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Justice

On the struggles to achieve and maintain it.
A mother and daughter attend a candlelight vigil
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The Deadly Bronx Fire Exposes the Perils and Politics of Heating One’s Home

For less fortunate New Yorkers, access to safe, adequate heating has never been assured.
by Rebecca Wright via Made By History on January 14, 2022
Drawing of a spiral bound notebook with pen markings.

Fighting Racial Bias With an Unlikely Weapon: Footnotes

A collaborative project by legal scholars sets out to make visible the vast array of legal precedents based on cases involving enslaved people.
by Justin Wm. Moyer via Washington Post Magazine
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on January 14, 2022
White police officers arresting Black children, 1963

Rescuing MLK and His Children's Crusade

A new book traces the tactics of groundbreaking lawyer Constance Baker Motley amid pivotal protests in Birmingham.
by Tomiko Brown-Nagin via Harvard Gazette on January 13, 2022
Anto-CRT protestors at the Pennsylvania state Capitol.

Teaching (amid a) White Backlash

A brief scholarly overview to understand the contours of white backlashes, their historical impact, and the ways they shape the world we inherit.
by William Horne via Clio and the Contemporary on January 12, 2022
A bus, and a Black man at the bus stop standing under a sign for a "Colored Waiting Room."

Homer Plessy Was Never a Criminal. Now His Record Reflects That.

In rejecting Plessy’s argument that the Jim Crow law implied Black people were inferior, the Supreme Court upheld the notion of “separate but equal.”
by Keisha N. Blain via MSNBC on January 5, 2022
The picture is a photo collage of three men against the background of an atomic bomb explosion. Pictured from left to right is Ed Hall, Ted Hall, and former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.

One Brother Gave the Soviets the A-Bomb. The Other Got a Medal.

J. Edgar Hoover had both of them in his sights. Yet neither one was ever arrested. The untold story of how the Hall brothers beat the FBI.
by Dave Lindorff via The Nation
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on January 4, 2022
Black and white photograph of four men standing amongst barrels of alcohol.

The Truth About Prohibition

The temperance movement wasn’t an example of American exceptionalism; it was a globe-spanning network of activists and politicians against economic exploitation.
by Mark Lawrence Schrad via The Atlantic
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on January 1, 2022
Paul Robeson and other members of the Civil Rights Congress submit a report on police brutality and systemic racism against Black people, accusing the U.S. of genocide, to the United Nations.

70 Years Ago Black Activists Accused the U.S. of Genocide. They Should Have Been Taken Seriously.

The charges, while provocative, offer a framework to reckon with systemic racial injustice — past and present.
by Alex Hinton via Politico Magazine on December 26, 2021
A picture of armed militias

What the Term “Gun Culture” Misses About White Supremacy

The rise of tactical gun culture among civilians reveals a new front in the U.S. battle against nativist authoritarianism.
by Chad Kautzer via Boston Review on December 17, 2021
One Year
Podcast
One Year

1995: Ann Arbor's DNA Dragnet

When a serial rapist struck Ann Arbor, Michigan, the police turned to drastic measures, based on the promise and power of DNA. For law enforcement, genetic testing seemed like a can’t-miss idea. But DNA didn’t fix anything in Ann Arbor. Instead, it ripped the community apart.
December 16, 2021
birds eye view of an intersecting highway with a speeding car

How America Broke the Speed Limit

How we wound up with the worst of both worlds: thousands of speed-related deaths, and a system of enforcement that is both ineffective and inescapable.
by Henry Grabar via Slate
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on December 15, 2021
Colorful illustration of two groups of people in pink boxes. The people on the left have brown skin, and those on the right have lighter skin.

Inventing the “Model Minority”: A Critical Timeline and Reading List

The idea of Asian Americans as a “model minority” has a long and complicated history.
via Densho: Japanese American Incarceration and Japanese Internment on December 15, 2021
Abortion advocates marching in protest with signs

What Feminists Did the Last Time Abortion Was Illegal

How abortion activists responded in the wake of the 1989 Webster decision and what we can learn from their efforts.
by Michelle Moravec via Nursing Clio on December 14, 2021
Brett Kavanaugh
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What Justice Kavanaugh Gets Wrong About Abortion and Neutrality

Calls for the court to remain neutral have long been tools for denying Americans rights.
by David Cohen, Maya Manian via Made By History on December 13, 2021
The Black Panther Party’s Free Breakfast for Children Program in action, New York, 1969. Photo by Bev Grant/Getty Images

The Black Panthers Fed More Hungry Kids Than the State of California

It wasn’t all young men and guns: the Black Panther Party’s programs fed more hungry kids than the state of California.
by Suzanne Cope via Aeon on December 10, 2021
Japanese migrants gather in Lima, Peru, in December 1941

America’s Forgotten Internment

The United States confined 2,200 Latin Americans of Japanese descent during World War II. They’re still pushing for redress.
by Jesús A. Rodríguez via Politico Magazine on December 5, 2021
Lithograph of the waterfront in Alexandria, Virginia 1836.

The Life and Death of an All-American Slave Ship

How 19th century slave traders used, and reused, the brig named Uncas.
by Joshua D. Rothman, Benjamin Skolnik via Slate
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on December 4, 2021
Photo of a young Dorothy Day in front of a bookshelf.

How the Great Dorothy Day’s Anger Was an Expression of Her Faith

"What the Catholic church wanted us to understand about women and anger—that we simply didn’t experience it—backfired spectacularly."
by Kaya Oakes via Literary Hub on November 30, 2021
Protesters in front of the Supreme Court, one with a "Keep Abortion Legal" sign and the other dressed in a Handmaid's Tale costume.

The Unknown Supreme Court Clerk Who Single-Handedly Created the Roe v. Wade Viability Standard

All roads lead to Larry Hammond, Justice Lewis Powell’s law clerk at the time.
by James D. Robenalt via Retropolis
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on November 29, 2021
Ink and watercolor portrait of John Rawls

John Rawls and Liberalism’s Selective Conscience

With its doctrine of fairness, A Theory of Justice transformed political philosophy. But what did it leave out? 
by Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò via The Nation
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on November 27, 2021
tintype portrait of Mary Todd Lincoln

The Insanity Trial of Mary Lincoln

How the self-proclaimed "First Widow" used her celebrity to influence public opinion.
by Alexis Coe via Study Marry Kill on November 23, 2021
Muhammad A. Aziz leaving a courtroom after being officially exonerated
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Exonerating Two Men Convicted of Malcolm X’s Killing Doesn’t Vindicate the System

Can a system built on racial violence actually deliver justice?
by Garrett Felber via Made By History on November 20, 2021
Afeni Shakur holding a camera.

Afeni Shakur Took on the State and Won

Pregnant and facing decades in prison, the mother of Tupac Shakur fought for her life — and triumphed — in the trial of the Panther 21.
by Tashan Reed via Jacobin
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on November 18, 2021
A Black man sits at his dining room looking through property records

Racial Covenants, a Relic of the Past, Are Still on the Books Across the Country

Racial covenants made it illegal for Black people to live in white neighborhoods. Now they're illegal, but you may still have one on your home's deed.
by Natalie Y. Moore via NPR on November 17, 2021
Kyle Rittenhouse

Kyle Rittenhouse Is an American

Our country's legal history renders the teen's case familiar if not inevitable.
by Patrick Blanchfield via Gawker on November 16, 2021
Black and white photograph of Mississippi SNCC workers at conference at Tougaloo College, 1965.

SNCC’s Unruly Internationalism

Though the organization’s legacy has been domesticated, its grassroots leadership embraced the global fight for freedom.
by Dan Berger via Boston Review on November 15, 2021
Black and white image of two women, one Black and one white, greeting each other with children in the background.

As One of the First White Kids in a Black School, I Learned Not to Fear History

Today, some Virginians would ‘protect’ children from the kind of valuable education that I had when my dad was governor.
by Woody Holton via Washington Post
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on November 12, 2021
Image of the nine Scottsboro defendants, policemen, and a defense attorney

Reimagining the Public Defender

For the poor, who are disproportionately people of color, the criminal justice system in the United States is essentially a plea-and-probation system.
by Sarah A. Seo via New York Review of Books
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on November 11, 2021
A mural depicting the portrait of Ahmaud Arbery, on the side of a building.
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Trial of Arbery's Killers Hinges on Law that Originated in Slavery

Georgia enacted the Citizen's Arrest Law in an attempt to maintain control of enslaved people.
by Alan J. Singer via HNN on November 7, 2021
The United States Supreme Court building.
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‘Originalism’ Only Gives the Conservative Justices One Option On a Key Gun Case

Regulations limiting armed travel in public, particularly in populous areas, stretch back over seven centuries.
by Saul Cornell via Made By History on November 3, 2021
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