Excerpts

Curated stories from around the web.
New on Bunk
Black and white photo of a charity ball, 1929

The Oppressed Need Justice, Not Charity

1913 article, never before republished, about why the charity balls of the rich will never deliver justice for the poor.
J. Edgar Hoover (center) with President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, February 23, 1961.

J. Edgar Hoover Tried to Destroy the Left — and Liberals Enabled Him

The author of a new biography explains how liberals played an important role in enabling Hoover’s antidemocratic crusade.
Mike Lawler, Republican candidate for New York's 17th Congressional District.
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The GOP Can Thank Suburban N.Y. For its Slim Control of The House

How a red wave in a solidly blue state helped tip the balance.
A woman sweeping the wood floor of a sparse room.

In the 1620s, Plymouth Plantation Had its Own #MeToo Moment

An ex-minister named John Lyford arrived at the nascent colony hoping for a fresh start. But he couldn’t escape his past.
Illustration of African American Civil War soldier examining newspaper by torchlight as a Black family watches.

On War and U.S. Slavery: Enslaved Black Women’s Experiences

Enslaved women’s experiences with war must be extended to include the everyday warfare of slavery.
Welder-trainee Josie Lucille Owens plies her trade on the SS George Washington Carver at the Kaiser Shipyards in Richmond, CA, 1943.
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Toxic Legacies of WWII: Pollution and Segregation

Wartime production led to environmental and social injustices, polluting land and bodies in ways that continue to shape public policy and race relations.
Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole standing alongside an elephant on Capitol Hill, 1995.

Myths of Doom

Can the origins of today’s right be traced to the 1990s?
White students, including Jerry Jones, at Arkansas' North Little Rock High blocked the doors of the school Sept. 9, 1957, denying access to six Black students.

Jerry Jones Helped Transform the NFL, Except When It Comes To Race

Decades after the segregation battles of his youth, Jerry Jones has modernized the NFL’s revenue model but hasn’t hired a Black head coach.
Lee Elder
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Black Champions: Interview with Lee Elder

His experiences with racism and golf, from death threats in Memphis to breaking the sporting color barrier in South Africa.
Rebecca, living the life at the 1927 White House Easter Egg Roll, with first lady Grace Coolidge.

When Rebecca the Raccoon Ruled the White House

Since we have new presidential pets, Champ and Major, we take a quick look back at one of the nation’s most famous four-legged White House inhabitants.
Diaga Müller at the Onkel Toms Hütte U-Bahn station in Berlin.

A Berlin Subway Stop is Called ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’ Some Black Germans Want Change.

Black Germans have used activism and scholarship to shed light on what they describe as Germany’s racist fascination with the American South.
Actor John Turturro and his grandmother.

My Grandmother’s Botched Abortion Transformed Three Generations

Her death was listed as ‘manic depressive psychosis,’ and it sent five of her six children to orphanages.
A political cartoon representing New Deal programs as children dancing around President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Timothy Shenk’s ‘Realigners’

Since the 18th century, American politics has functioned via coalitions between competing factions. Can alliances survive today’s partisan climate?
Portrait of Alexis de Tocqueville

‘A Great Democratic Revolution’

Alexis de Tocqueville left France to study the American prison system and returned with the material that would become “Democracy in America.”
Painting of classical ruins, called the 'Temple of Aphaea, Aegina,' by John Rollin Tilton.

18th- and 19th-Century Americans of All Races, Classes & Genders Looked to the Ancient Mediterranean for Inspiration

In a new land, the ancient past held special meaning.
Woman standing on a wall of books, holding a megaphone, 1919.

Choice Reading

Nineteenth-century New York City was filled with books, bibliophilia, and marginalia.
Lutiant LaVoye

Searching for Lutiant: An American Indian Nurse Navigates a Pandemic

A 1918 letter sent a historian diving into the archives to learn more about its author.
J. Edgar Hoover in 1924.

How J. Edgar Hoover Went From Hero to Villain

Before his abuses of power were exposed, he was celebrated as a scourge of Nazis, Communists, and subversives.
Painting, James Daugherty, "Thanksgiving Greetings."

You Cannot Give Thanks for What Is Stolen

American artists were instrumental in propagating the false narrative of Thanksgiving, a deliberate erasure of violence against Indigenous peoples.
Fire truck at scene of California wildfire
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What If Environmental Damage Is A Form of Capitalist Sabotage?

Worker sabotage is a weapon of the weak, but capitalist sabotage causes much greater damage.
Painting of the first Thanksgiving

The First Thanksgiving is a Key Chapter in America's Origin Story

What happened in Virginia four months later mattered much more.
JFK and Jacqueline in the convertible limousine in Dallas.

A Weekend in Dallas

Revisiting political assassinations.
Jalyn Hall (left) as Emmett Till and Danielle Deadwyler (right) as Mamie Till Bradley in the movie Till.

Two Recent Movies Help Us Connect the Dots Between Jim Crow and Fascism

With Kanye and Kyrie Irving dominating the news, the connections between victims of white supremacy are more relevant than ever.
Drawing of aerial view of vast room of cubicles.

The 20-Year Boondoggle

The Department of Homeland Security was supposed to rally nearly two dozen agencies together in a streamlined approach to protecting the country. So what the hell happened?
Sarah L. Murphy teaches children in a two-room schoolhouse in Rockmart, Ga. on June 23, 1950.

The Ugly Backlash to Brown v. Board of Ed That No One Talks About

The 1954 Supreme Court ruling was hailed as a victory for desegregation. But protracted white resistance decimated the pipeline of Black principals and teachers.
The FTX Arena.
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FTX’s Downfall Shows the Problems Exposed by Enron Have Only Gotten Worse

Social media makes it even easier to sell the aura of success that was pivotal to both companies.
Oscar Robertson
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Black Champions: Interview with Oscar Robertson

On coaches' unequal treatment of African American college basketball players.
Ollie Brown holding Rolling Stone magazine.

What Was the Music Critic?

A new book exalts the heyday of music magazines, when electric prose reigned and egos collided.
Diorama of a cluster of houses and people along a waterfront, with a ship in the foreground.

On the Rich, Hidden History of the Banjo

The banjo did not exist before it was created by the hands of enslaved people in the New World.
KKK march overlaid on J. Edgar Hoover

How Hoover Took Down the Klan

The FBI’s successful campaign against white supremacists is also a cautionary tale.
The Police Beat Algorithm, along with its computational key. Illustrated by Kelly Chudler.

The 1960s Experiment That Created Today’s Biased Police Surveillance

The Police Beat Algorithm’s outputs were not so much predictive of future crime as they were self-fulfilling prophesies.
Names, dates, and statistics written on lined notebook paper.

The Forgotten Men Behind the Ideas That Changed Baseball

Solving baseball’s enduring puzzles, to those who could even see them, was its own reward. They changed everything but were never given their due.
Corner store in Detroit.

Murder At the Corner Store: Immigrant Merchants and Law and Order Politics in Postwar Detroit

With seventeen holdups in the past few months, something had to be done. “We will talk to the mayor and the police commissioner. We need more protection".
Incumbent Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and his wife, Casey, wave from behind a podium.
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Miami Once Provided a Model for Diversity. Now DeSantis Won It Big.

The county once championed a divisive, but productive, method of training professionals to deal with diversity.
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Black Champions: Interview with Curt Flood

On traveling through the Jim Crow south as the sole Black athlete on a baseball team.
Black and white photograph of William Still, sitting, pasted against a blue tinted backdrop of a U.S. state map

The Forgotten Father of the Underground Railroad

The author of a book about William Still unearths new details about the leading Black abolitionist—and reflects on his lost legacy.
Jim Brown.
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Black Champions: Interview with Jim Brown

On inclusion of African American athletes in college sports.
Photograph of Donald Trump smiling and giving a thumbs up, with Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr. behind him.
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A New Documentary Exposes the Truth About the Religious Right

It’s a political movement willing to align with anyone to win.
Althea Gibson with a tennis racket on her lap.
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Black Champions: Interview with Althea Gibson

How being introverted and focused on work helped an athlete navigate a prejudiced sports culture.
Lieutenant Governor Garlin Gilchrist, left, holding up hands with Governor Gretchen Whitmer, right, both smiling.
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Michigan Democrats Can Reignite Their State’s Vaunted Labor Tradition

A historic victory in the midterm elections will let Democrats repeal the state’s right-to-work laws and return to its labor roots.
Candy corn.

Where Our Love/Hate Relationship With Candy Corn Comes From

Halloween's most iconic candy (and its most polarizing) used to be a year-round snack. Then came the candy corn explosion.
Rembrandt Peale's portrait of Thomas Jefferson wearing a simple black coat.

Dressing Down for the Presidency

Thomas Jefferson's republican simplicity.
A GOP Elephant locked up in a padded cell.

It Didn’t Start with Trump: The Decades-Long Saga of How the GOP Went Crazy

The modern Republican Party has always exploited and encouraged extremism.
Mashpee Wampanoag woman puts away traditional clothing in a wetu (wood-framed building).

This Tribe Helped the Pilgrims Survive for Their First Thanksgiving. They Still Regret It.

Long marginalized and misrepresented in U.S. history, the Wampanoags are bracing for the 400th anniversary of the first Pilgrim Thanksgiving in 1621.
Baby in an old wicker stroller.
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The Imperative to Buy the Best Stroller

The baby stroller is only the most visible symbol of the ethos of consumer capitalism that saturates American pregnancy and parenthood.
Twentieth-century porcelain dolls made by German company Armand Marseille

How Porcelain Dolls Became the Ultimate Victorian Status Symbol

Class-obsessed consumers found the cold, hard and highly breakable figurines irresistible
Charlie Brown and his friends at a store with a Christmas sale.

When Christmas Started Creeping

Christmas starts earlier every year — or does it?
Jackie Robinson wearing his baseball uniform.

Revisiting the Legacy of Jackie Robinson

The Christian, the athlete, and the activist.
Image of the "I Voted" sticker.

A Brief History of the "I Voted" Sticker

Who designed the first sticker? And does anyone care about it anymore?
Dorothea and Gladys Cromwell serving French troops outside the Cantine des Deux Drapeaux in Châlons-sur-Marne.
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Strange, Inglorious, Humble Things

The Cromwell twins fled the constrictions of high society for the freedoms of the literary world. Ravenous for greater purpose, the twins then went to war.
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