide Share the Same Aesthetic

It all started with the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
Johnny Cash visiting his childhood home in Dyess, Arkansas.

Down in Dyess

Johnny Cash's life in a collectivist colony during the Great Depression.
People on the street and burning car amidst debris

Los Angeles Could Have Rebuilt a Better City After the Rodney King Violence. Here's Why It Failed.

Leading gangs in Los Angeles were making peace as the city burned. How the city failed them rewrites our understanding of that moment.
The construction of the famous Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri.

The City That Embodies the United States’ Contradictions

In the history of St. Louis, we find both a radical and reactionary past—and a more hopeful future too.
Map of the Appalachian mountain range

The Making of Appalachian Mississippi

“Mississippi’s white Appalachians may have owned the earth, but they could never own the past.”
Rowhouses in Philadelphia burn after officials dropped a bomb on the MOVE house in May 1985.
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The Shocking MOVE Bombing Was Part of a Broader Pattern of Anti-Black Racism

How culture fueled the infamous police decision.
Neighborhood map of Los Angeles, used to denote quality of neighborhood and living.

Mapping and Making Gangland: A Legacy of Redlining and Enjoining Gang Neighbourhoods in Los Angeles

How race-based legacies of disinvestment initiated by New Deal Era redlining regimes were followed by decades of over-policing at the scale of the neighborhood.

The Neighborhood Fighting Not to Be Forgotten

One hundred years after the Tulsa Race Massacre, community members still can’t get the federal government to recognize Greenwood’s significance.
A drawing showing the plan for Owen's utopian community

Robert Owen, Born 250 Years Ago, Tried to Use His Wealth to Perfect Humanity

The wealthy textile manufacturer harbored ambitions that went far beyond the well-being of his own workforce and depleted his fortune.

The Bloody History of Anti-Asian Violence in the West

One of the largest mass lynchings in the United States targeted Chinese immigrants in Los Angeles.

‘One Oppressive Economy Begets Another’

Louisiana’s petroleum industry profits from exploiting historic inequalities, showing how slavery laid the groundwork for environmental racism.
People protesting Trump's immigration policies.
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Thirty Years After Mount Pleasant Erupted, a Push for Better Treatment Persists

American policy continues to create problems for Central American refugees.
The Moshassuck River running under a bridge with graffiti.

Difficult Topographies

There are whole hidden worlds pressing into this one.
Detail of Anti-Slavery Picnic at Weymouth Landing, Massachusetts (c1845) by Susan Torrey Merritt. Courtesy the Art Institute of Chicago

New England Kept Slavery, But Not Its Profits, At a Distance

Entangled with, yet critical of, colonial oppression and the evils of slavery, the true history of Boston can now be told.

What Does It Mean to Build—And Preserve—a George Floyd Memorial?

How do we choose what we remember?