Excerpts

Sentimental or “fancy” valentines, as they were called, were harbingers of hope, fondness, and desire.

A rally at Faneuil Hall in support of the Fourteenth Amendment and congressional investigation of southern disfranchisement.

King understood the perils of submerged racism.

Law enforcement and the urban-rural divide.

From Claudio Saunt's Cundill Prize-nominated "Unworthy Republic."

A man who wants everyone to know his views explains why he’s against voting in secret.

Failures inspire distrust of pollsters and calls for more shoe-leather reporting. But by the next election, we always come running back.

Winning the vote for women was a mighty struggle. Securing full liberation for women of color was no less daunting

Black abolitionist David Ruggles opened the first Black-owned bookstore in 1834, pointing the way to freedom—in more ways than one.

2020 was full of efforts to archive photos and artifacts of the pandemic — an impulse born of a sense of witnessing history, and a desire to speak to the future.

From Vincent Brown's Cundill Prize-nominated "Tacky’s Revolt."

“Start-ups: they need philosophers, political theorists, historians, poets. Critics.”

The United States’ unofficial anthem, a hymn of love of country.

For decades, a white woman’s memoir shaped our understanding of America’s first Black poet. Does a new book change the story?

The activist did not learn about her right to vote until she was 44, but once she did, she vigorously fought for black voting rights

The enduring lesson of American history is that the republic is always in danger when white supremacist sedition and violence escape justice.

How today's protests are struggling to reclaim the vision of the great abolitionist leader.

Ida B. Wells reported on lynching in the South, risking her own safety.

A cat named Miss Pussy! A racist parrot! Benjamin Harrison’s possums, which he later ate!

Jacob Lawrence was one of twentieth-century America’s most celebrated black artists.

What if chairs could shift our state of consciousness, transporting the imagination into distant landscapes and ecstatic experiences, both religious and erotic?

The Mic-O-Say was founded in 1925, under the leadership of Harold Roe Bartle, a two-term Kansas City mayor known in his social circles as ‘Chief.’

The Super Bowl might be a capitalist bonanza — but its creation was the ultimate socialist act.

The Vaudeville star was at the height of her fame in Europe when WWII struck, and used her status for the allies.

Joel Rhone reviews Eddie Glaude Jr.’s Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and its Urgent Lessons for Our Own

Allen Barra reviews Mark Kram Jr.’s Smokin’ Joe, a biography of Joe Frazier.

An abstract expressionist and master of collage, an intellectual and outspoken activist, Bearden evolved as much as his times did.

A review of "Set The Night on Fire", an inspiring book that points to a new generation of activists who remain unbowed by conservative historiographies.

In 1969, an activist set out to build an African-American metropolis from scratch. What would have happened if Soul City had succeeded?

The acclaimed reformer stoked the white, middle-class feminist movement and brought critical understanding to a “problem that had no name”

Sixty years ago, many GOP leaders resisted radicals in their ranks. Now they’re not even trying.

Such women have long pushed American politics to the right, and their ideas have become mainstream.

From poisoned monks and nuclear bombs to the “transfermium wars,” mapping the atomic world hasn’t been easy.

By making health care broadly available, the government helps ensure our freedom.

But it probably won’t be the savior some expect.

How brutal outlaws became romanticized.

Nostalgia is not merely reductive; it is also productive.

Since the release of "Future Shock" 50 years ago, the allure of speculative nonfiction has remained the same: We all want to know what’s coming next.

Pirates did roam the Gulf Coast, but more myths than facts have inspired the regional folklore.

A stroll through the archives of Editor & Publisher shows an industry with moments of glory and shame — and evidence that not all of today's problems are new.

The 1868 Election was the first one in which hundreds of thousands of African American men voted. It also began an unfortunate history of voter suppression.

A story of how Louis Wain single handedly made cats adored by Victorian society through to modern day.

A recent history centers the Lakota and the vast territory they controlled in the story of the formation of the United States.

The panic of 1837 was a financial crisis in the United States that triggered a multi-year economic depression.

Alejandro Mayorkas and the limits of liberal law-and-order immigration politics.

The cultural contradictions of Call of Duty.

Thousands of New York City students staged a one-day boycott to protest segregation – and it barely made the history books.

The literature that arose from the influenza pandemic speaks to our current moment in profound ways, offering connections in the exact realms where art excels.

The era of anti-fascist struggle was a crucial moment for Black radicals of all stripes.

Jane Dailey considers the power of the law to reinforce racism.