civil rights — Bunk History

Sections of the US Constitution torn to be used as pennants.

Is the United States Too Devoted to the Constitution?

A new book argues that worship of the Constitution has distorted our politics.

by John Fabian Witt via The New Republic on June 24, 2024

Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Lyndon B. Johnson.

The Border Presidents and Civil Rights

Three US presidents from the South’s borders—Truman, Eisenhower, and Johnson—worked against Southern politicians to support civil and voting rights.

by David Goldfield, Matthew Wills via JSTOR Daily on March 31, 2024

Black men and women in Hilton Head, South Carolina, after the Civil War.

The United States' First Civil Rights Movement

A new history charts the radical agitation around Black rights and freedom back to the early nineteenth century.

by Kellie Carter Jackson via The Nation on June 16, 2021

Engraving of freedmen voting in New Orleans, 1867

Forging an Early Black Politics

The pre-Civil War North was a landscape not of unremitting white supremacy but of persistent struggles over racial justice by both Blacks and whites.

by Sean Wilentz via New York Review of Books on June 11, 2021

Illustration of a gavel by Vahram Muradyan

Why Do Americans Have So Few Rights?

How we came to rely on the courts, instead of the democratic process, for justice.

by Samuel Moyn via The New Republic on March 9, 2021

The End of Civil Rights

The attorney general is pushing an agenda that could erase many of the legal gains of modern America's defining movement.

by Vann R. Newkirk II via The Atlantic on June 18, 2018

80 Days That Changed America

Fifty years later, Bobby Kennedy’s passionate, inspiring, and tragic presidential campaign still fascinates.

by Joan Walsh via The Nation on April 23, 2018

The Fight for Health Care Has Always Been About Civil Rights

In dismantling Obamacare and slashing Medicaid, Republicans would strike a blow against signature victories for racial equality in America.

by Vann R. Newkirk II via The Atlantic on June 27, 2017

Frank Meyer testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1959.

Frank Meyer’s Path from Devoted Communist to Promoter of Conservative ‘Fusionism’

A detailed, exhausting, and ultimately too-gentle treatment of the midcentury writer and editor, Frank Meyer.

by Joshua Tait via The Bulwark on August 26, 2025

A blind person with a tray of pencils, bootlaces and almanacs to sell, with his dog wearing a collection cup.

Ugly Laws: The Blueprint for Trump’s Anti-Homeless Crusade

DC’s crackdown is just the latest in a long war on being poor and disabled in public.

by Julia Métraux via Mother Jones on August 22, 2025

President Johnson shaking hands with Martin Luther King Jr

Work in Progress: The Voting Rights Act

The often-overlooked institutions of the federal government truly do matter and so do the individuals who lead those institutions and give them direction.

by Kevin M. Kruse via Campaign Trails on August 4, 2025

The book "A Forgotten Migration," and author Crystal R. Sanders

A Forgotten Migration: An Interview with Crystal R. Sanders

A new book examines the long history of racial inequality in higher education through the post-baccalaureate experiences of Jim Crow era African Americans.

by Ashley Everson, Crystal R. Sanders via Black Perspectives on July 28, 2025

Supreme Court viewed through a window; Supreme Court justices' hands on their laps.

The Archaic Sex-Discrimination Case the Supreme Court Is Reviving

In Skrmetti, the Court turned to a decades-old decision once thought to be consigned to history.

by Leah Litman via The Atlantic on June 24, 2025

Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution.

States’ Rights to Racism

On the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, racism, and federal power.

by Brando Simeo Starkey via Literary Hub on June 5, 2025

Broadside about the Fugitive Slave law.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850: Annotated

The Fugitive Slave Act erased the most basic of constitutional rights for enslaved people and incentivized US Commissioners to support kidnappers.

by Liz Tracey via JSTOR Daily on May 19, 2025

Japanese internment camp

How Trump’s Anti-Trans Policies Mirror the WWII Persecution of Japanese Americans

A warning for us all about history repeating itself.

by Tracy Slater via Literary Hub on May 12, 2025

Huddie Lesbetter's draft registration card.

Secret Recordings Show President Roosevelt Debating Military Desegregation with Civil Rights Leaders

More than a year before Pearl Harbor, President FDR heard arguments from the civil rights leaders of the era for the desegregation of the military.

by Richard Sisk via Millitary.com on April 15, 2025

Three Black men having a conversation.

Recovering the Forgotten Past of Black Legal Lives

Dylan C. Penningroth challenges nearly every aspect of our traditional understanding of civil rights history.

by Ajay K. Mehrotra via Los Angeles Review of Books on April 3, 2025

Erased chalkboard in empty classroom

Cruel to Your School

Public education is meant to be a great equalizer. That’s why Trump wants to do undo it.

by Jennifer C. Berkshire via The Baffler on February 27, 2025

ICE officers knock on the door of a residence.

Trump Is Drawing on Cold War–Era Repressive Tactics

A previous, dark period of American history paired ethnic exclusion through mass deportations and ideological exclusion through political repression.

by David Bacon via Jacobin on January 29, 2025

Zora Neale Hurston.

Why Zora Neale Hurston Was Obsessed with the Jews

Her long-unpublished novel was the culmination of a years-long fascination. What does it reveal about her fraught views on civil rights?

by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on January 13, 2025

Jimmy Carter receiving an honorary degree from Notre Dame in 1977.

Here’s How Jimmy Carter Changed Higher Education

He tackled segregation in the nation’s public colleges and fraud in student-aid programs, and established the Department of Education.

by Kelly Field via The Chronicle of Higher Education on December 29, 2024

How Trump’s Red Wave Builds on the Past

Donald’s Trump’s resounding 2024 victory echoes electoral shifts of the past.

via Retro Report on November 8, 2024

A painting of Napoleon Bonaparte standing in the center of the National Assembly.

Liberalism and Equality

Liberalism’s relationship to equality has, historically, been far from a warm embrace.

by Gregory Conti via American Affairs on August 20, 2024

Supreme Court building.

Supreme Court Opinions Don't Have to Be the Final Word

The Supreme Court doesn't have the last word; the people do. How attorneys pushed back on the flawed 1987 McCleskey decision.

by Robert L. Tsai via Made By History on June 28, 2024

Percy Sutton, Flo Kennedy, and another Black reproduction activist.

How Black Leaders Formed the Reproductive Justice Movement

Before the end of Black History Month, we should remember some of the leaders who shaped the movement in the years before Roe v. Wade.

by Felicia Kornbluh via Ms. Magazine on February 6, 2024

Myisha Eatmon.

Break Every Chain

How black plaintiffs in the Jim Crow South sought justice.

by Max J. Krupnick via Harvard Magazine on January 5, 2024

Alabama Governor George Wallace standing in front of an American map with the words, "Wallace County," written over it.

The Freedom to Dominate

When viewing federal authority as a bulwark for civil rights against local tyranny, we miss what the U.S. government has done to sustain white freedom.

by Erin Pineda via Dissent on January 1, 2024

People outside the Lafayette Theatre in 1936.

Movie Theaters, the Urban North, and Policing the Color Line

Confronting segregation as Black urbanites' fight for access and equality in northern cinemas.

by Alyssa Lopez via Black Perspectives on December 5, 2023

Antisemitism Is a Threat to Us All — And to Democracy

Antisemitism Is a Threat to Us All — And to Democracy

How fascists and authoritarians have used antisemitic conspiracy theories to harm Jewish communities and undermine democracy.

by William Horne via Bucks County Beacon on November 28, 2023

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