Excerpts

Curated stories from around the web.
New on Bunk
Barbara Ransby speaks to protesters at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, March 20, 1987.

My Time Organizing on Campus Against Apartheid in South Africa

Black internationalism broadened our politics of solidarity.
A portrait of Major Ridge, an older Cherokee man.
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Revealed Through a Mountain of Paperwork

As the nation’s highest court debated Native sovereignty, I was in the archives, uncovering family stories entwined with those debates.
Mary Baker Eddy and a church.

Christian Science as Jewish Tradition

Why did so many American Jewish women find Christian Science appealing?
C. G. Garrett photographed with five Black contemporaries outside of a building in Columbia, South Carolina.

Riding With Mr. Washington

How my great-grandfather invented himself at the end of Reconstruction.
James Baldwin

Racism, Jazz, and James Baldwin’s “Sonny Blues”

Baldwin wrote with the knowledge that change would be hard and slow to achieve.
Computer terminal with BASIC code on screen, surrounded by a cartoon potion, cauldron, and lips wearing a wizard's hat, in a magical lair.

Back to BASIC—the Most Consequential Programming Language in the History of Computing

Coding was a preserve of elites, until BASIC hit the streets.
A statue depicting a traveler of the Great Migration.

It’s OK If the Story of Black Americans Begins Right Here on This Land

America should be ashamed of slavery, but black Americans do not bear the burden of shame.
Daveed Diggs and Lin Manuel Miranda on stage in the musical Hamilton.

Notes Toward an Essay on Imagining Thomas Jefferson Watching a Performance of the Musical "Hamilton"

"But he'd have to acknowledge that the soul of his country is southern; the soul of his country is black."
summer campers around a fire
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Around the Campfire with Paul Robeson

The history of Camp Wo-Chi-Ca tells a largely overlooked story about left-wing politics and Black culture.
A 1960s doctor's office procedure room.

One Woman's Abortion

In 1965, eight years before Roe v. Wade, an anonymous woman described the steps she took to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.
Lieutenant William Calley leaving court with his attorney George Latimer.

Tracking Down Lieutenant Calley

How I learned the story of the My Lai Massacre.
Sera Koulabdara and four members of a Laos demining team scanning the ground in grassy area.

Fifty Years of Living with America’s Unexploded Bombs

Laos was collateral damage in the U.S.' secret war. The wounds are visible in the land and in generations still waiting on justice.
A collection of supplies inside of a fallout shelter.

Nine Hot Weeks, with Misgivings

Cataloguing basement fallout shelters in the summer of 1967.
A woman in a bathing suit cooling off from an open fire hydrant.

Arthur Miller on Sweltering Summers Before Air-Conditioning

The city in summer floated in a daze that moved otherwise sensible people to repeat endlessly the brainless greeting “Hot enough for ya?”
A photograph of the author's brother, Steve, playing pool.

Imperfecta

Her brother’s disease leads a writer to challenge how we conceive of human abnormality in the emerging era of gene editing.
Border patrol agents in a physical training.

From Suspect to Perpetrato

How history shaped the modern U.S. Border Patrol agent.
A drawing of a tent underneath stylized constellations depicting a growth chart, a graduation cap, and a dollar sign.

Summer Camp and Parenting Panics

Camps once sold a story about social improvement. Now we just can’t conceive of an unscheduled moment.
The logout screen for "The Cave," the author's 1990s-era bulletin board system.

The Lost Civilization of Dial-Up Bulletin Board Systems

A former systems operator logs back in to the original computer-based social network.
A Black person points to Neshoba county on a map of Mississippi.

The Lynching That Sent My Family North

How we rediscovered the tragedy in Mississippi that ushered us into the Great Migration.
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Should a Colombian Buy a Banjo?

How preparation for a big purchase turned into an adventure through history.
Rows of shelves in a historical archive.

Archival Shouting

Silence and volume in collections and institutions.
Nini Nguyen and a Bahn Mi sandwich.

How the Vietnamese Made Their Mark on Cajun Cuisine

Top Chef contestant Nini Nguyen shares the history of the Viet diaspora and how two cultures combined to create a whole new delicious Southern flavor.
Statue of Paul Revere on Boston's Freedom Trail.

On the Trail—to Freedom?

Touring the palimpsests of cities.
The Three Strikes You’re Out fishing crew : several older Black man posing and smiling around a large fish.

Fish Hacks

Often dismissed as a “trash fish,” the porgy is an anchor of Black maritime culture.
Skyscraper construction workers at lunch photo, but sitting atop a web search bar.

Social Media Is Not What Killed the Web

Better browsers made things worse.
Four typewriters including the Nazi-built Urania model.

Why the World of Typewriter Collectors Splits Down the Middle When These Machines Come Up for Sale

In this new hobby, I found so many stories.
J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Oppenheimer, Nullified and Vindicated

The inventor of the atomic bomb, the subject of Christopher Nolan’s new film, was the chief celebrity victim of the national trauma known as McCarthyism.
Image from the filmstrip, showing a grieved woman with her head in her hands, being comforted by a man standing beside her

Uncle Tom’s Cabin in the Hands of the Red Scared

Again and again, a fervant British anticommunist's filmstrip of the novel shows images of women in states of distress.
The Fulton Fish Market.

When Your Childhood Belongs to Everyone: Growing Up in a Manhattan That Changed Forever on 9/11

Loft life above the Fulton Fish Market and the day that everything changed.
Ferris wheel at Cony Island.
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Spending My Free Time Researching Free Time

One academic tells the story behind his new book -- and his next one.
A photograph of the Arizona desert at sunset with cacti in the foreground.

I Want Settlers To Be Dislodged From the Comfort of Guilt

My ancestors were the good whites, or at least that’s what I’ve always wanted to believe.
A high school yearbook photo of Elizabeth Prewitt.

I Never Saw the System

As a white teenager in Charlotte, Elizabeth Prewitt saw mandatory school busing as a personal annoyance. Going to an integrated high school changed that.
"The Book of Jewish Food" by Claudia Roden.

The Desk Dispatch: Layla Schlack on What Jewish Food Means to Her

"Frustratingly, Talmudically, Jewish food is simply what Jews eat," she writes.
Illustration by Yannick Lowery. A drawing of watermelons between hills and valleys

Tell Me Why the Watermelon Grows

Throughout its botanical, cultural, and social history, the watermelon has been a vehicle for our ideas about community, survival, and what we owe the future.
Nicki Minaj and the autobiography of Malcolm X written by Alex Haley.

It’s Bigger Than Hip-Hop

We cannot understand the last fifty years of U.S. history—certainly not the first thing about Black history—without studying the emergence and evolution of rap.
Sunrise over the Appalachian Mountains

Thicker Than Water: A Brief History of Family Violence in Appalachian Kentucky

Knowing I come from people who lived hard lives and endured terrible things is difficult. Knowing that I come from someone who ruined lives haunts me.
A photograph of four people on donkeys from the late 1800s.

A Question of Legacy

Some of my ancestors had money, and some held awful beliefs. I set out to investigate what I once stood to inherit.
Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising their fists on the Olympic podium in 1968.

Be Realistic: Demand the Impossible

The revolutionaries of 1968 didn't succeed, but the world still needs turning upside down.
Two women walking side-by-side.

Not White But Not (Entirely) Black

On the complex history of “passing” in America.
Collage of a shirtless performer and a cutaway image of an egg.

My Generation

Anthem for a forgotten cohort.
Family photo.

Where Do Children’s Earliest Memories Go?

Our first three years are usually a blur and we don’t remember much before age seven. What are we hiding from ourselves?
Henry Kissinger in the table in the White House situation room.

Kissinger, Me, and the Lies of the Master

‘Off off the record’ with the man who secretly taped our telephone calls.
The aftermath of U.S. bombs in Neak Luong, Cambodia, on Aug. 7, 1973.

Kissinger's Bombings Likely Killed Hundreds of Thousands of Cambodians and Set Path for Khmer Rouge

A Cambodian scholar who fled the Khmer Rouge as a child writes about the legacy of Henry Kissinger, who died at the age of 100 on Nov 28, 2023.
Group of African-American World War I veterans

The Meaning of ‘Sir’ and ‘Ma’am’

“I’d assumed this practice was a manifestation of military decorum.”
Collage of Black woman and marriage certificate.

Why Is America Afraid of Black History?

No one should fear a history that asks a country to live up to its highest ideals.
The Cross-Bronx Expressway, April 1971. Photo by Dan McCoy/Environmental Protection Agency/National Archives

How the New York of Robert Moses Shaped my Father’s Health

My dad grew up in Robert Moses’s New York City. His story is a testament to how urban planning shapes countless lives.
Shemp Howard and Tiny Brauer in "Fling in the Ring"

The House Next Door to the Stooges

A visit to the old neighborhood.
Sparkles in light coming through windows of an empty room.

Signs of Ghosts

What do we do when there are whole cities full of ghosts, each one with their own unique story to tell, each one with something left undone?
A Newton's Cradle where a black ball prepares to swing into 4 white ones.

Black Success, White Backlash

Black prosperity has provoked white resentment that has led to the undoing of policies that have nurtured Black advancement.
Crowd holding shirts with names of Triangle Fire victims

A Memorial Restores Humanity To The 146 Ghosts of the Triangle Fire

Over a century after one of New York City’s deadliest industrial accidents, the names of its victims, most of them women, are being enshrined in steel.
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