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Justice

On the struggles to achieve and maintain it.

Red Summer

In 1919, white Americans visited awful violence on black Americans. So black Americans decided to fight back.
by Rebecca Onion via Slate
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on March 4, 2015
Photo of Jimmy Lee Jackson.

The Killing of Jimmie Lee Jackson

How a post-Civil War massacre impacted racial justice in America.
by Debo Adegbile via The Marshall Project on February 27, 2015

Fifty Years After Bloody Sunday in Selma, Everything and Nothing Has Changed

Racism, segregation and inequality persist in this civil-rights battleground.
by Ari Berman via The Nation
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on February 25, 2015

In Defense of Court-Packing

When the Supreme Court willfully misreads the Constitution, FDR’s plan doesn’t seem so bad.
by Ian Millhiser via Slate
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on February 23, 2015
Malcolm X.

Malcolm X Assassination: 50 Years On, Mystery Still Clouds Details of the Case

Despite Freedom of Information requests throughout the years, New York still will not release records to the public.
by Garrett Felber via The Guardian on February 21, 2015

Black History Is American History

What is the greatest libertarian accomplishment of all time? The abolition of slavery.
by David Boaz via Cato Institute on February 11, 2015
Malcolm X sitting on a couch

A Rare Interview with Malcolm X

On the religion, segregation, the civil rights movement, violence, and hypocrisy.
by Eleanor Fischer, Stephen Nessen via WNYC on February 4, 2015
BackStory
Podcast
BackStory

Henceforth Free: The Emancipation Proclamation

Learn about how Americans thought about emancipation in 1862, and its shifting meanings since then, as seen through the Emancipation Memorial in Washington D.C., the Civil War centennial commemorations in the height of the Civil Rights Era, and the former capital of the Confederacy today. Finally, hear the voices of former slaves themselves, remembering their first experiences of freedom.
January 6, 2015
Edward Abbey stands in the desert.

Edward Abbey’s FBI File

"If the times have changed, Abbey’s ideas about freedom have in some ways never been more relevant."
by David Gessner via Orion Magazine on January 5, 2015
Senator Abraham Ribicoff
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The North’s Shameful Refusal to Face Its Own Tangled Racial Past

What we should learn from Senator Abraham Ribicoff’s failed attempt.
by Jason Sokol via HNN on January 5, 2015

John Brown: The First American to Hang for Treason

The militant abolitionist's execution set a precedent for armed resistance against the federal government with implications for those who had condemned him.
by Heather Cox Richardson via We're History on December 2, 2014

The Awakening of Thurgood Marshall

The case he didn’t expect to lose. And why it mattered that he did.
by Gilbert King via The Marshall Project on November 20, 2014

No Twang of Conscience Whatever

Patsy Sims reflects on her interview with the man who was instrumental in the death of three black men in Mississippi.
by Patsy Simms via Oxford American on November 6, 2014
Neighborhood residents stand in front of a 25th anniversary protest mural outside the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India.

The Worst Industrial Disaster in the History of the World

For the people of Old Bhopal, an accident there had sent forty metric tons of methyl isocyanate into a runaway reaction that released a toxic gas.
by Siddhartha Deb via The Baffler
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on October 28, 2014
Photos of the March on Washington.

The Struggle in Black and White: Activist Photographers Who Fought for Civil Rights

None of these iconic photographs would exist without the brave photographers documenting the civil rights movement.
by Hunter Oatman-Stanford via Collectors Weekly on October 7, 2014
Portrait of W.E.B. Du Bois.

Who Was W.E.B. Du Bois?

A review of "Lines of Descent: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Emergence of Identity," by Kwame Anthony Appiah.
by Nicholas Lemann via New York Review of Books
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on September 24, 2014
LBJ signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom

A Library of Congress exhibit on the context, passage, and significance of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
via Library of Congress on September 10, 2014
Eleanor Kirk

How to Pitch a Magazine (in 1888)

Eleanor Kirk's guide offered a way to break into the boys’ club of publishing.
by Paul Collins via The New Yorker
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on September 4, 2014

Present Tense, Future Perfect: Protest and Progress at the 1964 World's Fair

The stall-in threatened to interrupt a certain imaginary of progress, democracy, and freedom with the reality of racial injustice.
by Erin Pineda via The Appendix on September 2, 2014

The U.S. Confiscated Half a Billion Dollars in Private Property During WWI

America's home front was the site of internment, deportation, and vast property seizure.
by Daniel A. Gross via Smithsonian Magazine on July 28, 2014
Chandra Dharma Sena Gooneratne wearing a turban.

How Turbans Helped Some Blacks Go Incognito In The Jim Crow Era

At the time, ideas of race in America were quite literally black and white. But a few meters of cloth changed the way some people of color were treated.
by Tanvi Misra via NPR on July 19, 2014
Jerri Cobb with a space capsule.

The Case for Female Astronauts: Reproducing Americans in the Final Frontier

Imagining a future that separates women from their biological identity seems so “drastic” as to be unimaginable—in 1962 and today.
by Lisa Ruth Rand via The Appendix on July 15, 2014
Elder M. Andrew Robinson-Gaither demonstrates for reparations for slavery.

The Thirteenth Amendment and a Reparations Program

The amendment, which brought an end to slavery in the U.S., could be used to begin a national debate on reparations.
by Ramsin Canon via Society for U.S. Intellectual History on July 12, 2014
Frederick Douglass.
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"What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?"

Frederick Douglass’ 1852 speech is widely known as one of the greatest abolitionist speeches ever.
via BackStory on July 7, 2014
Group of men including clergy.

Unearthing The Surprising Religious History Of American Gay Rights Activism

Years before Stonewall, many clergy members were standing on the front lines for gay rights.
by Jaweed Kaleem via HuffPost on June 28, 2014

The Case for Reparations

Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.
by Ta-Nehisi Coates via The Atlantic
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on June 23, 2014
Southern Pacific Railroad engine met by a crowd of people in wagons.
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The Birth of Corporate Personhood

How a legal footnote in a Santa Clara County railroad case and the judges who built on it created modern models of corporate personhood.
via BackStory on June 20, 2014

‘Brown v. Board of Education’ Didn’t End Segregation, Big Government Did

Sixty years after the decision, it’s worth remembering it took Congress's Civil Rights Act to finally smash Jim Crow.
by Ian Millhiser via The Nation
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on May 14, 2014

How a Ragtag Band of Reformers Organized the First Protest March on Washington, D.C.

The first March on Washington was a madcap affair, but in May of 1894, some 10,000 citizens descended on D.C., asking for a jobs bill.
by Jon Grinspan via Smithsonian Magazine on May 1, 2014
Voters at the voting booths in 1945.

Felon Disfranchisement Preserves Slavery's Legacy

Nearly six million Americans are prohibited from voting in the United States today due to felony convictions.
by Pippa Holloway via OUPblog on April 28, 2014
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