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Circus Sideshow, by Georges Seurat, 1887–88.

Unforgettable

W.E.B. Du Bois on the beauty of sorrow songs.

The Johnson Party

An 1866 essay presents Andrew Johnson as "the virtual leader of the Southern reactionary party."
A drawing of a church in Charleston, South Carolina, circa 1812.

The Story of Denmark Vesey

Against the backdrop of another conflict over slavery in 1861, Thomas Wentworth Higginson wrote an in-depth narrative of Denmark Vesey's planned slave revolt in Charleston, SC.
Painting of Abraham Lincoln

The Election in November

The Atlantic’s editor endorsed Abraham Lincoln for presidency in the 1860 election, correctly predicting it would prove to be “a turning-point in our history.”

A Letter From Frederick Douglass to His Former Owner

A spotlight on a primary source.
Olauda Equiano.

The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano

Olaudah Equiano, native of Africa, survivor of the Middle Passage and enslavement, tells his story.
Image of a young boy carrying a pistol with women and children in the background.

Gun Culture Then and Now

Firearm ownership meant something very different when the United States was founded.
Two African American children gallop through a field on horseback.

Riding to Freedom: On the Importance of the Horse in Escaping Slavery

“Horses were a part of the daily fabric of life for many enslaved Black people.”
Dates growing on a palm.
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Dates: Civilization’s Sweetest Indulgence

Offshoots from the “Tree of Life” traveled from Mesopotamia to the Levant to the United States, beguiling everyone with their toothsome confections.
A white hand gives a key to another white hand, bypassing a Black hand.

What We Miss When We Talk About the Racial Wealth Gap

Six decades of civil-rights efforts haven’t budged the racial wealth gap, and the usual prescriptions—including reparations—offer no lasting solutions.
Collage of documents and a sampler that record genealogical information.

Why 18th-Century Americans Were Just as Obsessed With Their Genealogy as We Are Today

People living in British America and later the nascent United States recorded their family histories in needlework samplers, notebooks and newspapers.
Engraving of Founding Fathers reading the Declaration of Independence while onlookers rally.

Does America Have a Founding Philosophy?

It depends on how you read the Declaration’s “self-evident” truths.
Document about enslaved baby born to Priscilla.

Active Silence, Archival Presence, and An Enslaved Mother's Legal Knowledge

An enslaved woman’s refusal to name her child challenged Pennsylvania’s gradual abolition laws and left behind a rare archival trace of resistance.

Teaching the Holocaust Just Got Harder in Mississippi

A new state law forbids education increasing ‘awareness’ of issues relating to race. How are educators supposed to teach history?
A woman peering into the cave of Sarah Bishop c. 1900.

The Curious History of New England’s Hermit Tourism

From Revolutionary War-era recluses to 1920s roadside attractions, meet the solitary figures who turned isolation into a destination.

The Revolutionary Idea That Remade the New World

Birthright citizenship is distinctly American—but not in the way Trump thinks.
Thomas Jefferson
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Thomas Jefferson: A Vote for Cutting Off Your Nose

To reduce Virginia’s use of the death penalty, Thomas Jefferson proposed using permanent disfigurement as a punishment for rape, polygamy, and sodomy.
Collage of various black women mentioned within the article.

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Edda L. Fields-Black on the Combahee River Raid

Harriet Tubman’s revolutionary Civil War raid and the power of preserving Black history in the face of political pushback.
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.
Cover of book. Red text on a blue background with stickers of Karl Marx's face arranged like the 50 stars.

Marx: The Fourth Boom

Were you to vanish Marx from every library, you’d destroy the central interlocutor around which most of capitalism is built.
A newspaper drawing of St. Louis from above.
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German Radicals vs. the Slave Power

In "Memoirs of a Nobody," Henry Boernstein chronicles the militant immigrant organizing that helped keep St. Louis out of the hands of the Confederacy.
John Trumbull’s painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, 1819.

Who Invented the “Founding Fathers?”

The making of a myth.
Mannequins model Black fashion ranging from ethnic apparel to suits.

Turning Style Into Power: How the Black Dandy Used Clothing to Challenge Authority

At the Met, "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style" shows how clothing became a way for Black men to assert presence and push back against control.
Karl Marx gazing off into the distance while surrounded by books

Karl Marx’s Legacy in the United States

For two centuries, Karl Marx’s thoughts have significantly impacted US politics. In turn, his close study of the US informed the development of his ideas.
Woodrow Wilson and a panel of red stars.

Surviving Bad Presidents

What the Constitution asks of us.
Pope Leo XIV in front of a crowd.

Pope Leo XIV’s Link to Haiti is Part of a Broader American Story of Race, Citizenship and Migration

Repelled by American racism, thousands of free people of color bounced between New Orleans and Haiti in the 19th century.
Enslaved people crossing a river at night.

The Power of the Dead: BaKongo Inspiration and the Chesapeake Rebellion

Sensitivity to the influence of BaKongo cosmology on Kongo Christianity can help us better understand the choices made by leaders of the rebellion.
Drawing of Black and white Liberian Senators sitting behind desks while one speaks and a crowd watches

Freedom and Its Limits

Edward Wilmot Blyden sorted through competing ideas about the meaning of freedom in 19th-Century Liberia.
Mark Twain sits in thought on stone steps surrounded by nature while holding papers

Twain Dreams

The enigma of Samuel Clemens.
Trump from behind, and the Washington monument.

How Trump Wants to Change History

Late last month, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to restore “truth and sanity to American history.”

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