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Minnijean Brown, Thelma Mothershed, and Melba Pattillo (three of the Little Rock Nine), and NAACP president Daisy Bates.

Selling Out Our Public Schools

For decades, the term “school choice” was widely and rightly dismissed as racist. Now it’s the law in thirty-three states.
by Diane Ravitch via New York Review of Books on February 20, 2025
Aerial view of the suburbs.

How Racist Policies Destroyed Public Housing and Created the American Suburbs

The systematic post-war displacement of communities of color.
by Tracy Rosenthal, Leonardo Vilchis via Literary Hub on September 25, 2024
Row of suburban homes.

White America Facing Its Ghosts

The slow unraveling of a nation’s suburbs.
by Benjamin Herold via Literary Hub on January 23, 2024
Large public pool

Why America Stopped Building Public Pools

“If the public pool isn’t available and open, you don’t swim.”
by Nathaniel Meyersohn via CNN on July 22, 2023
Bars labeled First through Fourth depicting risk levels for housing loans.

The Shame of the Suburbs

How America gave up on housing equality.
by David Denison via The Baffler on May 9, 2023
A collage shows a white hand segregating Black Americans.

No Breakthrough in Sight

More than fifty years after the Fair Housing Act, inequality and segregation persists. What went wrong?
by Kaila Philo via The Baffler on May 9, 2023
South Front Street House, Philadelphia, PA (credit LOC).

Black Homeownership Before World War II

From the 1920s-1940s, North, West, and South Philadelphia saw its Black population increase by 50-80% as white flight occurred.
by Menika Dirkson via Black Perspectives on March 29, 2023
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference on March 3 in Fort Washington, Md.
partner

The Surprising Roots of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Idea of National Divorce

Greene probably has visions of suburban Atlanta in the 1990s and 2000s, not the Civil War.
by Michan Connor via Made By History on March 14, 2023
Black and White image of two of Co-op City's monumental towers.

A City Within A City

Robert Moses' final project, Co-op City, both reflected and defied major trends in New York City.
by Katie Uva via The Metropole on November 9, 2022
American Civil Rights leader Jesse Jackson (center) participating in a rally, January 15, 1975 (Wikipedia Commons)

Black Mayors, Black Politics, and the Gary Convention

The National Black Political Convention of 1972 saw many national giants on the Black political scene.
by Brandon Stokes via Black Perspectives on March 22, 2022
Side profile of Nikole Hannah-Jones

What the 1619 Project Means

Nothing could be more toxic to our ongoing effort to build a multiracial democracy than to cast any race as a perennial hero or villain.
by Helen Andrews via First Things on January 23, 2022
Abandoned school bus with broken windows.

White Flight In Noxubee County: Why School Integration Never Happened

After the U.S Supreme Court forced school integration in early 1970, white families fled to either racist Central Academy or new Mennonite schools.
by Donna Ladd via Mississippi Free Press on October 29, 2021
Margaret Watson, 93, touches a section of the Birwood Wall that runs behind her house

Built to Keep Black From White

Eighty years after a segregation wall rose in Detroit, America remains divided. That's not an accident.
by Erin Einhorn, Olivia Lewis via NBC News on July 19, 2021
Fire insurance map heading for East Detroit

Blight by Association: Why a White Working-Class Suburb Changed Its Name

The stretches one Detroit suburb made to justify a name change — the ‘burb’s supposedly colorblind arguments were anything but.
by Kenneth Alyass via The Metropole on October 1, 2020
A photo of a woman wearing a mask standing on a subway platform in Times Square.

Rethinking the Solution to New York’s Fiscal Crisis

We are at the end of an era, as choices made in the 1970s have created a society that seems unable to cope with a crisis such as that posed by the coronavirus.
by Kim Phillips-Fein via New York Review of Books on July 16, 2020
An row of small suburban houses, with an SUV parked in a driveway and an American flag in the foreground.

Trump Doesn’t Understand Today’s Suburbs—And Neither Do You

Suburbs are getting more diverse, but that doesn't mean they’re woke.
by Thomas J. Sugrue, Zack Stanton via Politico Magazine on June 8, 2020
Federal Reserve building.
partner

The Fed Could Undo Decades of Damage to Cities. Here’s How.

The bond market has fueled vast inequities between cities and suburbs — especially in smaller locales.
by Destin Jenkins via Made By History on April 27, 2020
Prison cells

The Economic Origins of Mass Incarceration

Everything you knew about mass incarceration is wrong.
by John Clegg, Adaner Usmani via Catalyst on September 1, 2019

The Supreme Court Decision That Kept Suburban Schools Segregated

A 1974 Supreme Court decision found that school segregation was allowable if it wasn’t being done on purpose.
by Jon Hale via The Conversation on July 24, 2019
Opening frame of documentary segment in question.
partner

Confronted: A Black Family Moves In

Northern whites reveal their deep-seated prejudice when a black family moves into their neighborhood.
by WGBH via American Archive of Public Broadcasting on December 2, 1963
The Young Lords in New York, 1969-1976.

How New York City’s Radical Social Movements Gave Rise to Hip-Hop

The revolutionary history behind one of America’s main musical exports.
by Dean Van Nguyen via Literary Hub on May 6, 2025
A sign in support of Donald Trump in front of an Ohio junkyard in 2024.
partner

The 2024 Election Marked the Inversion of the Electoral Map

Instead of trying to recapture working class votes, Democrats should be focused on building the kind of economy they need to expand the political map.
by Stephanie Ternullo via Made By History on December 16, 2024
Aerial view of suburbs.
partner

To Understand What Could Happen on Election Day, Understand the Suburbs

Even as they've diversified, suburban politics have remained protectionist — often defying ideological categorization.
by Becky M. Nicolaides via Made By History on August 15, 2024
partner

Electing the President, 1840-2020

Most election maps emphasize the candidates and parties who won the Electoral College. This project shifts the focus to voters, revealing a more nuanced story.
by Robert K. Nelson, Riley D. Champine, Nathaniel Ayers, Chad Devers via American Panorama on August 1, 2024
A row of colorful houses in New Orleans.

A Forgotten or Simply Erased History of Organized Labor

After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans replaced all its public schools with charter schools. A new book recovers the decades of work the storm disrupted.
by Daniel G. Cumming via The Metropole on July 22, 2024
"Just Say No" memorabilia at the Reagan Presidential Library.

White Suburbs and Drug Wars

To understand the racism of the drug war, we must look to the ways policymakers sought to protect white suburban youth.
by Max Felker-Kantor via Public Books on July 3, 2024
Collage of Stop Cop City protestors and Coca Cola products.

No Atlanta Way

Stop Cop City meets the establishment.
by Sam Worley via The Drift on June 28, 2024
Police gather to clear a Gaza solidarity encampment at the University of Wisconsin at Madison on May 1st.

Anatomy of a Moral Panic

The repressive machine currently arrayed against campus protests follows a familiar pattern.
by Adam Haber, Matylda Figlerowicz via Jewish Currents on May 2, 2024
Cover of "The Black Tax"

Tax History Matters: A Q&A with the Author of ‘The Black Tax’

The history of the property tax system and its structural defects that have led to widespread discrimination against Black Americans.
by Andrew W. Kahrl, Brakeyshia Samms via Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy on April 24, 2024
Blue-print style sketch of a suburban home, with sidewalk, driveway, and garage

How the Suburbs Became a Trap

Neighborhoods that once promised prosperity now offer crumbling infrastructure, aged housing stock, and social animus.
by Caitlin Zaloom via The New Republic on April 18, 2024
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