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A group of black prisoners, shoveling.

Race, Prison, and the Thirteenth Amendment

Critiques of the Thirteenth Amendment have roots in a long history of activists who understood the imprisonment of Black people as a type of slavery.
by Daryl Michael Scott, Livia Gershon via JSTOR Daily on September 21, 2023
Elder M. Andrew Robinson-Gaither demonstrates for reparations for slavery.

The Thirteenth Amendment and a Reparations Program

The amendment, which brought an end to slavery in the U.S., could be used to begin a national debate on reparations.
by Ramsin Canon via U.S. Intellectual History Blog on July 12, 2014
Aerial view of Pennsylvania's Eastern State Penitentiary, 19th century.

Untangling the 19th Century Roots of Mass Incarceration

Popular accounts often trace the origins of forced penal labor to the post-Civil War South. But a vast system of forced penal labor existed in the antebellum North.
by Rebecca McLennan via LPE Project on May 16, 2023
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice.

Grappling With the Overthrow of Reconstruction

Two new books ask us to shift our attention away from the white vigilantes of Jim Crow and instead focus on what it meant for the survivors.
by Eric Herschthal via The New Republic on March 23, 2023
Engraving of freed slaves arriving at Union lines, New Bern, North Carolina, 1863.

The Emancipators’ Vision

Was abolition intended as a perpetuation of slavery by other means?
by Sean Wilentz via New York Review of Books on December 1, 2022
Photograph shows two white men overseeing African American men hammering boulders as others walk with wheelbarrows.

Locked Up: The Prison Labor That Built Business Empires

Companies across the South profited off the forced labor of people in prison after the Civil War – a racist system known as convict leasing.
by Margie Mason, Robin McDowell via AP News on September 19, 2022
Artistic collage of the preamble to the U.S. Constitution.

Was Emancipation Constitutional?

Did the Confederacy have a constitutional right to secede? And did Lincoln violate the Constitution in forcing them back into the Union and freeing the slaves?
by James Oakes via New York Review of Books on April 20, 2022
Nipsey Russell, Harry Belafonte, Coretta Scott King and Martin Luther King Jr. smiling and laughing.
partner

The Right to Joy and Pleasure is a Crucial Element of Racial Justice

Addressing systemic racism and state violence is not enough.
by Brence Pernell via Made By History on February 16, 2022
Statue of Dred Scott and wife

Allegiance, Birthright, and Race in America

What the Dred Scott v. Sandford case meant for black citizenship.
by William A. Darity Jr., Charles Ali Bey via Black Perspectives on August 4, 2021
A painting entitled Our Town, with Black children playing on a suburban street

The Truth About Black Freedom

This year’s Juneteenth commemorations must take a deeper look at the history of Black self-liberation to understand what emancipation really means.
by Daina Ramey Berry via The Atlantic on June 18, 2021
Daryl Michael Scott.

"Bad History and Worse Social Science Have Replaced Truth"

Daryl Michael Scott on propaganda and myth from ‘The 1619 Project’ to Trumpism.
by Daryl Michael Scott, Len Gutkin via The Chronicle of Higher Education on March 10, 2021

The Origins of Policing in America

How American policing grew out of efforts to control the labor of poor and enslaved people.
by Chenjerai Kumanyika, Khalil Gibran Muhammad via Washington Post on September 24, 2020

The Achievements, and Compromises, of Two Reconstruction-era Amendments

While they advanced African American rights, they had serious flaws, Eric Foner writes.
by John Fabian Witt via Washington Post on October 31, 2019
Painting of a slave auction.

Teaching Hard History

A new study suggests that high school students lack a basic knowledge of the role slavery played in shaping the United States.
via Southern Poverty Law Center on January 31, 2018

The Roots of Segregation

"The Color of Law" offers an indicting critique of the progressive agenda.
by Carl Paulus via The American Conservative on May 5, 2017

Killing Reconstruction

During Reconstruction, elites used racist appeals to silence calls for redistribution and worker empowerment.
by Heather Cox Richardson via Jacobin on August 19, 2015
Abraham Lincoln

Was the Civil War Inevitable?

Before Lincoln turned the idea of “the Union” into a cause worth dying for, he tried other means of ending slavery in America.
by Adam Gopnik via The New Yorker on April 21, 2025

The Other Side of Sherman’s March

The general’s campaign through the South is known for its brutality against civilians. For the enslaved who followed his army, though, it was a shot at freedom.
by Scott Spillman via The New Yorker on January 29, 2025
Edward Blum superimposed on the Supreme Court building.

The People Who Dismantled Affirmative Action Have a New Strategy to Crush Racial Justice

In throwing up new roadblocks to the use of private money to redress racial and economic inequality, the Fearless Fund ruling is antihistorical.
by David H. Gans via Slate on June 11, 2024
A print titled "Heroes of the Colored Race," centered on portraits of Blanche Bruce, Frederick Douglas, and Hiram Revels.

Slavery, Capitalism, and the Politics of Abolition

"The Reckoning," Robin Blackburn’s monumental history, offers a dizzying account of the politics behind slavery's rise and fall.
by Alec Israeli via Jacobin on May 19, 2024
A field of cotton.

What a Series of Killings in Rural Georgia Revealed About Early 20th-Century America

On the continuing regime of racial terror in the post-Civil War American South.
by Earl Swift via Literary Hub on April 25, 2024
Gen. Robt. E. Lee, 1886.

After the Civil War, Robert E. Lee Couldn't Run for President, but Trump Can?

Despite Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, a Colorado state judge stretches the word “officer,” permitting him to remain on the state’s ballot.
by Garrett Epps via Washington Monthly on November 20, 2023
Enslaved men gathered in the woods to plot a revolt.

Slavery and Rebellion in Eighteenth-Century New Jersey

While documented revolts of enslaved persons in New Jersey aren’t abundant, some examples speak to the spirit of resistance among African people held captive.
by Rann Miller via Black Perspectives on March 27, 2023
African American prisoners in Alabama post-Reconstruction.

How the Slavery-Like Conditions of Convict Leasing Flourished After the Collapse of Reconstruction

On the terror that filled the void left by the retreat of federal authority in the South.
by Jefferson Cowie via Literary Hub on November 23, 2022
Federal Reserve Note featuring Salmon Chase held by the National Numismatic Collection, National Museum of American History

The War with Inflation and the Confederacy

During the Civil War, the Lincoln administration demonstrated that a progressive agenda and effective anti-inflationary measures could overlap.
by Andrew Donnelly via Public Books on September 20, 2022
Illustration of Abraham Lincoln getting ready to give a speech.

Re-imagining the Great Emancipator

How shall a generation know its story, if it will know no other?
by Ralph Lerner via National Affairs on March 21, 2022
A jar of soil from the burial site of Howard Cooper, dated 1885.

Now We Know Their Names

In Maryland, a memorial for two lynching victims reveals how America is grappling with its history of racial terror.
by Clint Smith via The Atlantic on February 2, 2022
Colorful portrait collage of Harriet Tubman with stars in the background

The Harriet Tubman Bicentennial Project

The Harriet Tubman Bicentennial Project explores the meaning of freedom through the example of one extraordinary life.
by Janell Hobson via Ms. Magazine on February 1, 2022

50 Years After Attica, Prisoners Protest Brutal Conditions

If this nation hopes to achieve a justice system that is just, it must remain ever vigilant for any echo from Attica.
by Heather Ann Thompson via TIME on September 8, 2021
Bus station with 'colored waiting room' sign.

Plessy v. Ferguson at 125

One hundred and twenty five years after the Supreme Court’s decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, there are still lessons to be gleaned from the case.
by Rachel Reed via Harvard Law Bulletin on May 19, 2021
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