Excerpts

Curated stories from around the web.
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Article about the KKK from an old copy of the Atlantic

What The Atlantic Got Wrong About Reconstruction

In 1901, a series of articles took a dim view of the era, and of the idea that all Americans ought to participate in the democratic process.
Young Lords Party march to the UN.

The Young Lords' Radical Fight for Environmental Justice

Johanna Fernández's new book on the Young Lords sheds light on the group's fight for clean streets and public health in 1960s New York City.
Gladys Knight and the Pips performing on "The Ed Sullivan Show"

The Misunderstood Talent of Gladys Knight

Gladys Knight and the Pips have always been more beloved by fans than by music historians, but they are essential to the evolution of soul.
Woman with fist raised and logo for "Mapping the Movimiento" project.

Mapping the Movimiento

Places and people in the struggle for Mexican American Civil Rights in San Antonio.
Enslaved people working on South Carolina Plantation.

A Historian Complicates the Racial Divide

"African Founders" corrects some of the ideological uses of Black American history.
Conference of Studio Unions' months-long strike against Hollywood studios in 1945.

How Hollywood’s Black Friday Strike Changed Labor Across America

A 1945 union vs. studios battle set off broad right-wing hysteria—its lessons should resonate today.

The Men Who Started the War

John Brown and the Secret Six—the abolitionists who funded the raid on Harpers Ferry—confronted a question as old as America: When is violence justified?
A Historic American Buildings Survey photograph of a house being demolished.

Before the Wrecking Ball Swung

The Historic American Building Survey's mission to photograph important architecture before its demolition.
Texas Mission bell.

A Bell's Journey Through Texas History

For those in later years, the bell’s value lay not in its powerful sound, but in its visual representation.
Spectrum of color from red to blue.

A Little Spectrum-y

What the autism diagnosis says about you.
An advertisement for Bayer aspirin and heroin.

Treating the (Last) Pandemic

Heroin, Aspirin, and The Spanish Flu.
Cars entering Holland Tunnel on Broome Street in New York City, 1927.

It’s Been 100 Years Since Cars Drove Pedestrians Off The Roads

One hundred years ago roadbuilder Edward J. Mehren wrote that streets, should be redesigned for the utility of motorists alone.
Two Choctaw men

Choctaw Confederates

Some Native Americans chose to fight for the Southern cause.
Painting depicting the Trail of Tears.

Native Removal Prior to the Indian Removal Act of 1830

To understand westward expansion, the Trail of Tears, the history of Manifest Destiny, and the impacts to Native Americans, one must understand its buildup.
A crowd of tourist superimposed over images of Salem attractions and a cemetery.

Salem’s Unholy Bargain: How Tragedy Became an Attraction

Is the cost worth the payoff?
Sister Rosetta Tharpe holding a guitar

Amazing Base: A Singer Wed in a D.C. Ballpark, and 19,000 Paid to Attend

Attendees packed D.C.’s Griffith Stadium in 1951 for the wedding spectacular of gospel singer Rosetta Tharpe, who’s now the subject of a show at Ford's Theatre.
A women's liberation group marches in Boston on April 17, 1971.

The Reproductive Rights Movement Has Radical Roots

Abortion rights in the US were won in the 1970s thanks to militant feminist groups. As those rights are repealed, the fight must return to the streets.
Photographs of Lee Harvey Oswald and of George Joannides.

What Really Happened to JFK?

One thing’s for sure: The CIA doesn’t want you to know.
Chainlink fence in a desert with a danger sign warning of arsenic poison

The Toxic Legacy of the Gold Rush

Almost 175 years after the Gold Rush began, Californians are left holding the bag for thousands of abandoned mines.
Photo of a homeless person sleeping on the street wrapped in a blanket on top of cardboard.
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A Blueprint From History for Tackling Homelessness

During the New Deal, the U.S. knew that economic recovery depended upon housing.
An American World War II veteran salutes on a beach during the 1994 anniversary commemorations for the invasion of Normandy.

Let’s Give Black World War II Vets What We Promised

The G.I. Bill created a prosperous middle class that was altogether too white.
A white mob poses for a photograph in front of the charred remains of the Daily Record building they burned.

Majority-Black Wilmington, N.C., Fell to White Mob’s Coup 125 Years Ago

The 1898 Wilmington massacre overthrew the elected government in the majority-Black city, killed many Black residents and torched a Black-run newspaper.
A lithograph of Phillis Wheatley and the first page of her book, "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral."

Phillis Wheatley’s “Mrs. W—”: Identifying the Woman Who Inspired “Ode to Neptune”

Who was that traveler? And what did she signify to the poet?
A view of the campus of New College of Florida in Sarasota, Fla,. on Jan. 19, 2023.
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The History Behind the Right's Effort to Take Over Universities

The right has had qualms about universities since the 1930s.
A building with Amazon's logo
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How Public Opinion May Decide the FTC Amazon Antitrust Suit

In the 1920s, electricity monopolies survived an antitrust investigation because they had won over the public.
Shrapnel damage to an exterior of a home in Rehovot near Tel Aviv, Israel.
partner

The Problem With America's Reagan-Era Approach to Terrorism

While condemning terrorism should be a no-brainer, "moral clarity" has not guaranteed sound U.S. counterterrorism policy.
A Mexican family stands next to the border wall between Mexico and the United States, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico on May 23, 2017.
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America’s Border Wall Is Bipartisan

Biden continues a tradition of building fences at the US-Mexico border that long precedes Donald Trump.
Women looting a bakery during the Richmond Bread Riot.

What Happened at the Richmond Bread Riot?

The Richmond Bread Riot broke out during the Civil War when working-class women in the South became fed up with food shortages.
Grandmaster Flash, DJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa and Chuck D.
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Hip-Hop's Black Caribbean Roots

The relationship between the DJ and his MC derived from a Jamaican “toasting” tradition and its related “sound clash” culture.
ACT UP protesters demanding the release of experimental medication for those living with HIV/AIDS.

Patient Rights Groups Are Learning the Wrong Lessons From ACT UP

These groups are invoking ACT UP's legacy to push for further deregulation of the FDA. Here's why they're wrong.
Members of the Wu-Tang Clan.

'Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)' Turns 30

How the album pays homage to hip-hop's mythical and martial arts origins.
Onions.

A Brief History of Onions in America

On ramps, xonacatl, skunk eggs and more.
Hank Williams Jr.

Whose Country?

It is impossible to talk about the blues and country without talking about race, authenticity, and contemporary America’s relationship to its past.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Conservatives’ Favorite Legal Doctrine Crashes Into Reality

Originalism is all the rage on the right, but a gun case at the Supreme Court is exposing its absurdity—even to the conservative justices.
Ohio abortion rights activists.
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The Problem With the Abortion-Rights Move That Worked in Ohio

History shows that activists can win statewide fights—but that the strategy might be unsustainable long-term.

Jimmy Carter Stood up for Palestinians. Why Won’t Today’s Democrats?

At the height of George W. Bush’s War on Terror, Jimmy Carter had the courage to call out Israel for its human rights abuses.
George C. Wolfe.

George C. Wolfe Would Not Be Dismissed

A conversation with the longtime director about “Rustin,” growing up in Kentucky, and putting on a show.
Display selling nuts

“Girls, We Can’t Lose!”: In 1930s St Louis, Black Women Workers Went on Strike and Won

During the Great Depression, St. Louis's Funsten Nut Factory was racially divided. But Black workers went on strike — and got their white coworkers to join them.

The War on Ecoterror

Environmental radicalism, left and right.
Calculating machines.

Plantations, Computers, and Industrial Control

The proto-Taylorist methods of worker control Charles Babbage encoded into his calculating engines have origins in plantation management.
Montana poster from the Works Projects Administration.

How WPA State Guides Fused the Essential and the Eccentric

Touring the American soul.
Friedrich Hayek listens to the president of the Centro de Estudios Públicos in Chile, Jorge Cauas, speak in April 1981.

Neoliberal Economists Like Milton Friedman Cheered on Augusto Pinochet’s Dictatorship

Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman helped devise Pinochet's economic agenda and endorsed the brutal repression that was needed to force it through.
Woman leading a group of twelve other women in floor exercises.

Fit Nation

A conversation about "the gains and pains of America’s exercise obsession."
Painting Romania Unchained.

Where Identity Politics Actually Comes From

Nationalism, not postmodernism, is the fount of today's politics of recognition.
Loggers standing next to logs floating down a river in the Oregon forests

Water Logs

Log drivers once steered loose timber on rivers across America before railroad expansion put such shepherds out of work.
Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Voices from the Wilderness

The actual history of New Deal policies provides little evidence that it was a rollicking success.
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.
Bayard Rustin speaking at an event.

Eclipsed in His Era, Bayard Rustin Gets to Shine in Ours

The civil-rights mastermind was sidelined by his own movement. Now he’s back in the spotlight. What can we learn from his strategies of resistance?
Shemp Howard and Tiny Brauer in "Fling in the Ring"

The House Next Door to the Stooges

A visit to the old neighborhood.
Cover of the book "24/7 Politics," featuring photos of Nixon and Carter.

The Battlefields of Cable

How cable TV transformed politics—and how politics transformed cable TV.
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