Person

W.E.B. Du Bois

Related Excerpts

Donald Trump supporters storm the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

The Failure of Reconstruction Is to Blame for the Weakness of American Democracy

A new book argues that the American right emerged out of a backlash to multiracial democracy following the Civil War.
Firestone Library at night

How Firestone Exploited Liberia — and Made Princeton as We Know It

Firestone’s racist system of forced labor made Princeton one of the world’s foremost research universities.
Collage of people and water.

America’s Blueprint For Urban Inequity Was Drawn in Philly. Where Do We Go From Here?

From a bus line named Jim Crow to racial violence at public parks, racism shaped Philadelphia. Can we imagine a more equitable city?
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?
photo of C. Vann Woodward, c/o William R. Ferris, Van Every Smith Galleries

What Is There To Celebrate?

A review of "C. Vann Woodward: America’s Historian."
A group of the newly emancipated working with the US army, 1862.

The Promise of Freedom

A new history of the Civil War and Reconstruction examines the ways in which Black Americans formed networks of self-reliance in their pursuit of emancipation.
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.
Map of the United States South from 1857

Imani Perry’s Capacious History of the South

Contrary to popular belief, the South has always been the key to defining the promise and limits of American democracy.
Black-and-white photograph of black students sitting in a classroom at the Tuskegee Institute.

The Complicity of the Textbooks

A new book traces how the writing of American history, from Reconstruction on, has falsified and illuminated our racial past.
Illustrative grid rid of students with the faces represented by various colors, fabric patterns, and textures.

How Affirmative Action Was Derailed by Diversity

The Supreme Court has watered down the policy’s core justification: justice.
Photograph of a woman pushing a shopping cart down a supermarket aisle.

The Secret Anti-Socialist History of Supermarkets

The emergence of the supermarket was used as a key piece of anti-communist propaganda early in the twentieth century against the alternative of grocery co-ops.
Lithograph of a town street with a printing press on the corner.

To Remember or to Forget

The story of philanthropists Catherine Williams Ferguson and Isabella Marshall Graham’s unlikely interracial collaboration.
Redlined street map of the Baltimore area.

The Mapping of Race in America

Visualizing the legacy of slavery and redlining, 1860 to the present.
Harriet Tubman in the late 1860s.

When Harriet Tubman Met John Brown

Looking back at the short but deep friendship of John Brown and Harriet Tubman, who gave their lives to the abolitionist cause.
Artwork of the Supreme Court but with chess pieces used as columns..

The Supreme Court Is Not Supposed to Have This Much Power

And Congress should claw it back.
Illustration of Hubert Harrison by Joe Ciardiello.

Hubert Harrison, Giant of Harlem Radicalism

A two-volume biography tracks the life and times of one of Harlem’s leading socialists.
Poster for HBO documentary "Exterminate All the Brutes," featuring a human skull painted to look like a globe.

We Must Burn Them: Against the Origin Story

"History​ is written by the victors, but diligent and continual silencing is required to maintain its claims on the present and future."
Photo from above showing people walking and biking on the painted letters in Black Lives Matter Plaza.

When Did the Ruling Class Get Woke?

A conversation with Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò on his new book, which investigates the co-option of identity politics and the importance of coalitional organizing. 
Henry Holt, a farmer near Black River Falls, Wisconsin, in 1937, who was moved off land by the Resettlement Administration.

How the Government Helped White Americans Steal Black Farmland

There was once a thriving Black middle class based on farm ownership. But during the twentieth century, the USDA helped erase that source of wealth.
A gate opening to the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Mass.

Harvard Leaders and Staff Enslaved 79 People, University Finds

The school said it had benefited from slave-generated wealth and practiced racial discrimination.