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Rev. Ralph Abernathy and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. lead a column of demonstrators as they attempt to march on Birmingham, Ala., city hall April 12, 1963. (AP Photo/Horace Cort)

King Was A Critical Race Theorist Before There Was a Name For It

When states ban antiracism history from schools, they're disavowing what King stood for.
Collage of nature images and transcendentalists' faces, with flowers in Emerson's eyes.

Emerson and Thoreau’s Fanatical Freedom

Why do the Transcendentalists still have an outsize influence on American culture?
Watercolor painting of enslaved people walking barefoot on a forced march, with white men on horseback at the front and back of the line.

Reparative Semantics: On Slavery and the Language of History

Scholarly accounts of slavery have been changing, but these correctives sometimes say more about historians than the historical subjects they're writing about.
The United States Supreme Court building.
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‘Originalism’ Only Gives the Conservative Justices One Option On a Key Gun Case

Regulations limiting armed travel in public, particularly in populous areas, stretch back over seven centuries.
Illustration by Molly Crabapple

Racial Metaphors

If colorblindness rests on the claim that the civil rights movement changed everything, the idea that racism is in our DNA borders on a fatalistic proposition that it changed nothing.
An American Flag with opening one of the stripes like a door

The Slippery Matter of ‘Truth’ in Patriotic Education

Laws against teaching critical race theory might backfire on Republicans.

The Rise of Anti-History

The Trumpist wing of the GOP uses history as a bludgeon, without regard to context, logic, or proportionality.
Tucker Carlson wearing a t-shirt with a photograph of Abraham Lincoln on it.

The Right May Be Giving Up the “Lost Cause,” but What’s Next Could Be Worse

The GOP’s new embrace of Lincoln, emancipation, and Juneteenth is no sign of progress.

History As End

1619, 1776, and the politics of the past.
George Washington Carver painted in the role of George Washington crossing the Delaware, surrounded by racist caricaturess of African Americans

Robert Colescott Asks Us to Reimagine Icons of American History

Colescott satirizes an iconic painting of George Washington, and in doing so, challenges the viewer to reconsider their beliefs about American history.
Rick Santorum
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Rick Santorum and His Critics are Both Wrong About Native American History

The Founders terrorized and exterminated Native Americans instead of learning from them.

What the 'America First Caucus' Gets Wrong on Anglo-Saxon History

"Everything's sort of layered on a false understanding of history."

The People, It Depends

What's the matter with left-populism? A review of Thomas Frank's "The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism."
St. Louis arch

The Arch of Injustice

St. Louis seems to define America’s past—but does it offer insight for the future?
A negative from a photo of Abraham Lincoln

How Historians Say Abraham Lincoln Is Quoted and Misquoted

As Presidents' Day approaches, historians look back at the most notable recent uses and misuses of "the Great Emancipator's" words.
A sign being held at the January 6 Trump rally that depicts Donald Trump holding the head of Karl Marx.

Vikings, Crusaders, Confederates

Misunderstood historical imagery at the January 6 Capitol insurrection.
Alt-right man holding an American flag with no shirt but a bull-horned headress on.

The Hour of the Barbarian

What happened on January 6 was profoundly American, emerging as it did from our long and very specific history. No one did this to us.
Land of Hope Book Cover, which has a painting of buildings and boats

An America Where Everyone Meant Well

Jonathan W. Wilson offers a constructively critical review of Wilfred McClay's American history textbook "Land of Hope."
Man with a pistol at his hip carries the retired flag of Mississippi with a confederate battle emblem in it, and a Trump 2020 flag.
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Yes, Wednesday’s Attempted Insurrection Is Who We Are

While Wednesday's images shocked us, they fit into our history.

This Is Who We Are

The rioters at the Capitol are part of an unbroken American tradition. Sweet talk about our “better angels” did not defeat them before and will not now.
Timothy McVeigh

What We’ve Learned: Pondering Usable History

We must be cautious of the inclination to find a “usable history” that proves those points we want to prove, that reinforces the lessons we want reinforced.
Black man drinking from a segregated water fountain.

Caste Does Not Explain Race

The celebration of Isabel Wilkerson’s ‘Caste’ reflects the continued priority of elite preferences over the needs and struggles of ordinary people.

The Framers of the Constitution Didn’t Worry About ‘Originalism’

History shows that the text is far more complex than the legal doctrine might indicate.

YouTubers are Upscaling the Past to 4K. Historians Want Them to Stop.

YouTubers are using AI to bring history to life. But historians argue the process is nonsense.

Re-watching ‘The Civil War’ During the Breonna Taylor and George Floyd Protests

The landmark Ken Burns documentary hasn’t aged well. But it continues to shape American perceptions about the Confederacy and slavery.

QAnon Didn't Just Spring Forth From the Void

Calling QAnon a "cult" or "religion" hides how its practices are born of deeply American social and political traditions.

Beyond the End of History

Historians' prohibition on 'presentism' crumbles under the weight of events.
A colorized photo of migrant children in 1942.

How to Interpret Historical Analogies

They’re good for kickstarting political debate but analogies with the past are often ahistorical and should be treated with care.

Confederate Statues Were Never Really About Preserving History

A series of graphs that help explain why at least 830 monuments were erected many decades after the end of the Civil War.

The Unpresident and the Unredeemed Promise

A combination of historical surpluses—the afterlives of slavery, of the deranged presidency—has raised the stakes in the present struggle.

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