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Lady Bird Johnson looking through stack of papers at a desk

The Lost Story of Lady Bird

Why do most chroniclers of LBJ’s presidency miss the centrality and influence of the first lady?
Artistic collage of black leaders surrounded by images associated with prohibition.

The Forgotten History of Black Prohibitionism

We often think of the temperance movement as driven by white evangelicals set out to discipline Black Americans and immigrants. That history is wrong.
Herbert Hoover in January 1933

Herbert Hoover Did Something Donald Trump is Unwilling to Do

While Herbert Hoover was deeply critical of his successor, he put aside his differences to ensure the peaceful and democratic transition of power.
President Abraham Lincoln, bareheaded at center, giving the Gettysburg Address, Pennsylvania, 1863

The Party of Lincoln Ignores His Warning Against Mobocracy

“There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law,” declared the man who would be America’s sixteenth president.

Meet Joseph Rainey, the First Black Congressman

Born enslaved, he was elected to Congress in the wake of the Civil War. But the impact of this momentous step in U.S. race relationships did not last long.

Ebenezer Baptist: MLK’s Church Makes New History With Warnock Victory

Georgia Sen.-elect Raphael Warnock is pastor of the church where Martin Luther King Jr. preached.
President Richard Nixon and Vice President Gerald Ford in the White House, along with their wives, First Lady Pat Nixon and Betty Ford

Gerald Ford and the Perversion of Presidential Pardons

In pardoning Nixon, the 38th president opened the floodgates to boundless executive power.
Calhoun Monument, Marion Square, Charleston.

A Crashing Monument and the Echoes of War

The collapse of John C. Calhoun's statue created a sound not unlike artillery in the war he influenced.
Donald Trump giving a speech under a mural of the Founders.

White Evangelicals and the New American Exceptionalism of Donald Trump

The president's "1776 Commission" marks a turning point in his rhetoric.
Eugene Debs in a suit

Eugene Debs Believed in Socialism Because He Believed in Democracy

Eugene Debs’s unswerving commitment to democracy and internationalism was born out of his revulsion at the tyranny of industrial capitalism.
Donald Trump
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Even After Their Fearmongering Proves Wrong, Republicans Keep at It. Here’s Why.

For close to a century, conservatives have seen all government programs as the road to socialism.

Why Bill Clinton Attacked Stokely Carmichael

Clinton disparaged Carmichael at John Lewis’s funeral. But Black radicalism speaks more to the present moment than Clinton’s centrist politics.

Reaganland Is the Riveting Conclusion to a Story That Still Isn’t Over

Rick Perlstein’s epic series shows political history and cultural history cannot be disentangled.
Black Lives Matter demonstrators.
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A Long-Forgotten Holiday Animates Black Lives Matter

The movement for racial equality echoes the vision of the “August First Day” holiday.

UVA and the History of Race: The George Rogers Clark Statue and Native Americans

Unlike the statues of Lee and Jackson, these Charlottesville monuments had less to do with memory than they did with an imagined past.

Joseph McCarthy and the Force of Political Falsehoods

McCarthy never sent a single “subversive” to jail, but, decades later, the spirit of his conspiracy-mongering endures.

The Essential and Enduring Strength of John Lewis

What the late civil-rights leader and congressman taught the nation.
A portrait of David Ruggles, who opened the first black-owned bookstore in America, between two white men.
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The First Black-Owned Bookstore and the Fight for Freedom

Black abolitionist David Ruggles opened the first Black-owned bookstore in 1834, pointing the way to freedom—in more ways than one.
Part of the pedestal of a monument, inscribed with the words "Bright angels come and guard our sleeping heroes."

The Even Uglier Truth Behind Athens Confederate Monument

It was intended to be a tool of political power, sending a message against Black voting and serving as a gathering point for the Ku Klux Klan.
Graffito picture of Richard Nixon superimposed on lines an German text.

Richard Nixon, Modular Man

Even knowing every awful thing Richard Nixon would go on to do, you had to respect, as the phrase goes, his hustle.

The Science of Abolition

On Hosea Easton’s and David Walker’s attempts to debunk scientific racism.
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How Biden vs. Sanders Echoes a 1964 Republican Party Split

Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden are the icons of an ideological split among today’s Democrats, echoing a similar split in the Republican party of 1964.
Civil rights leader Wyatt Tee Walker addresses a crowd at St. Phillips AME Church in Atlanta.

How Civil Rights Leader Wyatt Tee Walker Revived Hope After MLK's Death

In a sermon two weeks after MLK's funeral, Walker urged young seminarians to be hopeful and take action for making change happen. His sermon has valuable lessons today.
Statue of John Winthrop

"City on a Hill" and the Making of an American Origin Story

A now-famous Puritan sermon was nothing special in its own day.
Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers his famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial during the Freedom March on Washington in 1963.

How a Heritage of Black Preaching Shaped MLK's Voice in Calling for Justice

A long heritage of black preachers who played an important role for enslaved people shaped Martin Luther King Jr.‘s moral and ethical vision.

A House Still Divided

In 1858, Lincoln warned that America could not remain “half slave and half free.” The threat today is as existential as it was before the Civil War.
Black and white image of Hellen Keller sitting

Helen Keller: Activist and Orator

Though Helen Keller’s childhood triumph over the difficulties of her deaf-blindness are known, many are unaware of her second act as an activist and orator.

Who's the Boss?

When conductor and soloist clash, a concerto performance can turn into a contest of wills.

RFK, in Arthur Schlesinger’s Words

On the 50th anniversary of RFK's death, a glimpse inside one of his closest relationships.

Martin Luther King: How a Rebel Leader Was Lost to History

Fifty years after his death, King is a national treasure in the US. But what happened to his revolutionary legacy?

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