Thirteenth Amendment

Critiques of the Thirteenth Amendment have roots in a long history of activists who understood the imprisonment of Black people as a type of slavery.

On the 150th anniversary of the ratification of the 13th Amendment, we should reflect on the arduous battle to rid the nation once and for all of the ‘peculiar institution.’

The amendment, which brought an end to slavery in the U.S., could be used to begin a national debate on reparations.

Popular accounts often trace the origins of forced penal labor to the post-Civil War South. But a vast system of forced penal labor existed in the antebellum North.

Two new books ask us to shift our attention away from the white vigilantes of Jim Crow and instead focus on what it meant for the survivors.

Was abolition intended as a perpetuation of slavery by other means?

Companies across the South profited off the forced labor of people in prison after the Civil War – a racist system known as convict leasing.

Did the Confederacy have a constitutional right to secede? And did Lincoln violate the Constitution in forcing them back into the Union and freeing the slaves?

Addressing systemic racism and state violence is not enough.

What the Dred Scott v. Sandford case meant for black citizenship.

This year’s Juneteenth commemorations must take a deeper look at the history of Black self-liberation to understand what emancipation really means.

Daryl Michael Scott on propaganda and myth from ‘The 1619 Project’ to Trumpism.

How American policing grew out of efforts to control the labor of poor and enslaved people.

While they advanced African American rights, they had serious flaws, Eric Foner writes.

A new study suggests that high school students lack a basic knowledge of the role slavery played in shaping the United States.

"The Color of Law" offers an indicting critique of the progressive agenda.

During Reconstruction, elites used racist appeals to silence calls for redistribution and worker empowerment.

Despite Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, a Colorado state judge stretches the word “officer,” permitting him to remain on the state’s ballot.

While documented revolts of enslaved persons in New Jersey aren’t abundant, some examples speak to the spirit of resistance among African people held captive.

On the terror that filled the void left by the retreat of federal authority in the South.