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Screen capture of a Black man standing in an urban residential neighborhood, speaking in the documentary "Who Killed the Fourth Ward?"

How “Who Killed Fourth Ward?” Challenged the Nature of Documentary Filmmaking

James Blue’s film investigated the destruction of a Black neighborhood in Houston, but it is also a powerful self-interrogation.
Scene from from 'The Gilded Age' in which a wealthy white woman and an African American woman walk in the street, with a stagecoach behind them.

The True History Behind HBO's 'The Gilded Age'

Julian Fellowes' new series dramatizes the late 19th-century clash between New York City's old and new monied elite.
A picture of George Aumoithe in a hallway of concrete walls.

Learning From Decades of Public Health Failure

A historian of global health explains how the lack of ICU beds in low-income communities is the result of government spending cuts dating back to the 1970s.
A mother and daughter attend a candlelight vigil
partner

The Deadly Bronx Fire Exposes the Perils and Politics of Heating One’s Home

For less fortunate New Yorkers, access to safe, adequate heating has never been assured.
Exhibit

Economic Inequality

Histories of wealth disparity in the US, those who have challenged it, and those who have exploited it.

Pile of US paper currency.

Austerity Policies In The United States Caused ‘Stagflation’ In The 1970s

U.S. government policies must continue to support physical and social infrastructure spending amid the continuing pandemic to avoid ‘stagflation’.
Black and white photograph of Harold Washington, 1980s.

A 1980s Blueprint on How to Be a Leader

A new film shows how Harold Washington, Chicago’s first Black mayor, stood up to a majority-white city council to push through infrastructure improvements for all.
Abstract painting called Mayan Pyramid, by Werner Drewes, 1983. Smithsonian American Art Museum.

The Coin Standard

On the failed dreams and forgotten ruins of William Hope Harvey.
Image of two people (one old and one young) playing tug of war with an elephant over an American flag.

End the Generation Wars

Lazy assumptions about young and old cloud our politics.
Title card for The Class Room, and drawing of a woman holding a child.

How America Got (And Lost) Universal Child Care

The U.S. managed to pay for a child care program during the most expensive war ever. What happened?
Black and white photo of construction workers, high up in a building, looking down over industrialized NYC.

The History of the United States as the History of Capitalism

What gets lost when we view the American past as primarily a story about capitalism? 
Cotton field.

"Once Everybody Left, What Were We Left With?"

Over a 100 years ago, white mobs organized by white elites and planters in Arkansas swarmed into rural Black sharecropping communities in the Arkansas Delta.
Jesse Jackson talking to a Black woman and her children, surrounded by supporters and the press.

The Locked Out

Understanding Jesse Jackson and the radicalism of 1980s Black presidential politics.
Ronald Reagan pointing at a graph explaining his proposed tax policy.

Ronald Reagan and the Myth of the Self-Made Entrepreneur

Why a policy agenda adopted in the name of entrepreneurs hurt entrepreneurs more than it helped them.
Booker T. Washington giving his Atlanta speech.

From the Recording Registry

On the anniversary of Booker T. Washington’s historic Atlanta speech, we look back at the rare 1908 recording so that his words would not be lost to history.
A tent with “the 99%” written on it

Occupy Wall Street at 10: What It Taught Us, and Why It Mattered

It basically started the wave of activism that revived the left—and taught people to get serious about power.
Illustration of a black mother working, doing housework, and caring for a child

Daddy Issues

The murderous hysteria over white patrimony is inseparable from the private capture of both economic opportunity and political authority.
Graduation cap on pile of money
partner

Policymakers Created the Student Loan Industry — and The Debt Crisis

While they never intended for more than 45 million Americans to have this much debt, policymakers in the 1960s made fateful choices.
Newark protesters and National Guard

A Warning Ignored

America did exactly what the Kerner Commission on the urban riots of the mid-1960s advised against, and fifty years later reaped the consequences it predicted.

The US Tax Code Should Not Allow Billionaires to Exist

The recent ProPublica exposé shows we need to attack the wealth and power of the rich — and that means massively increasing taxes on them.
Old cars piled up under a bridge overpass.

New York: The Invention of an Imaginary City

How nostalgic fantasies about the “authentic” New York City obscure the real-world place.
The city of Tulsa, with smoke billowing above the Black neighborhood of Greenwood

Burned from the Land: How 60 Years of Racial Violence Shaped America

The Tulsa race massacre of 1921 was one of the worst acts of racial violence in American history. It was also part of a larger pattern across the country.

It’s Time to Break Up the Ivy League Cartel

Democracy requires something more than a handful of super-rich universities.
Bayard Rustin, A. Philip Randolph, and John Morsell hold a press conference in 1963

A Vision of Racial and Economic Justice

A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin knew the fates of the civil rights and labor movements were intertwined. The same is true today.
The front page of the Chicago Defender on August 2, 1919.

The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 Commemoration Project

Why are Chicago’s race riots of 1919 overlooked in the city’s collective memory? A new project tells the stories of the 38 killed, and the legacy of racism in the U.S.
President Biden in a warehouse
partner

Government Has Always Picked Winners and Losers

A welfare state doesn't distort the market; it just makes government aid fairer.
Lightning bolt above a city at night.

The Human Nature of Disaster

A storm is never just wind or rain. Our natural problems are social problems. The solutions to them must be social, too.
Thaddeus Stevens

The Radicalism of Thaddeus Stevens

Thaddeus Stevens understood far better than most that fully uprooting slavery meant overthrowing the South’s economic system and challenging property rights.
Protesters at a rally for a $15 minimum wage
partner

The Missing Piece of the Minimum Wage Debate

History shows that boosting the minimum wage leads to consumer spending.
Collage of images related to Monopoly's history

The Prices on Your Monopoly Board Hold a Dark Secret

The property values of the popular game reflect a legacy of racism and inequality.
class politics graphic of voters facing off

The Politics of a Second Gilded Age

Mass inequality in the Gilded Age thrived on identity-based partisanship, helping extinguish the fires of class rage. In 2021, we’re headed down the same path.

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