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African American boy watches a parade of white people from a distance.

The Great Resegregation

The Trump administration’s attacks on DEI are aimed at reversing the civil rights movement.
by Adam Serwer via The Atlantic on February 22, 2025
Title page to Ida B. Wells's book about lynching.

Is It Legal?

Deferring to power and authority leads inevitably to autocracy.
by William Horne via In Case Of Emergency on February 7, 2025
Home of a Black family living in New Brighton, Pennsylvania, January 1940.

Taxed for Being Black

The long arc of racist plunder through local tax codes is shocking—or, well, maybe it’s not, really.
by Victor Ray via Democracy Journal on June 13, 2024
A protest in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray.

The Problem with Baltimore

The impact of the city's history with slavery.
by Anthony Smooth via Black Perspectives on March 22, 2024
Cars on an interstate highway at sunset.

Interstate Lovesong

How popular and official narratives have obscured the damaging impact of the interstate highway system.
by Ryan Reft via The Metropole on January 4, 2024
A photograph of a young Black boy riding a bicycle.

Re-thinking Black (Im)mobility

The bicycle is a symbol of youth, but in the mid-twentieth century it also symbolized Black joy and mobility.
by Nathan Cardon via Black Perspectives on September 20, 2023
Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley delivering the welcoming address to delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, on Aug. 26, 1968. BETTMANN ARCHIVE, VIA GETTY IMAGES

How Chicago Got Its Gun Laws

It’s nearly impossible to separate modern-day gun laws from race.
by Lakeidra Chavis via The Marshall Project on March 24, 2023
Graphic including images of Percy Julian.

Percy Julian and the False Promise of Exceptionalism

Reflecting on the trailblazing chemist’s fight for dignity and the myths we tell about our scientific heroes.
by Alexis J. Pedrick via Distillations on March 16, 2023
Black and white photo of Saidiya Hartman in a field of flowers

The Enduring Power of “Scenes of Subjection”

Saidiya Hartman’s unrelenting exploration of slavery and freedom in the United States first appeared in 1997 and has lost none of its relevance.
by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor via The New Yorker on October 17, 2022
Booker T. Washington addressing a laughing crowd of African American men in Lakeland, Tennessee, during his campaign promoting African American education. Ca. 1900.

Market Solutions to Ancient Sins

Freedom and prosperity are the most effective cure for the scars of slavery and racism.
by Jason Jewell via Law & Liberty on June 28, 2022
People walking towards the vigil for mass shooting victims.

Hiding Buffalo’s History of Racism Behind a Cloak of Unity

Officials have described the recent shooting as an aberration in the “City of Good Neighbors.” But this conceals the city’s long-standing racial divisions.
by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor via The New Yorker on June 9, 2022
Drinking fountain on the county courthouse lawn, labeled "colored," in black and white.

Racism as Theory: A Historiography of White Supremacy Ideology

An overview of historical scholarship and socio-cultural developments in America to explain how racism became institutionalized against Black Americans.
by Bala James Baptiste via Black Perspectives on April 1, 2022
Formal portrait photo of Destin Jenkins.

Public Thinker: Destin Jenkins on Breaking Bonds

“What if we identified the politics of municipal debt as circumscribing political horizons and futures?”
by Destin Jenkins, Hannah Appel via Public Books on December 13, 2021
Black and white photo of Howard Fuller outside Malcolm X Liberation University

The Lost Promise of Black Study

Even as they carve out space for Black scholarship, established universities remain deeply complicit in racial capitalism. We must think beyond them.
by Andrew J. Douglas, Jared Loggins via Boston Review on September 24, 2021
Gen. Milley at White House
partner

Racism Has Long Undermined Military Cohesion, Just as Gen. Milley Testified

Late 1960s conflicts within the armed forces produced efforts to educate service members on racism.
by Natalie Shibley via Made By History on June 29, 2021
A car window with a sign in it that reads "let freedom ring" with an illustration of Martin Luther King, Jr.
partner

Martin Luther King Jr.’s Challenge to Liberal Allies — and Why It Resonates Today

King understood the perils of submerged racism.
by Jeanne Theoharis via Made By History on February 8, 2021

The Civil Rights Era was Supposed to Drastically Change America. It Didn’t.

From covid-19 to the 2020 election, the specter of America’s racist history influences many aspects of our lives.
by Stefan M. Bradley via Washington Post on December 23, 2020

Banking Against (Black) Capitalism

A review of "The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap."
by Armond Towns, Carolyn Hardin via Los Angeles Review of Books on March 19, 2018

Patterns Of Death In The South Still Show The Outlines Of Slavery

Blacks continue to die younger than people in other groups in the Black Belt.
by Anna Maria Barry-Jester via FiveThirtyEight on April 20, 2017
Malcolm X

When Malcolm X Met Robert Penn Warren

An excerpt from a discussion between Malcolm X and Robert Penn Warren on guilt and innocence.
by Ta-Nehisi Coates via The Atlantic on August 28, 2015
Demonstrators in the June 1968 Poor People's March in Washington, DC.

Why Liberals Separate Race from Class

The tendency to divorce racial disparities from economic inequality has a long liberal lineage.
by Touré F. Reed via Jacobin on August 22, 2015

The Case for Reparations

Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.
by Ta-Nehisi Coates via The Atlantic on June 23, 2014
Photographer Gordon Parks and Norman Fontanelli, whose family is the subject of Parks's photojournalism.
partner

Gordon Parks' Diary of a Harlem Family

Narrated photo journal of time spent with a family to discuss poverty and race.
by Public Broadcast Laboratory via American Archive of Public Broadcasting on March 3, 1968
National Guard troops enforce desegregation at Central High School in Little Rock, AK, 1957.
partner

The History of School Desegregation Reveals the Job Isn't Done

One of the most famous episodes of school desegregation was actually just the starting point for a half-century struggle.
by Heather McNamee via Made By History on September 4, 2025
Young mother, St. Ann's Ave at E. 140th St., Bronx, 1977
partner

Life in the Firestorm

The 21st century American city was forged in the embers of the 1970s arson wave.
by Bench Ansfield via HNN on August 19, 2025
Protesters gather outside the White House, holding picket signs advocating for home rule for Washington DC.

How the 1973 D.C. Home Rule Act Enabled the Nation’s Capital to Govern Itself—With Oversight

Far from being a new debate, the discussion over extending home rule to Washingtonians has been around as long as the District of Columbia itself.
by Meilan Solly via Smithsonian Magazine on August 14, 2025
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.
by Idrees Kahloon via The New Yorker on July 28, 2025
The book "A Forgotten Migration," and author Crystal R. Sanders

A Forgotten Migration: An Interview with Crystal R. Sanders

A new book examines the long history of racial inequality in higher education through the post-baccalaureate experiences of Jim Crow era African Americans.
by Ashley Everson, Crystal R. Sanders via Black Perspectives on July 28, 2025
A group of workers in hard hats walk through the shallow water of one of the Panama Canal's locks.

‘The Canal Is Ours’

Trump’s threats to take control of the Panama Canal have precipitated a struggle over the country’s sovereignty.
by Miriam Pensack via New York Review of Books on June 28, 2025
Malcolm X

What Made Malcolm X Dangerous

He challenged the violence of US power, abroad and at home. His radical internationalism, from Congo to Palestine, speaks to our moment.
by Donté L. Stallworth via Jacobin on May 21, 2025
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