Justice

A first edition copy of James Joyce's

"Ulysses" on Trial

It was a setup: a stratagem worthy of wily Ulysses himself.
by Michael Chabon via New York Review of Books on September 13, 2019

The Lost Promise of Reconstruction

Can we reanimate the dream of freedom that Congress tried to enact in the wake of the Civil War?
by Eric Foner via New York Times on September 7, 2019
Poster for the 1929 debate between W.E.B. Du Bois and Lothrop Stoddard on the questions:

When W.E.B. Du Bois Made a Laughing Stock of a White Supremacist

Why the Jim Crow-era debate between the African-American leader and a ridiculous, Nazi-loving racist isn’t as famous as Lincoln-Douglas.
by Ian Frazier via The New Yorker on August 19, 2019
A 1936 photograph of Brandon Hall in Washington, Miss., where Henrietta Wood was enslaved in the 1850s.

The Former Slave Who Sued for Reparations, and Won

Henrietta Wood sued the man who had kidnapped her into slavery for damages and lost wages, offering lessons for today’s debate.
by W. Caleb McDaniel via New York Times on September 4, 2019
Margaret Sanger appeals before a Senate Committee for federal birth-control legislation in Washington, D.C., March 1, 1934.

The Socialist Pioneers of Birth Control

When birth control was still taboo, early socialists fought to make it accessible to working-class women.
by Adam J. Sacks via Jacobin on August 14, 2019
A photograph of the Mochida family in California as they wait to be relocated during Japanese internment, 1942.

We Have Been Here Before

Japanese American incarceration is the blueprint for today’s migrant detention camps.
by Brandon Shimoda via The Nation on August 21, 2019
Emma Goldman, who had been described as the most noted woman anarchist in the world, in London, January 25, 1933.

Why Trying to Distinguish Between Useful and Dangerous Immigrants Always Backfires

Yesterday’s “good" immigrant can turn into tomorrow’s radical.
by Faith Hillis via Made by History on August 16, 2019
U.S. Supreme Court (2019).

Critics of the Administrative State Have a History Problem

If they return governance to its 19th century roots, they will also do away with courts' ability to review agency action.
by Sophia Z. Lee via Law and Political Economy on August 1, 2019
John Dillinger's arsenal, photographed after federal agents tried to capture Dillinger and his gang in their Mercer, Wisconsin hideout, April 24, 1934.

They Were Killers With Submachine Guns. Then the President Went After Their Weapons.

Franklin Roosevelt’s National Firearms Act of 1934 was aimed at John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, and other murderous gangsters.
by Ronald G. Shafer via Washington Post on August 9, 2019
A Southern chain gang, ca. 1900-1906.

Why American Prisons Owe Their Cruelty to Slavery

Slavery gave America a fear of black people and a taste for violent punishment. Both still define our criminal-justice system.
by Bryan Stevenson via New York Times Magazine on August 14, 2019

A Lynch Mob of One

The assault rifle has enabled racists to act alone.
by Ibram X. Kendi via The Atlantic on August 8, 2019
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., ca. 1903.

The Contradictions of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

The Supreme Court justice may have been heralded by many of his progressive peers, but the legacy he left behind is far more ambiguous.
by Brenda Wineapple via The Nation on August 13, 2019