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Freedmen's memorial.

Of, By & For the Freedmen

On the aesthetics and history of the Freedman’s Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Abraham Lincoln

Why We Keep Reinventing Abraham Lincoln

Revisionist biographers have given us countless perspectives, from Honest Abe to Killer Lincoln. Is there a version that’s true to his time and attuned to ours?
Donald Trump.
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Trump’s 2020 Playbook Is Coming Straight from Southern Enslavers

Racism — not reformers demanding redress — is the source of American strife.

The Revolutionary Thoreau

Generations of readers have chosen to emphasize Thoreau's spiritual communion with Nature, but Walden begins with trenchant critique of “progress.”
William Lloyd Garrison

The Country That Was Built to Fall Apart

Why secession, separatism, and disunion are the most American of values.

The Douglass Republic

How today's protests are struggling to reclaim the vision of the great abolitionist leader.
Black Lives Matter demonstrators.
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A Long-Forgotten Holiday Animates Black Lives Matter

The movement for racial equality echoes the vision of the “August First Day” holiday.

The World’s Human Rights Convention and the Paradox of American Abolitionism

An inquiry into a utopian vision of abolitionism.
Illustration of a bald eagle menacing a black parent and child in front of what appears to be a government building

Circulating the Facts of Slavery

How the American Anti-Slavery Almanac became an influential best seller.

The Death of Hannah Fizer

Black people suffer disproportionately from police violence. But white skin does not provide immunity.
A portrait of David Ruggles, who opened the first black-owned bookstore in America, between two white men.
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The First Black-Owned Bookstore and the Fight for Freedom

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

Shopping for Racial Justice, Then and Now

Using one’s buying power to support causes one believes in and to effect change is not new.

One Week to Save Democracy

Lessons from Frederick Douglass on the tortured relationship between protest and change.

The Making of the Radical Republicans

How did the struggle for emancipation become a mass politics?
Photo of Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass: The Most Photographed American of the 19th Century

Be Woke presents Black History in two minutes (or so).

The Science of Abolition

On Hosea Easton’s and David Walker’s attempts to debunk scientific racism.
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A Founder of American Religious Nationalism

On Rousas Rushdoony's political thought and lasting influence on the Christian right.

Slavery Was Defeated Through Mass Politics

The overthrow of slavery in the US was a battle waged and won in the field of democratic mass politics; a battle that holds enormous lessons for radicals today.
Watercolor of Abraham Lincoln with soldiers in swirls of red across his face.

Abraham Lincoln’s Radical Moderation

What the president understood that the zealous Republican reformers in Congress didn’t.

Slave Hounds and Abolition in the Americas

How dogs permeated slave societies and bolstered European ambitions for colonial expansion and social domination.

The Hidden Stakes of the 1619 Controversy

Critics of the New York Times’s 1619 Project obscure a longstanding debate among historians over whether the American Revolution was a proslavery revolt.

A Matter of Facts

The New York Times’ 1619 Project launched with the best of intentions, but has been undermined by some of its claims.

Professional Motherhood: A New Interpretation of Women in the Early Republic

Guest poster C.C. Borzilleri writes about professional motherhood in the early American republic.

‘A Doubtful Freedom’

Andrew Delbanco's new book positions the debate over fugitive slaves as a central factor in the nation's slide toward disunion.

A Personal Act of Reparation

The long aftermath of a North Carolina man’s decision to deed a plot of land to his former slaves.

Land of the Free

The story of America is precisely the heroic story of pioneers who bring the American ideal again and again to the West.
Photo of John Brown holding a flag and raising his right hand as if in oath.

A Hero in the Midst of Cowards

The righteous rage of John Brown.

American Slavery and ‘the Relentless Unforeseen’

What 1619 has become to the history of American slavery, 1688 is to the history of American antislavery.
Still from "Harriet" depicting Tubman holding a scared girl and pointing a shotgun.
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What ‘Harriet’ Gets Right About Tubman

In the 1850s, abolitionists, including black women, fought for freedom by force.
Title page of "The History of the New York African Free-Schools."

The New York Manumission Society

Inspired by America’s exceptional idea, it took a vital step toward securing liberty for slaves.

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