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“The Caring Hand,” by Eva Oertli and Beat Huber, sculpture of a hand holding a tree.

Bryan Stevenson Reclaims the Monument, in the Heart of the Deep South

The civil-rights attorney has created a sculpture park, indicting the city of Montgomery—a former capital of the domestic slave trade.
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.
15 women involved in the Montgomery Bus Boycott; Rosa Parks's mugshot is the center.

The Women Behind the Montgomery Bus Boycott

We've heard about Rosa Parks and her crucial role, but Parks was just one of many women involved.
Rosa Parks is fingerprinted by police Lt. D.H. Lackey in Montgomery, Ala., on Feb. 22, 1956, two months after refusing to give up her seat in a bus for a White passenger.
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Pitting Rosa Parks Against Claudette Colvin Distorts History

A new documentary explores the origins of the Montgomery Bus Boycott — with lessons on how we see movements.
Marie Bankhead Owen sitting for portrait picture with title "State of Denial" printed next to her

How a Confederate Daughter Rewrote Alabama History for White Supremacy

Marie Bankhead Owen led campaigns to purge anti-Confederate lessons from Southern classrooms, and all but erased Black history from the Alabama state archives.

Alabama’s Capitol Is a Crime Scene. The Cover-up Has Lasted 120 Years.

How more than a century of whitewashed history poisons Alabama today.
The Legacy Museum shows visitors elements of America’s long history of racial injustice – slavery, lynching, segregation, police killings of Black teens and the societal addiction to putting Black people behind bars. Photograph: Courtesy of Equal Justice Initiative/Human Pictures

‘Truth-Telling Has to Happen’: The Museum of America’s Racist History

The Legacy Museum lands at a time when racial violence is on the rise and critical race theory is used to prevent America’s racist past being taught in schools.

Segregation Now, Segregation Forever: The Infamous Words of George Wallace

Radio Diaries tells the story behind those infamous words, and the man who delivered them.

The View from Cottage Hill

History bleeds in Montgomery, Alabama.

Montgomery's Shame and Sins of the Past

The Montgomery Advertiser recognizes its own place in the history of racial violence in its own community.

Hanged, Burned, Shot, Drowned, Beaten

In a region where symbols of the Confederacy are ubiquitous, an unprecedented memorial takes shape.
Jo Ann Robinson's mug shot.

This Unheralded Woman Actually Organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott

Jo Ann Robinson is unfortunately overlooked by history.

Rosa Parks and the Power of Oneness

Rosa Parks shook the world of Jim Crow by refusing to give up her seat to a white man on her way home from work.

Claudette Colvin: 'A Teenage Rosa Parks'

What makes a hero? Why do we remember some stories and not others?
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Commentary of a Black Southern Bus Rider

Rosa Parks discusses her refusal to give up a seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955.
Rosa Parks' mugshot.

December 1, 1955: Rosa Parks Is Arrested

“This dramatic display of unity may well inspire the Negro residents of other Southern cities to similar action.”
Daisy Bates speaking at the March on Washington.

How Might the Civil Rights Movement Looked Different With Women at the Forefront?

Why women civil rights organizers marginalized at this event, and how that affects our collective memory of the struggle.
A microphone animated as a black snake.

The Dark Side of Defamation Law

A revered Supreme Court ruling protected the robust debate vital to democracy—but made it harder to constrain misinformation. Can we do better?
Martin Luther King Jr. with other activists and children.

Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Perilous Power of Respectability

We revere the man and revile the strategy, but King knew what he was doing.
Picture of Claudette Colvin

Before Rosa Parks, Claudette Colvin Refused to Give Up Her Seat on a Bus. She’s Still on Probation.

Colvin, 82, is headed to court in Montgomery, Ala., to petition for her record to be cleared.
African Americans boarding an integrated bus, following the Supreme Court ruling ending the Montgomery bus boycott in 1956. The boycott inspired many US socialists to throw themselves wholeheartedly into the civil rights struggle.

Socialists Organized in the 1950s Civil Rights Movement

In 1950s America, the Cold War was raging, but socialists were playing key roles in the early civil rights movement.
An aerial view of an interstate.

The Interstates: Planned Violence And The Need For Truth And Reconciliation

It is time to reckon with America’s racist legacy of Interstate Highway planning and engineering.
Illustration of the Reconstruction era, with black men waving flags and listening to a speech in front of a governmet building while a white mob comes to attack them with clubs

America’s Political Roots Are in Eutaw, Alabama

When I think about the 1870 riot, I remember how the country rejected the opportunity it had.
Yearbook photo of a an African American girl, in front of newspaper headlines and pictures of her as an adult

Meet Claudette Colvin, the 15-Year-Old Who Came Before Rosa Parks

Claudette Colvin is a Civil Rights hero you've probably never heard of. In 1955, she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat, months before Rosa Parks.
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The Lines That Shape Our Cities

Connecting present-day environmental inequalities to redlining policies of the 1930s.
Inside the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, in Montgomery, AL.
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How the New Monument to Lynching Unravels a Historical Lie

Lies about history long protected lynching.
Inside the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, in Montgomery, AL.

The Pain We Still Need to Feel

The new lynching memorial confronts the racial terrorism that corrupted America—and still does.

The Night That Decided the Confederate President

How a little too much punch changed the course of the Confederacy.

When Nina Simone Sang What Everyone Was Thinking

“Mississippi Goddam” was an angry response to tragedy, in show tune form.

The Selma March

On the trail to Montgomery.

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