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Second Red Scare (1947–57)

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Joseph McCarthy.

The Red Scare Is American Past and Present

If we want to understand how we arrived in this authoritarian moment in 2025, we need to understand one of the central pathways that brought us here.
by Benjamin Balthaser via Jacobin on October 19, 2025
Book cover with the title "A Blacklist Education" written on a black and red background.

Legacies of Teacher Persecution and Resistance

Historian Jane Smith understands her childhood differently after discovering that her father had been pushed out of his profession during the Red Scare.
by Joan Wallach Scott via Academe on September 9, 2025
Joseph McCarthy

Joseph McCarthy’s War on Voice of America

A largely forgotten campaign of harassment and persecution from the 1950s that still echoes today.
by Daniel Golden via Columbia Journalism Review on August 4, 2025
H.A. Smith is sworn in as a first witness at a HUAC hearing.

American Hysteria

Red Scare can be read as solid history of the years it depicts—and chilling prophecy of the years to come.
by Maurice Isserman via Democracy Journal on June 18, 2025
Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn.

Blacklists and Civil Liberties

On the Second Red Scare and the lessons that it can provide for us today.
by Clay Risen, Miguel Petrosky via Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera on May 13, 2025
Cartoon drawing with Red Scare history written on New York City buildings.

When the Red Scare Came for Jessica Mitford

A graphic episode from "Do Admit: The Mitford Sisters and Me."
by Mimi Pond via The Nation on May 13, 2025
Senator Joseph McCarthy speaking into microphones.

Newly Declassified Documents Reveal the Untold Stories of the Red Scare

In his latest book, journalist and historian Clay Risen explores how the House Un-American Activities Committee and Senator Joseph McCarthy upended the nation.
by Sara Georgini, Clay Risen via Smithsonian Magazine on April 1, 2025

How the Red Scare Reshaped American Politics

At its height, the political crackdown felt terrifying and all-encompassing. What can we learn from how the movement unfolded—and from how it came to an end?
by Beverly Gage via The New Yorker on March 10, 2025
Actress moves away from a microphone held a red hand.

How the Red Scare Shaped American Television

The fear of communism silenced actors, writers and producers, altering the entertainment industry for decades.
by Carol Stabile via PBS on February 28, 2025
A propaganda poster of an American flag on fire and white American citizens struggling against Communist officials, with the caption: "Is this tomorrow? America under Communism!"

What Happened the Last Time a President Purged the Bureaucracy

The impact can linger not just for years but decades.
by Clay Risen via Politico Magazine on February 6, 2025
Peace protester, wearing keffiyeh and holding sign reading "STOP" with red handprint.

McCarthyism Is Alive and Well With the “Nonprofit Killer” Bill

Today’s legislative efforts against the Palestine solidarity movement bear a striking resemblance to McCarthyism in both tactics and ideology.
by Rachel Ida Buff via Jacobin on January 13, 2025
Nixon examining a roll of microfilm with a magnifying glass.

Microfilm Hidden in a Pumpkin Launched Richard Nixon’s Career 75 Years Ago

On Dec. 2, 1948, evidence stashed in a hollowed-out pumpkin incriminated suspected Soviet spy Alger Hiss and boosted a young Richard Nixon’s political status.
by Gordon F. Sander via Retropolis on December 2, 2023
Senator Joseph McCarthy (left) during the Army-McCarthy hearings, with Pvt. G. David Schine (center) and Roy Cohn (right), June 7, 1954, in Washington, DC.

McCarthyite Laws Targeting Leftists Are Still on the Books Across the Country

Communists were excluded from an Oklahoma Pride festival recently, a reminder of how easily the Red Scare’s mechanisms for state repression can be revived.
by Liza Featherstone via Jacobin on June 20, 2023
Drawing of teacher colored red in front of blackboard, teaching two students sitting in desks
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Did Communists Really Infiltrate American Schools?

Fears that teachers were indoctrinating kids were rampant in the 1950s. But the reality was more complicated.
by Erin Blakemore, Jonathan Hunt via JSTOR Daily on December 3, 2020
Mimeograph close-up of draft of Hans Bethe's H-bomb article.

How an Article about the H-Bomb Landed Scientific American in the Middle of the Red Scare

At one time this magazine tangled with the FBI, the Atomic Energy Commission and Joseph McCarthy.
by Alfred W. McCoy via Scientific American on September 1, 2020
A group of men gather at a headquarters of the Communist Party USA following a protest demanding pay raise and an end to police brutality, US, circa 1920. Hirz / Archive Photos / Getty

How McCarthyism and the Red Scare Hurt the Black Freedom Struggle

Union activists linked the struggle for black equality in housing, employment, and at the ballot box, to the broader struggle against capitalist domination.
by Paul Heideman via Jacobin on May 21, 2020
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McCarthyism at the Oscars

As José Ferrer was being handed his Oscar—making him the first Latino actor to win—he was being investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee.
by Kristin Hunt via JSTOR Daily on January 30, 2020

Jackie Robinson Was Asked to Denounce Paul Robeson. Instead, He Went After Jim Crow.

His testimony before House Un-American Activities Committee was a turning point for the baseball hero.
by Johnny Smith via Andscape on April 15, 2019

Trumpism Is the New McCarthyism

Just as as McCarthyism did decades ago, Trumpism conceals the Republican Party’s long-term program to dismantle the public sector.
by Ellen Schrecker via The Nation on May 21, 2018
Robert Welch, founder of the John Birch Society, standing next to a portrait of the group's namesake, Captain John Morrison Birch.

December 9, 1958: The John Birch Society Is Founded

“Together with other ‘know nothing’ organizations scattered through the country, it represents a basic, continuing phenomenon in American society.”
by Richard Kreitner, Hans Engh via The Nation on December 9, 1958
Hollywood screenwriter Samuel Ornitz speaks before the House Un-American Activities Committee

First Amendment in Flux: When Free Speech Protections Came Up Against the Red Scare

The congressional anti-communist hearings of the 1940s are a reminder that freedom of speech today is even more fragile than it may seem.
by Jodie Childers via The Conversation on November 20, 2025
Jane Fonda at the 2025 SAG Awards.

History’s Lessons for the Second Committee for the First Amendment

Jane Fonda is reviving the Hollywood advocacy group to meet the high-stakes challenges to free expression in the Trump era.
by Ben Schwartz via The Nation on October 20, 2025
Photograph of Jean Muir

Before There Was Jimmy Kimmel, There Was Jean Muir

The "Red Scare" echo in the Kimmel suspension.
by Clay Risen via Politico Magazine on September 20, 2025
The author and other children picketing the Board of Education in protest of her father's firing.

A General Air of Anxiety

The Red Scare targeted my father. He taught me the meaning of resistance.
by Joan Wallach Scott via Boston Review on September 10, 2025
Charlie Chaplin stands fearfully in a hall of mirrors.

No Way Out

In broadcasting, the Red Scare turned into a stupid hall of mirrors.
by Julia Barton via Continuous Wave on September 4, 2025
Union leaders William Green, Hugo Ernst, and George Meany.

The War on Communists in the Hotel Workers’ Union

The rise and fall of Communists in New York’s hotel union reveals how socialists gained, wielded, and ultimately lost power in the U.S. labor movement.
by Shaun Richman via Jacobin on July 21, 2025
Still frame from the film Inherit the Wind depicts a legal team sitting in a packed courtroom.
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How Theater Helps Us Remember the Scopes Trial 100 Years Later

'Inherit the Wind' changed how people understand, and remember, the legendary Scopes trial.
by Charlotte M. Canning via Made By History on July 10, 2025
Columbia University building shrouded in darkness.

In the Hallowed Place Where There’s Only Darkness

Columbia University as security state.
by Ellen Schrecker, Nina Berman via VQR on July 10, 2025
Photo of Claudine gay testifying to Congress.

What a 1964 Book About American Anti-Intellectualism Can Teach Us About the Trump Era

On Richard Hofstadter and the current assault on academia.
by Peter Balakian via Literary Hub on July 9, 2025
Donald Trump shakes the hand of a border patrol officer while a line of others waits to meet him.

State of Exception

National security governance, then and now.
by David Klion via The Drift on June 24, 2025
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