At the Smithsonian, Donald Trump Takes Aim at History

The urge to police the past is hardly an invention of the Trump Administration. It is the reflexive obsession of autocrats everywhere.
Man holding The New Yorker magazine like a telescope.

Onward and Upward

Harold Ross founded The New Yorker as a comic weekly. A hundred years later, we’re doubling down on our commitment to the much richer publication it became.
Black and white photo of Mavis Staples, looking upward, hands raised.

The Gospel According to Mavis Staples

A legendary singer on faith, loss, and a family legacy.
Image of Anita Hill.

Anita Hill Saw History Repeat Itself at Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court Hearings

The key witness in Clarence Thomas’s nomination process discusses how sex and race shaped the new Justice’s experience, and her own.
Henry Louis Gates Jr.

How Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Helped Remake the Literary Canon

The scholar has changed the way Black authors get read and the way Black history gets told.

Soul Survivor

The revival and hidden treasure of Aretha Franklin.