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Militarized National Guard confronts peaceful protesters in Los Angeles, 2025.

What History Tells Us to Expect From Trump’s Escalation in Los Angeles Protests

Since the 1960s, studies have shown that heavy-handed policing and militarized responses tend to make protests more volatile — not less.
A line of people swearing in as Ghanaian citizens.

The Land Disputes Facing African Americans in Ghana

Locals complain of losing out as wealthier ‘returnees’ from abroad secure prime real estate.
A drawing of a skeletal hand erupting from the ground and separating a house with a Harris/Walz sign and a house with a Trump/Vance sign. Face masks float in the wind.

There’s a Very Specific Issue Haunting This Election. No One Is Talking About It.

You can bury it. But you can’t escape it.
Streetlamps and red trail lights glow in a dark city street.

A Nation of Cop Cities

The push to build large police training facilities follows on a long history of armories as both symbols and manifestations of state power.
Demonstrators holding signs at George Floyd protest in NYC, 2020.

Americans Used to Unite Over Tragic Events − and Now Are Divided By Them

Tragedy seldom unifies Americans today.

Virginia School Board Votes to Restore Names of Confederate Leaders to Schools

In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, a school board in Virginia stripped the names of Confederate military figures from two schools.

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.
Martin Luther King Jr. giving a speech.
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The Problem With Comparing Today's Activists to MLK

Media coverage of the civil rights movement is a reminder that the deification of King has skewed public memory.
Barry Goldwater.

The Twisted History of the American Crime Anxiety Industry

Our political and cultural systems are obsessed with exploiting fears about crime. But it wasn’t always this way.
Street art graffiti on the Israeli separation West Bank wall in Bethlehem features a portrait of George Floyd, symbolizing the links between Black American and Palestinian activists.

The Long, Complicated History of Black Solidarity With Palestinians and Jews

How Black support for Zionism morphed into support for Palestine.
A portion of the author’s music collection; bootleg cassette tapes and CDs. Photo by Maya Walker.

The Pirate Preservationists

When keeping cultural archives safe means stepping outside the law.
James Dent Walker.

A Major Group of Family Genealogists Apologizes For Past Racism

The National Genealogical Society is one of the oldest, largest groups dedicated to helping families trace their ancestries.
Collage of Juneteenth-related images.

The Story We’ve Been Told About Juneteenth Is Wrong

The real history of Juneteenth is much messier—and more inspiring.

A Lost Operatic Masterpiece Written By White Men For An All-Black Cast Was Found And Restored

Can it be produced without controversy?
Profile of a young Black man with a proud expression. Photograph by Helen Cammock from her exhibition, I Will Keep My Soul.

All Water Has a Perfect Memory

A landscape has come into being through a constellation of resistances to these strategies of control.
The statue of Confederate Gen. A.P. Hill was taken down Dec. 12. Hill’s remains beneath it are set to be relocated.

Richmond Takes Down Its Last Major City-Owned Confederate Memorial

Richmond's last major Confederate memorial on city property, a statue of Gen. A.P. Hill, was taken down Monday morning.
Diaga Müller at the Onkel Toms Hütte U-Bahn station in Berlin.

A Berlin Subway Stop is Called ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’ Some Black Germans Want Change.

Black Germans have used activism and scholarship to shed light on what they describe as Germany’s racist fascination with the American South.
Redlining map from the 1930s

The Tyranny Of The Map: Rethinking Redlining

In trying to understand one of the key aspects of structural racism, have we constructed a new moralistic story that obscures more than it illuminates?
Image of army soldiers and weapons facing crowd of protestors holding signs

A Theater of State Panic

Beginning in 1967, the Army built fake towns to train police and military officers in counterinsurgency.
Visitors at the National Museum of Natural History in D.C. take in the exhibits.

Human Bones, Stolen Art: Smithsonian Tackles its ‘Problem’ Collections

The Smithsonian’s first update to its collection policy in 20 years proposes ethical returns and shared ownership. But will it bring transformational change?
A statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, which was previously on display at the U.S. Capitol, now resides at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture in Richmond.

Richmond Tore Down its Statues — and Revealed a New Angle on History

After the 2020 removal of Confederate memorials, museums provide a place to confront the ugly past and find a way forward.
Members of Jayland Walker's family stand beside a sign in tribute to him.
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Jayland Walker’s Killing Didn’t Spur Expected Protests. Here’s Why.

An effective media strategy has often been crucial to rallying the public behind Black victims of fatal violence.

A Tale of Two Toms

The uses and abuses of history through the "diary" of Thomas Fallon.
People holding union and BLM signs out of their car windows, taking part in the Workers First Caravan for Racial and Economic Justice, June 17, 2020, with the US capitol in the background.
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How Conservatives Drove a Wedge Between Economic and Cultural Liberals

Elites understood that a unified left spelled doom for their economic advantages.
Picture of Donna Murch and her new book. (Photo by Don J. Usner)

The Long History of Resistance That Birthed Black Lives Matter

A conversation with historian Donna Murch about the past, present, and future of Black radical organizing.
A woman tends to a lawn at the corner of Confederate Lane and Plantation Parkway in the Mosby Woods neighborhood of Fairfax on Wednesday. The city is considering changing several names in the Civil War-themed development, but neighbors are divided. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)

A Civil War Among Neighbors Over Confederate-Themed Streets

Debates between neighbors escalate over the use of Confederate names within a Northern Virginia neighborhood.
Photo from above showing people walking and biking on the painted letters in Black Lives Matter Plaza.

When Did the Ruling Class Get Woke?

A conversation with Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò on his new book, which investigates the co-option of identity politics and the importance of coalitional organizing. 
Protesters at the March on Washington, 1963.

How Protest Moves From the Streets Into the Statehouse

In The Loud Minority, Daniel Gillion examines the relationship between electoral politics and protest movements.
Drawing of girl raising American flag by Molly Crabapple

Occupy Memory

In 2011, a grassroots anticapitalist movement galvanized people with its slogan “We are the 99 percent.” It changed me, and others, but did it change the world?
George W. Bush giving speech

In the Shadow of 9/11

Two new books argue that the War on Terror changed American politics, but what if the sources of its violence were already long present in the country?

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