Excerpts

Six decades ago, Gordon Parks, Life magazine’s first black photographer, revolutionized what a crime photo could look like.

Democrats’ policies aim to address societal problems to make fascism and socialism less attractive.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman authored the beloved short story "The Yellow Wallpaper," but also supported eugenics and nativism.

The individualization of risk that we often think of as part of neoliberalism already existed strongly in the early 20th century.

The city will memorialize part of its darkest history at the refurnished Walnut Street Bridge.

One Texas Republican state House member wants to create a “patriotic” education project to celebrate the Lone Star State—and whitewash its ugly past.

New Jersey was known as the slave state of the North, and our early economy was built on unpaid labor.

At the first hint the virus was receding, people pushed to get life back to normal. Unfortunately another surge of the disease followed.

Was this new age spurred by the ideals of the Enlightenment or by the imperatives of global warfare?

A COVID memorial will have to commemorate shame and failure as well as grief and bravery.

Declassified documents show the State Department had ample forewarning that a coup was being plotted, and that human rights violations would be committed.

It's the health inequities of today, not the infamous "Tuskegee Study," that explain many Black people's distrust of the American health system.

She also acted as a muse to artist Man Ray, with whom she briefly led a relationship.

What's the matter with left-populism? A review of Thomas Frank's "The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism."

Mabel Ping-Hua Lee fought for the rights of women on two sides of the world.

Divisions in society and religion that still exist today resulted from the "Great Awakenings" of the 18th Century.

A web-based visualization platform for exploring the 170,000 photos taken by U.S. government agencies during the Great Depression.

The story of medical sterilization, which in many cases was disguised as a routine appendectomy surgery.

Oregon became ground zero of America’s racial reckoning protests last summer. But activists say it doesn’t know its own history.

An enslaved woman who jumped from a building in 1815 is later revealed to be the plaintiff in a successful lawsuit for her freedom.

A wrenching new book recounts the bloodiest prison battle in our history.

The $10 million initiative will provide housing and mortgage assistance to address discrimination.

The struggle for autonomy and representation has been full of gains followed by setbacks.

Musicians are in peril, at the mercy of giant monopolies that profit off their work.

Understanding this history helps make the case for D.C. as the 51st state.

The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted racial disparities with roots in the past.

On L.A. solidarity and the Black radical tradition.

On deindustrialization, the care economy, and the living legacies of the industrial workers’ movement.

For poet Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, as for the Black Romantics, history is the repetition of anti-Black violence that has yet to be abolished.

While "meds and eds" have powered urban economies, they haven't been the gateway out of poverty that many hoped.

The filibuster, invented to uphold slavery, must be eliminated if Democrats hope to deliver progressive legislation.

A conversation about whether or not the legacy of liberty can break away from racial exclusion and domination.

The turmoil of the coronavirus pandemic could push the amendment across the finish line after a century of work.

The most significant impact of the Senate’s super majority rules.

Before beanie babies and Pogs, small rectangles of cardboard were the errant investments of a stratifying American society.

Are the evangelicals who voted for Trump and stormed the Capitol in his defense part of the fringe of evangelicalism, or the core?

Its embrace of an ignominious president is forcing a long-overdue reckoning with the movement’s embrace of white supremacy and illiberal politics.

A stereotype? Definitely. Problematic? You bet. But many Mexican Americans still love the cartoon character.

Just because the filibuster wasn't created to promote racial slavery doesn't mean there’s no good argument against it.

Toward the end of WWI, as the U.S. peddled Liberty Bonds, a goldfish dealer bred a stars-and-stripes-colored carp: a living, swimming embodiment of patriotism.

Why do most chroniclers of LBJ’s presidency miss the centrality and influence of the first lady?

Maps of historic housing discrimination show how neighborhoods that suffered redlining in the 1930s face a far higher risk of flooding today.

Three hundred years ago, Cotton Mather starred in a debate about treating smallpox that tore Boston apart.

A century ago, few Americans had any idea how much they weighed. Here’s why that changed so dramatically.

After a recent surge in anti-Asian attacks, the narrative quickly turned to hostilities between Black and Asian American communities.

Infrastructure plans are always political. The key is being inclusive and focusing on the public good.

As in the 1960s, the nation today stands at a turning point.

The history of the ADL and AJC reveals that they were created to consolidate the power of wealthy men and stifle the grassroots left.

White evangelicals have long been attracted to the conservative media's militant politics and regressive gender roles.

Before People was the juggernaut of the celebrity media, it was a magazine “about people.”