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Charles Sumner

What We Can Learn From the Senator Who Nearly Died for Democracy

The brutal caning of Sen. Charles Sumner in 1856 shows the difference between courage and concession.
by Zaakir Tameez via Washington Post on June 1, 2025
A guard watching prisoners at CECOT prison in El Salvador in 2025.

The Roots of Bukele’s Gulag

Understanding why Trump is using El Salvador to test the limits of illegal deportation requires returning to the US’s long history of outsourcing violence.
by John B. Washington via New York Review of Books on June 1, 2025
FBI agents and local police examine a bombed out pickup truck in Natchez, Mississippi.

The History of Violent Opposition to Black Political Participation

Leaders in the 20th-century South faced violence and death for promoting voting rights; systemic failure enabled their killers to go unpunished.
by Dan Biddle, Sara Rimer via Equal Justice Initiative on August 13, 2024
President Ronald Reagan, pictured waving to a crowd shortly before John Hinckley Jr. tried to assassinate him on March 30, 1981.

The History of Presidential Assassination Attempts, From Andrew Jackson to Teddy Roosevelt

Before last weekend’s attack on Donald Trump, would-be assassins targeted Ronald Reagan, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and seven other presidents or candidates.
by Meilan Solly via Smithsonian on July 17, 2024
Aftermath of Oklahoma City bombing.

American Carnage

A new book about Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing traces the path from Ronald Reagan’s antigovernment ideology to today’s radicalized right.
by Sean Wilentz via New York Review of Books on July 25, 2023
Print shows Rebel troops killing the citizens of Lawrence, Kansas, and setting fire to the buildings.

Where Will This Political Violence Lead? Look to the 1850s.

In the mid-19th century, a pro-slavery minority used violence to stifle a growing anti-slavery majority, spurring their opposition to respond in kind.
by Joshua Zeitz via Politico Magazine on October 29, 2022
Photo from the January 6th Capitol Attack, with rioters raising a flag in front of a cloud of smoke by the capitol.

How the Republican Party Embraced Political Violence Before January 6th

On the alarming origins of the current political moment.
by Dana Milbank via Literary Hub on August 15, 2022
A man carries a Confederate battle flag through the halls of the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021.

A Brief History of Violence in the Capitol: The Foreshadowing of Disunion

The radicalization of a congressional clerk in the 1800s and the introduction of the telegraph set a young country on a new trajectory.
by Joanne B. Freeman, Clay S. Jenkinson via Governing on March 13, 2022
Political cartoon calling the caning of Sumner "Southern chivalry."
partner

History’s Lessons for the Jan. 6 Committee

This isn’t the first time a House committee has investigated political violence in the Capitol.
by Paul Quigley via Made By History on November 30, 2021
Muhammad A. Aziz leaving a courtroom after being officially exonerated
partner

Exonerating Two Men Convicted of Malcolm X’s Killing Doesn’t Vindicate the System

Can a system built on racial violence actually deliver justice?
by Garrett Felber via Made By History on November 20, 2021

How ‘Jakarta’ Became the Codeword for US-Backed Mass Killing

The systematic mass murder and assault of accused communists in Indonesia by US-backed military forces has left a mark on the country and the world.
by Vincent Bevins via New York Review of Books on May 18, 2020

It's Time to Stop Talking About a 'National Divorce'

The right's eagerness for a "peaceful separation" of the nation echoes pieces of race war fiction.
by Christian Vanderbrouk via The Bulwark on March 21, 2019
Drawing of the caning of Sumner.

Raising Cane

The violence on Capitol Hill that foreshadowed a bloody war.
by Joanne B. Freeman via Lapham’s Quarterly on September 15, 2018

Terrorized African-Americans Found Their Champion in Civil War Hero Robert Smalls

The congressman and former slave claimed whites had killed 53,000 African-Americans. Few took him seriously—until now.
by Lisa Elmaleh Douglas via Smithsonian on August 22, 2018
Police officer with automatic rifle guards the US Capitol building.

Violence Against Members of Congress Has a Long, and Ominous, History

In the 1840s and 1850s, it was all too common.
by Joanne B. Freeman via Washington Post on June 15, 2017

The Lesser Part of Valor

Preston Brooks, Greg Gianforte, and the American tradition of disguising cowardice as bravery.
by Adam Serwer via The Atlantic on May 26, 2017
A crowd of Iranian protesters burns photos.

The Islamic Republic Was Never Inevitable

With Iran’s theocracy under strain, a new history shows that its rise was mainly a stroke of bad luck.
by Arash Azizi via The Atlantic on August 5, 2025
Black man's face, and maps of Chicago, in an outline of a detective.

The Talented Mr. Bruseaux

He made his name in Chicago investigating race riots, solving crimes, and exposing corruption. But America’s first Black private eye was hiding his own secrets.
by Matthew Wolfe via The Atavist on July 23, 2025
A throng of Trump supporters, some in colonial garb, march through Washington D.C.

The 19th-Century Precursors to the Crises of Trump’s America

Revisiting history shows that violence and constitutional disputes are nothing new in US politics.
by Marcus Alexander Gadson via New Lines on July 4, 2025
Illustration by Adrià Fruitós.

Greater America Has Been Exporting Disunion for Decades

So why are we still surprised when the tide of blood reaches our own shores?
by Viet Thanh Nguyen via The Nation on June 10, 2025
Cover of "Sedition" featuring smoke engulfing the Capitol dome.
partner

An Attempt to Defeat Constitutional Order

After the Civil War, conservatives used terrorism, cold-blooded murder, and economic coercion to fight the new state constitution in South Carolina.
by Marcus Alexander Gadson via HNN on May 13, 2025
Declassified and redacted White House top secret documents.

JFK Files: Revelations from the Covert Operations High Command

Special Group and PFIAB meeting minutes provide dramatic view of CIA operations.
by Peter Kornbluh, Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi via National Security Archive on April 7, 2025
A woman with a rifle, superimposed on an American flag.

From Philly to Derry: On the Americans Who Armed the IRA During The Troubles

Vincent Conlon’s secret life in the United States as an operative and gun-running Irish rebel.
by Ali Watkins via Literary Hub on March 11, 2025

What Happens When You Try to Make History Vanish?

The White House’s decision to delete a DOJ database of Jan. 6 cases puts those who seek to preserve the historical record in opposition to their own government.
by Alec MacGillis via ProPublica on February 6, 2025
Jimmy Carter and General Omar Torrijos shake hands after signing the Panama Canal Treaty in 1977

The Panama Canal Treaty Declassified

Kissinger warned: “This is no issue to face the world on. It looks like pure colonialism.”
by Peter Kornbluh via National Security Archive on February 3, 2025
1999 Yugoslavian stamp depicting a NATO jet launching a missile at an oil refinery.

Stamps Capture Unchanging Face of U.S. Violence Abroad

Countries have also used their postal systems to fight back against aggression.
by Matin Modarressi via Foreign Policy in Focus on January 6, 2025
A cartoon depicting Charles Guiteau.

Echoes of Rage

Our new age of violence looks a lot like the Gilded Age.
by George Dillard via Looking Through The Past on December 18, 2024
Haitian gang members carrying assault rifles, standing in the center of a stylized rifle sight.

Haiti’s Agents Of Fear

Haitians are caught between the grip of violent gangs and the messy legacies of foreign intervention.
by Matthew J. Smith via Noema on October 29, 2024
Black Legion members in wearing capes and hoods.

You Know About the KKK, but What About the Black Legion?

The Black Legion was a white supremacist fascist group headquartered in Lima, Ohio. Its worst deeds are lost to memory, but they shouldn’t be.
by Dana Frank via Jacobin on October 18, 2024
George Floyd protest

Reflections of the 60th Anniversary of Urban Uprisings in America

The media narrative used to discredit urban rebellions as violent betrayals of the civil rights movement has been attached to protests ever since.
by Heather Ann Thompson via Black Perspectives on October 17, 2024
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