Filter by:

Filter by published date

Viewing 121–150 of 406 results. Go to first page

Stretching to Understand Renegade Urban Fireworks

As was the case in 200 years ago, this summer's relentless pyrotechnics may not be meaningless acts of an unthinking mob.

“The Mask Law will be Rigidly Enforced”

Ordinances, arrests, and celebrations during the influenza epidemic.
Lithograph depicting police attacking African Americans in New Orleans, 1874

On Riots and Resistance

Exploring freedpeople’s struggle against police brutality during Reconstruction.
Two people clinking their bottles of beer together.

Let Us Drink in Public

Open container laws criminalize working-class people and make public life less fun. We need to legalize public drinking.

An Embattled President. A Mass Movement. A Military Used Against Citizens. We’ve Been Here Before.

The inside story of Mayday 1971 and the largest mass arrest in US history.

When Conservatives Called to Freeze Police Budgets

The loudest opponents to police funding were once fiscal conservatives.
E.J. Banks, a Texas Ranger, in front of a school with an effigy of a Black student hanging over the front door

A Century Ago, One Lawmaker Went After the Most Powerful Cops in Texas. Then They Went After Him

The Texas Rangers were vicious enforcers of white power. J.T. Canales, who once fought against them lost, but the reckoning he sought is finally underway.
A photo of law enforcement emerging from a hazy cloud on a city street.

Trump Has Brought America’s Dirty Wars Home

The authoritarian tactics we’ve exported around the world in the name of national security are now being deployed in Portland.
Armed troops wearing gas masks walk through tear gas at Black Lives Matter protest.
partner

The Extraordinary Scene Unfolding in Portland Has a Disturbing History

How immigration enforcement and policing became entwined
Men with guns in street

How Tear Gas Became a Staple of American Law Enforcement

In 1932, the “Bonus Army” of jobless veterans staged a protest in Washington, DC. The government dispersed them with tear gas.
Black and white photo of black child with his hands up, with police wielding weapons behind him
partner

The 1968 Kerner Commission Report Still Echoes Across America

Anger over policing and inequality boiled over more than 50 years ago, and a landmark report warned that it could happen again.
Demonstrators against police brutality.
partner

The Explicit Anthem of Anti-Racist Protest

Rap group N.W.A. understood vulgarity and controversy were necessary to draw attention to police brutality.
Lithograph of a New York City street in 1830, bustling with pedestrians and horse-drawn carriages.

The Black New Yorker Who Led the Charge Against Police Violence in the 1830s

David Ruggles' fight against the "kidnapping club" in the 1830s shows that police violence has been part of America's DNA from its earliest days.
New York Police Department logo on the side of a car.

Why Are NYPD Cruisers Playing the Ice Cream Truck Jingle?

The melody occupies a niche space at the intersection of ice cream, entertainment, and Black history.
People at a Black Lives Matter protest

The Power of Black Lives Matter

How the movement that’s changing America was built and where it goes next.
Gordon Park's photograph of law enforcement officers kicking in a door

When Crime Photography Started to See Color

Six decades ago, Gordon Parks, Life magazine’s first black photographer, revolutionized what a crime photo could look like.

The History of the “Riot” Report

How government commissions became alibis for inaction.
Protester holding a "Defund the Police" sign.

Defund the Police

Protest slogans and the terms for debate.
Two posterboards covered in red handprints that read "Black Lives Matter" and "No Justice, No Peace."

Stop Comparing Today’s Protests to 1968

There are superficial similarities, but what we’re seeing now is something completely new.

America Begins to See More Clearly Now What Its Black Citizens Always Knew

The present round of protest is different. The participants are people of every race, ethnicity, sex, age, and religion.
A wanted poster that reads "Wanted by the people: murder, aggravated assault and battery, denying civil rights, perjury. Brinley Evans, Thomas Lyons."

Wanted: An End to Police Terror

The pursuit of justice has been defined by a rote binary of punished in a cage versus unpunished and free.
Two men talking, one with an American flag and one with a 'thin blue line' flag.

The Short, Fraught History of the ‘Thin Blue Line’ American Flag

The controversial version of the U.S. flag has been hailed as a sign of police solidarity and criticized as a symbol of white supremacy.
A sign that reads "We Want White Tenants in Our White Community." Two American flags are on top of the sign.

Highway Robbery

How Detroit cops and courts steer segregation and drive incarceration.

It Really Is Different This Time

Two dozen experts consider the George Floyd protests in light of protests past.
Armed military police in riot gear blocking demonstrators near the White House, June 3, 2020.

When Police Treat Protesters Like Insurgents, Sending in Troops Seems Logical

Militarized police forces laid the groundwork for using troops to quell protest.

How Today’s Protests Compare to 1968, Explained by a Historian

Heather Ann Thompson explains what’s changed and what has stayed the same.

The Minneapolis Uprising in Context

A proper understanding of urban rebellion depends on our ability to interpret it not as a wave of criminality, but as political violence.
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.

The Murderous Legacy of Cold War Anticommunism

The US-backed Indonesian mass killings of 1965 reshaped global politics, securing a decisive victory for U.S. interests against Third World self-determination.

The Day Police Bombed a City Street: Can Scars of 1985 Move Atrocity be Healed?

An airstrike killed 11 people, including five children, in an assault on a Philadelphia black liberation group. Now a reconciliation effort is under way.

Filter Results:

Suggested Filters:

Idea

Person