Fidel Castro and Malcom X sitting and laughing together

'Ten Days in Harlem': An Interview with Historian Simon Hall

Fidel Castro's visit to Harlem at the intersection of two themes that shaped the 1960s: the Black freedom struggle and global protest during the Cold War.
Geological map of winding river paths creating an intricate swirling pattern

Harold Fisk’s Meander Maps of the Mississippi River

A geologist and cartographer dreamed up a captivating, colorful, visually succinct way of representing the river's fluctuations through space and time.
African American man leaning on his car, by a wall spray painted with the words "let's remember McDuffie"

The Long, Painful History of Racial Unrest

A lethal incident of police brutality in Miami in 1979 offers just one of countless examples of the reality generations of African Americans have faced.

“To Laugh in One Hand and Cry in the Other”

The story of William Higginbotham & the Black community in Civil War Rome.
Two drawings, one of a woman on the left and one of a man on the right

Minorcans, New Smyrna, and the American Revolution in East Florida

The little-known story of the laborers who became pawns in a Floridian struggle during the American Revolution.
Drawing of headshots of Dred Scott and Harriet Robinson

"Where Two Waters Come Together"

The confluence of Black and Indigenous history at Bdote.
Drawing of building on fire, with crowd outside

Many Tulsa Massacres

How the myth of a liberal North erases a long history of white violence.
partner

Suppressing Native American Voters

South Dakota has been called "the Mississippi of the North" for its long history of making voting hard for Native Americans.

The Free and the Brave

A patriotic parade, a bloody brawl, and the origins of U.S. law enforcement’s war on the political left.

“The Mask Law will be Rigidly Enforced”

Ordinances, arrests, and celebrations during the influenza epidemic.
a Black woman sits on stairs and looks out the window of an old New England style house

60 Enslaved People Once Toiled for a Rich Landowner in Medford

“This is not just history about Black Americans. This is American history. Slavery is American history. And we want people to understand that.”

Somebody Died, Babe: A Musical Cover-Up of Racism, Violence, and Greed

Beneath the popular folk song, “Swannanoa Tunnel” and the railroad tracks that run through Western North Carolina is a story of blood, greed, and obfuscation.
Kids in an empty city lot with graffiti and rubble.

The Long Reinvention of the South Bronx

On the mythologies behind urban renewal.
A graphic featuring a map of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and slavery imagery.

Cancer Alley

A collage artist explores how Louisiana's ecological and epidemiological disasters are founded in colonialism.
Map of the United States marking where land was granted to Cornell - concentrations in Wisconsin and California.

Cornell: A “Land-Grab University”?

Cornell University's past and current wealth is tied to the dispossession of Indigenous groups from their land.
A photograph of the Chicago River, with telephone wires and the Chicago skyline in the background.

Chicago Was 'Skunk Town' Long Before It Was the Windy City

Chicago has been a skunk haven for centuries.
Captain Medorem Crawford pictured with his brother, LeRoy, who he employed as his assistant on the Emigrant Escort Service expeditions in 1862-4

A White Man’s Empire

The United Stated Emigrant Escort Service and settler colonialism during the Civil War.
A street in the 1940s with cars parked in front of a food market and a barber shop.

Planned Destruction

A brief history on land ownership, valuation and development in the City of Richmond and the maps used to destroy black communities.

When Conservatives Called to Freeze Police Budgets

The loudest opponents to police funding were once fiscal conservatives.

Ground Zero: The Gettysburg National Military Park, July 4, 2020

157 years after the famous battle, Gettysburg endured another invasion.
A photo of a woman wearing a mask standing on a subway platform in Times Square.

Rethinking the Solution to New York’s Fiscal Crisis

We are at the end of an era, as choices made in the 1970s have created a society that seems unable to cope with a crisis such as that posed by the coronavirus.
Bosque Redondo

Americans Need to Know the Hard Truth About Union Monuments in the West

During the Civil War, Union soldiers in the West weren’t fighting to end slavery, but to annihilate and remove Native Americans.

Walt Disney's Empty Promise

For so many of the millions of tourists who come to Orlando, this—Disney, Universal Studios, I-Drive, all of it—stands in for America itself.

Buffalo’s Vanished Maritime Past

The city was once a bustling and infamous Great Lakes port. How should it be remembered?
Collage of a photo of the mayor superimposed on a photo of a large KKK rally in a stadium.

The Los Angeles Mayor Who Was Also a KKK Leader

In 1929, Mayor Porter was part of a long history of city figures who perpetuated white supremacy as a foundational and systemic ideal.
Tent for a Sons of Confederate Veterans camp, with flags and memorabilia.

Ohio Has Always Had Confederate Apologists

In June, Ohio legislators refused to ban confederate memorabilia from county fairs. The state has long had a complicated relationship with the Confederacy.
A protestor of the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant.

The Grieving Landscape

Upon discovering that her mother had been a member of the group Women Strike For Peace (WSP), Heidi Hutner becomes obsessed with feminist nuclear history.
Broadway New York 1893

Perilous Proceedings

Documenting the New York City construction boom at the turn of the 20th century.
Young demonstraters from Los Angeles in La Marcha Por La Justicia, 1971.

The Many Explosions of Los Angeles in the 1960s

Set the Night on Fire isn't just a portrait of a city in upheaval. It's a history of uprisings for civil rights, against poverty, and for a better world.
Hurricane Katrina flooding.

Through Hell and High Water: Katrina's First Responders Oral History Project

A collection of interviews with rescue workers who responded to the disaster.