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Justice

On the struggles to achieve and maintain it.
Demonstrators holding signs at George Floyd protest in NYC, 2020.

Americans Used to Unite Over Tragic Events − and Now Are Divided By Them

Tragedy seldom unifies Americans today.
by Thomas D. Beamish via The Conversation on June 18, 2024
Anti-death penalty protesters standing outside the Supreme Court.

The Hollowing of the Eighth Amendment

The Supreme Court’s Republican majority has been quietly rolling back a longstanding consensus over cruel and unusual punishment.
by Duncan Hosie via New York Review of Books
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on June 18, 2024
Cover of "Suffrage Song" on left, featuring three suffragists. On right, cartoonist Caitlin Cass.

This Cartoonist Wants to Tell the Complicated History of Women’s Voting Rights

A new graphic book unpacks the role that some White women played in suppressing voting rights for all — and the lessons today in the fight for universal ballot access.
by Barbara Rodriguez via The 19th on June 17, 2024
Henry Martyn Robert at West Point

Who Invited Robert?

Robert’s Rules shaped 19th-century civic life but were later rejected by 1960s movements, showing shifting ideas of democracy and community.
by Taylor Hines via Damage on June 17, 2024
40 Acres and a Lie
Podcast
40 Acres and a Lie

40 Acres and a Lie: Part 1

Patricia Bailey's house, high among the trees in lush Edisto Island, sits on land that was passed down by her great-great-grandfather. He was one of more than 1,200 freedmen granted 40 acres land by General Sherman's Field Orders, no. 15 – who then saw that land taken away. None of the land Bailey lives on today is part of his original 40 acres. Instead, her family’s wealth is built on her ancestor’s determination to get and keep land of his own, after losing what he thought he had gained.
June 15, 2024
Children protesting before the Supreme Court with a sign that reads "We Love School Choice."

The Post-Brown Realignment and the Structure of Partitioned Publics

Public schools are crucial infrastructures of the reproduction of social inequality and the US carceral state.
by Ujju Aggarwal via Public Seminar on June 12, 2024
A gavel smashing a wooden house.

The Constitutional Case Against Exclusionary Zoning

America is suffering from a severe housing shortage. A crucial tool may lie in the Constitution.
by Ilya Somin, Joshua Braver via The Atlantic
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on June 12, 2024
“Scene Representing the Suffering of Animals in a Railroad Stable” in the 1873 annual report of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

How the Civil War Spurred The Animal Welfare Movement

The story of American abolitionists who, after Emancipation, pivoted from antislavery campaigns to animal welfare advocacy.
by Barbara Spindel via The Christian Science Monitor on June 11, 2024
Edward Blum superimposed on the Supreme Court building.

The People Who Dismantled Affirmative Action Have a New Strategy to Crush Racial Justice

In throwing up new roadblocks to the use of private money to redress racial and economic inequality, the Fearless Fund ruling is antihistorical.
by David H. Gans via Slate
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on June 11, 2024
An aerial view of the International Bridge over the in Rio Grande, Laredo, Texas.
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The Image of Control

Following the careers of a family of especially corrupt border control officials.
by John Weber via HNN on June 11, 2024
State troopers and deputies stand at the entrance to a University of Alabama building in Tuscaloosa on the day in 1963 that George Wallace, Governor of Alabama, said he would defy a Federal order making it mandatory to admit two African American students.
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We Must Remember Tuscaloosa's 'Bloody Tuesday'

Black citizens fought for justice and were met with violence. They persevered.
by John M. Giggie via Made By History on June 7, 2024
Zdeněk Koubek running.

Human Velocity

A new book upends long-held assumptions about trans people’s participation in sports.
by Michael Waters, Frankie de la Cretaz via The Baffler
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on June 7, 2024
Map depicting existing and proposed structures and modifications to the Hayti neighborhood in Durham, NC, 1960.
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The Uneven Costs of Cross-Country Connectivity

Promoted as a social and economic savior, the US federal interstate highway system acted as a tool to promote racial injustices.
by Kevin Fox Gotham, Aissa Dearing, Leland Ware, M. Ruth Little via JSTOR Daily on June 6, 2024
SDS protestors parody the Columbia administration's suspension of students in 1968.

Kids These Days

Compared to their 1960s forerunners, today’s young radicals seem far less interested in moving towards responsible adulthood.
by D. G. Hart via Law & Liberty on June 5, 2024
Border patrol agents in a physical training.

From Suspect to Perpetrato

How history shaped the modern U.S. Border Patrol agent.
by Ernesto Chávez, Ervin A. Zubiate-Rocha via Public Books on June 5, 2024
University of California President Clark Kerr giving speech to crowd
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What University Presidents Can Learn From Past Protests

Successes that came when presidents protected student protesters from outside meddling are worth remembering when students return to campus.
by Eddie R. Cole via Made By History on June 4, 2024
A photograph of Waverly Woodson Jr. in his U.S. Army uniform.

The Forgotten Hero of D-Day

Waverly Woodson treated men for 30 hours on Omaha Beach, but his heroism became a casualty of entrenched racism, bureaucracy and Pentagon record-keeping.
by Garrett M. Graff via Politico Magazine on June 3, 2024
Book cover of "In the Shadow of Liberty," featuring city scenes and barbed wire.

Intended to Be Cruel

On Ana Raquel Minian’s “In the Shadow of Liberty.”
by Sara Campos via Los Angeles Review of Books on June 2, 2024
Zdeněk Koubek.

A Forgotten Athlete, a Nazi Official, and the Origins of Sex Testing at the Olympics

In 1936, the Czech track star Zdeněk Koubek became world-famous after undergoing surgery so that he could live openly as a man.
by Michael Waters via The New Yorker
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on June 1, 2024
Street sign for Emancipation Ave.

The Border Patrol and Asylum Exclusion

Border Patrol has abused its authority and mistreated migrants in countless ways. Yet its role as the frontline force in asylum exclusion has only grown.
by S. Deborah Kang via Public Books on May 30, 2024

A First Case at Common Law

The case of Robinson and Roberts v. Wheble provides legal historians with the most thorough documentation of an eighteenth-century trademark dispute.
by Barbara Lauriat via Law & History Review on May 29, 2024
Frozen truck on icy road

The Frozen Trucker and the Fugitive Slave

On the TransAm Trucking case, legal reasoning, and the Fugitive Slave Act.
by Barry Goldman via 3 Quarks Daily on May 27, 2024
An FBI insignia on an officer's jacket.

To Fix the FBI, Abolish It

A new study of the national security apparatus finds the existing Bureau incompatible with republican government.
by Phillip Linderman via The American Conservative on May 25, 2024
A Ride for Liberty – The Fugitive Slaves by Eastman Johnson.

Unapologetically Free: A Personal Declaration of Independence From the Formerly Enslaved

Abolitionist and writer John Swanson Jacobs on reclaiming liberty in a land of unfreedom.
by John Swanson Jacobs, Jonathan D. S. Schroeder via Literary Hub on May 24, 2024
Wong Gin Foo to Wong Kim (in Chinese), March 31, 1930.

Paper Sons in the Era of Immigration Restriction

Chinese immigration and the Immigration Act of 1924.
by Ryan Reft via Library of Congress Blog on May 23, 2024
Student watching smoke emanating from the student center after 1969 protests.

The CUNY Experiment

The City University of New York has long stood at once for meritocratic uplift and for civil disobedience.
by Kim Phillips-Fein via New York Review of Books
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on May 23, 2024
Pennsylvania Hall in flames.
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Sordid Mercantile Souls

When labor found a common cause — and enemy — with the abolition movement.
by Sean Griffin via HNN on May 21, 2024
Historical illustration of the arraignment of Boss Tweed in courtroom (1872).
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A 19th Century Case That Holds a Lesson for the Trump Trials

Fairly applying the rule of law to powerful politicians provides the stability that enables the U.S. to thrive politically and economically.
by Ray Brescia via Made By History on May 20, 2024
Image of a man distributing newspapers at a post office.
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The Post Office and Privacy

We can thank the postal service for establishing the foundations of the American tradition of communications confidentiality.
by Matthew Wills, Anuj Desai via JSTOR Daily on May 19, 2024

‘Brown’ at 70

The rhetorically modest but functionally powerful ruling that ended segregation shouldn’t be misused to forestall other efforts at racial equality.
by Randall Kennedy via The American Prospect on May 17, 2024
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