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Photograph of Martin Luther King Jr. speaking into microphones.

Let Justice Roll Down

"Those who expected a cheap victory in a climate of complacency were shocked into reality by Selma."
by Martin Luther King Jr. via The Nation on March 16, 1965
Political cartoon of Freedman's Bureau agent separating angry whites from defensive freedmen.

The Freedmen's Bureau

“No sooner had Northern armies touched Southern soil than this old question, newly guised, sprang from the earth: What shall be done with slaves?”
by W.E.B. Du Bois via The Atlantic on March 1, 1901
The Northampton Election, December 6, 1830, by J.M.W. Turner, c. 1830. A British election taking place in a town square with people waving banners and standing around.

The Tyranny of the Ballot

A man who wants everyone to know his views explains why he’s against voting in secret.
by Sydney Smith via Lapham’s Quarterly on January 1, 1879
Jesse Jackson

Jesse Jackson’s American Century

Born in the Jim Crow south, he dedicated his long career to fighting for economic justice for all.
by Antonio de Loera-Brust via Compact on February 18, 2026
Exhibit

Voting Rights: A Retrospective

Voting, a right not initially enshrined in the Constitution, has been secured, revoked, and contested since the nation's founding era.
Collage showing a hand casting a ballot, a painting of the Consitutional Convention, and Donald Trump.

The Founders Would Have Opposed ‘Nationalizing’ Elections

The writers of the Constitution sought an approach that balanced control between the states and the federal government.
by Jeffrey Rosen via The Atlantic on February 16, 2026
Salmon P. Chase

Who Owns the Founding? Akhil Reed Amar’s "Born Equal: Remaking America's Constitution"

Politics keeps refighting the Founding: Amar says liberals inherit originalism, but that tale smooths 19th-century contradictions.
by Ahmed Ahmed via Liberal Currents on February 3, 2026
ASCII art of "We the People" by Paul Sahre.

Is the Constitution ‘Dead, Dead, Dead’?

The difficulty of amending the Constitution does not mean that it is a flawed and outdated relic of a distant past.
by Laurence H. Tribe via New York Review of Books on January 22, 2026
"We The People" Constitution on top of many folders of paper.

Conservatives Want the Antebellum Constitution Back

The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments are in trouble.
by Adam Serwer via The Atlantic on December 21, 2025
William Goodell in a suit.

William Goodell and the Science of Human Rights

William Goodell was praised by Frederick Douglass for being among the most important opponents of slavery in his time.
by Steve Gowler via Jacobin on December 7, 2025
Virginia residents outside of an early voting location.
partner

The Troubling Roots of Off-Year Gubernatorial Elections

Off-year elections were meant to insulate states from federal trends. That still matters.
by Michael Trotti via Made By History on October 29, 2025
A protestor holds up a sign which reads "tax the rich."
partner

The Founders Knew Great Wealth Inequality Could Destroy Us

At the founding of America, leaders predicted that a concentration of wealth would weaken the republic.
by Daniel R. Mandell via Made By History on July 7, 2025
A racially diverse group of children saying the Pledge of Allegiance while one holds an American flag.

Who Gets to Be an American?

Since the earliest days of the Republic, American citizenship has been contested, subject to the anti-democratic impulses of racism, suspicion, and paranoia.
by Michael Luo via The New Yorker on May 20, 2025
V. Ramirez's Army Corps badge.

How Real ID Excludes Real Americans

My dad’s birth certificate said Vicente. His passport said Vince. New legislation would have disenfranchised him.
by Catherine S. Ramírez via Zócalo Public Square on May 12, 2025
Thaddeus Stevens
partner

Thaddeus Stevens and the Power of the Purse

The Radical Republican oversaw federal spending at the dawn of Reconstruction. How did his support for Black equality affect his leadership in the House?
by Cecily Nelson Zander via HNN on February 25, 2025
"Vote here" sign in English and Spanish.

Chasing the “Latino Vote”

Political campaigns have often misunderstood Latino voters, oversimplifying their diversity and facing challenges in outreach and engagement.
by Mike Amezcua via Perspectives on History on October 30, 2024

How John Lewis Put a Legacy of Heroism to Use

As the civil-rights era receded, his personal heroism loomed larger. But movement politics didn’t easily translate into party politics.
by Kelefa Sanneh via The New Yorker on October 7, 2024
Ulysses S. Grant finishing his memoir shortly before he died.

Grant vs. the Klan

New books reconsider how Ulysses S. Grant became a forceful defender of the rights of African Americans after the Civil War.
by David S. Reynolds via New York Review of Books on September 26, 2024
JD Vance, along with characters from the Scorsese movie "Gangs of New York," shown over a background of a map of New York City

JD Vance is Just Another Know Nothing Nativist

MAGA has been a largely white movement of non-urban people who seem to think that people unlike them are scary and that there is only safety in homogeneity.
by Rebecca Solnit via Literary Hub on August 23, 2024
FBI agents and local police examine a bombed out pickup truck in Natchez, Mississippi.

The History of Violent Opposition to Black Political Participation

Leaders in the 20th-century South faced violence and death for promoting voting rights; systemic failure enabled their killers to go unpunished.
by Dan Biddle, Sara Rimer via Equal Justice Initiative on August 13, 2024
W.E.B. Du Bois

When Did Black Voters Shift to Democrats? Earlier Than You Might Think

A look at how and why African Americans first started to abandon the GOP for the Democratic Party.
by Blake Wilson via Retropolis on June 30, 2024
African American families stand alongside a dirt road in 1936.

How Land Theft Decimated Black Communities

In the book “Rooted,” activist and writer Brea Baker elucidates the thread between limited Black land ownership and the racial wealth gap.
by Brea Baker via The Emancipator on June 25, 2024
A rally and march in New York City demanding that every vote be counted in the general election, despite Trump’s premature claim of victory, on November 4, 2020.

Defend Liberalism? Let’s Fight for Democracy First

America never really was liberal, and that’s not the right fight anyway. The fight now is for democracy.
by Jefferson Cowie via The New Republic on June 21, 2024
Portrait of Creek men.
partner

A Federal Court Has Ruled Blood Cannot Determine Tribal Citizenship. Here’s Why That Matters.

The struggle over blood and belonging in American Indian communities.
by Alaina E. Roberts via Made By History on March 9, 2024
Picture of Frederick Douglass overlaid on a poster advertising a speech of his.

The Annotated Frederick Douglass

In 1866, the famous abolitionist laid out his vision for radically reshaping America in the pages of "The Atlantic."
by Frederick Douglass, David W. Blight via The Atlantic on November 13, 2023
Two women working for the 1940 census.

'Are You Still Living?'

Who is counted by the census, how, and for what purpose, has changed a lot since 1790.
by Kasia Boddy via London Review of Books on October 19, 2023
Civil Rights march for jobs and freedom.

The Hidden Story of Black History and Black Lives Before the Civil Rights Movement

On upending the accepted narrative of the movement.
by Dylan C. Penningroth via Literary Hub on October 4, 2023
A ballot from Ireland’s 2020 general election.

Avoiding the PR Mistakes of the Past

The proportional representation (PR) vs. single transferable vote (STV) battle in local elections.
by Jack Santucci via Democracy Journal on September 12, 2023
Joshua Houston leads a Juneteenth Parade in Huntsville, Texas, circa 1900.

Juneteenth, Jim Crow

How the fight of one Black Texas family to make freedom real offers lessons for Texas lawmakers trying to erase history from the classroom.
by Jeffrey L. Littlejohn, Zachary Montz via The Conversation on June 16, 2023
D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, left, House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) greet the audience at a town hall meeting at Eastern High School in D.C. in 1995.

House GOP and D.C.: A Historically Strained Marriage Grows More Tenuous

Republicans have long made a sport of deriding Washington, portraying it as a dysfunctional, crime-infested “swamp."
by Paul Schwartzman via Retropolis on May 13, 2023
Statue of the "Spirit of Wyoming," a bucking horse with its rider, outside of the Capitol Building in Cheyenne.
partner

The Fight for Accurate Western History is about Inclusion Today

Distortions in Western history have long obscured the region’s Black communities.
by Anthony W. Wood via Made By History on February 2, 2023
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