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A protester holds a "Patriots don't tolerate tyranny" sign. Other signs advocate for the rule of law over kings and tyranny.

The Freedom-Loving Minutemen of Massachusetts Strike Again

Just down the road from Lexington and Concord, American patriots scurried to defend their immigrant neighbors.
by Harold Meyerson via The American Prospect on May 20, 2025
Aerial view of Oakland.

The Future Happens in Oakland First. That’s a Cautionary Tale for Global Cities

International trade boomed with the city’s early adoption of technological and economic changes, but Black neighborhoods became ‘sacrifice zones.’
by Lois Beckett, Alexis C. Madrigal via The Guardian on March 22, 2025
A drawing of a variety of social movements protesting.

Peaceable Revolutions

Linda Gordon argues that social movements are vital partnerships that, by challenging the status quo, are indispensable to the health of the nation.
by Brenda Wineapple via New York Review of Books on March 20, 2025
Citizens march in 1979 with a banner for Greensboro Massacre justice.

How a Group of Revolutionary Anti-Racist Activists Planned to Fight the Klan in North Carolina

Remembering the lead-up to the 1979 Greensboro Massacre.
by Aran Shetterly via Literary Hub on October 10, 2024

The Forgotten Lessons of Truly Effective Protest

Organizing is a kind of alchemy: it turns alienation into connection, despair into dedication, and oppression into strength.
by Astra Taylor, Leah Hunt-Hendrix via The Guardian on March 14, 2024
Proposed layout of the museum

The Long Road to a Juneteenth Museum

Architects have made a Fort Worth neighborhood’s history part of the plan.
by James Russell via The Texas Observer on February 1, 2024
Ivory Perry.

Ivory Perry, the Forgotten Civil Rights Hell-Raiser

Activists are often held up as exemplars of personal morality — but in every social struggle, ordinary people with complex lives rise up as leaders.
by Devin Thomas O’Shea via Jacobin on January 15, 2024
Ruby Duncan standing and addressing a group with Jane Fonda seated behind her on the eve of a protest in 1971.

When the Welfare Rights Movement Was a Powerful Force for Uplifting the Poor

The War on Poverty comes to life in a new book that explores how welfare mothers in Las Vegas built an organizing juggernaut that transformed lives.
by Eleanor J. Bader via The Indypendent on July 10, 2023
Robert Segovia (left) instructing class. Emerito Torres and Agapito Cruz (at chalkboard).

The Machiavelli of the Mexican American People

How Robert Segovia used steelworkers and the Catholic Church to build a political machine in Chicago.
by Emiliano Aguilar via Process: A Blog for American History on March 28, 2023
Two youths in Uptown Chicago, 1974.

When Uptown Chicago was “Hillbilly Heaven”

In the 1960s, white Appalachian workers attempted to put down roots in Chicago by building an integrated model neighborhood called Hank Williams Village.
by Livia Gershon, Roger Guy via JSTOR Daily on January 16, 2023
Mexican American men standing near a mural and a low rider car in Chicago in 1987.

The Past and Future of Mexican Chicago

From the machine politicians in La Villita to the radicals in Pilsen, Mexican Chicagoans have played a central role in defining their city. 
by Juan Ignacio Mora via The Nation on January 10, 2023
Supporters cheer during an election night watch party for Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D) in Atlanta
partner

Warnock’s Win Points to the Need For Ongoing Political Organizing

Georgia’s own history highlights what out-organizing voter suppression really entails.
by Dan Berger via Made By History on December 7, 2022
Brooklyn Bridge with the city skyline in the background.

When Panama Came to Brooklyn

“For those Afro-Caribbean Panamanian who had lived through Panama’s Canal Zone apartheid, Brooklyn segregation probably came as no surprise.”
by Kaysha Corinealdi via Public Books on November 30, 2022
Corner store in Detroit.

Murder At the Corner Store: Immigrant Merchants and Law and Order Politics in Postwar Detroit

With seventeen holdups in the past few months, something had to be done. “We will talk to the mayor and the police commissioner. We need more protection".
by Kenneth Alyass via The Metropole on November 17, 2022
Railroad Station next to a single track

“For the Purpose of Appointing Vigilance Committees:” Fearing Abolitionists in Central Virginia

Newspaper announcements from 1859 reveal how some Richmond slaveholders organized to protect the institution of slavery.
by Tim Talbott via Emerging Civil War on October 14, 2022
Kids splash at the Rec pool on June 30, 2022. Heather Khalifa / Staff Photographer.

Philadelphia Had a Radical Vision for Its Public Pools. What Happened?

A century of battles over a neighborhood pool reveal a complicated picture, about who matters, and who gets the chance to live well in a segregated city.
by Zoe Greenberg via Philadelphia Inquirer on July 26, 2022
Black and white photo of Women's Overseas Service League Members
partner

"Our Best Memorial to the Dead Would be Our Service to the Living"

By learning about an overlooked cohort of women who served in World War I, we can expand our understandings of memorials beyond physical statues and monuments.
by Allison S. Finkelstein via HNN on June 12, 2022
The Black Panther Party’s Free Breakfast for Children Program in action, New York, 1969. Photo by Bev Grant/Getty Images

The Black Panthers Fed More Hungry Kids Than the State of California

It wasn’t all young men and guns: the Black Panther Party’s programs fed more hungry kids than the state of California.
by Suzanne Cope via Aeon on December 10, 2021
Print announcement for Florida CB personality "Bow Weevil," featuring a photo of a Black man's face on a drawing of a bowl weevil holding a microphone.

How Black CB Radio Users Created an Audible Community

CB radio was portrayed as a mostly white enthusiasm in its heyday, but Black CB users were active as early as 1959.
by Ashawnta Jackson, Art M. Blake, Tyler Watts, Jared Barton via JSTOR Daily on November 18, 2021
Nicole Collazo-Santiago leads a chant outside the Goldman Sachs Building.

Life Can Be Different: 10 Years Ago, Occupy Wall Street Changed the World

The movement launched a generation of leftist activists –and gave them a vision of real change.
by Rebecca Nathanson via The Guardian on September 15, 2021
Manhattan women's health rally
partner

Newsletters May Threaten the Mainstream Media, But They Also Build Communities

The platforms are new, but the form has been around for most of a century.
by Sarah M. Ovink via Made By History on July 8, 2021
partner

New York Tenants Are Organizing Against Evictions, as They Did in the Great Depression

Activists concerned about pandemic-related homelessness are seeking rent relief. In the 1930s, tenants banded together against evictions.
via Retro Report on November 11, 2020
Heavily armed police patrolling Los Angeles in the 1960s.

“No Matter How Different the Movements Were, the LAPD Targeted Every One of Them”

From the Black Panthers to the Communist Party, radical Los Angeles in the ’60s was a seething cauldron of unrest, united by the brutal repression of the LAPD.
by Mike Davis, Jon Wiener, Meagan Day via Jacobin on May 29, 2020

It’s Time We Celebrate Ella Baker Day

Honoring Baker alongside Martin Luther King would highlight the long and patient work of building a social movement.
by Mark Engler via The Nation on January 17, 2020
A newspaper drawing of St. Louis from above.
partner

German Radicals vs. the Slave Power

In "Memoirs of a Nobody," Henry Boernstein chronicles the militant immigrant organizing that helped keep St. Louis out of the hands of the Confederacy.
by Devin Thomas O’Shea via HNN on May 21, 2025
National Public Housing Museum

At the National Public Housing Museum, an Embattled Idea Finds a Home

Chicago’s latest museum looks to change the narrative around the federally supported housing projects that US cities turned their backs on decades ago.
by Zach Mortice via CityLab on April 25, 2025
Stack of Newspapers.

A Brief History of America’s Campaign Against Dissident Newsmaking

On underground presses and state violence.
by Aaron Boehmer via Literary Hub on March 26, 2025
A collage of rats, trash, rat exterminators, and a rat mascot.

Rats!

Baltimore's long history with its most polarizing pest.
by Lydia Woolever via Baltimore Magazine on January 2, 2025
A member of the Michigan National Guard stands at the ready as firemen battle a blaze in Detroit in July 1967.

White and Black Activists Worked Strategically in Parallel in Detroit 50 Years Ago for Civil Rights

Since George Floyd’s murder, some white allies seek ways to fight racial inequality. Detroit’s 1960s "racially parallel organizing" offers insights.
by Say Burgin via The Conversation on December 5, 2024
Young people running through the streets of Taipei; a middle aged businessman in Houston.

Texas’ Hotbed of Taiwanese Nationalism

For decades, Houston families like mine have helped keep the flame of independence burning.
by Josephine Lee via The Texas Observer on November 25, 2024
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