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Justice

On the struggles to achieve and maintain it.
Illustration of armed and hooded Ku Klux Klan members.

Masked Terror

ICE officers are wearing masks to conceal their identities. The Ku Klux Klan also employed masks to avoid prosecution for its acts of racial violence.
by Sherrilyn Ifill via Sherrilyn's Newsletter on June 24, 2025
William Sentner address a crowd of union workers at a small arms plant

The Radical Midwest of Bill Sentner

St Louis organizer Bill Sentner led some of the most successful labor battles in Midwestern history by uniting workers across race and gender lines.
by Devin Thomas O’Shea via Jacobin
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on June 23, 2025
A pride flag framing the US Capitol building.
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The Lavender Scare and the History of LGBTQ Exclusion

The rollback of LGBTQ rights echoes a deeply consequential chapter of American history: the Lavender Scare.
by Joel Zapata via Made By History on June 20, 2025
Martin Luther King Jr stands behind a podium.

5 Lessons From the Real Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

This Juneteenth we need to discard the caricatures of King that we so often see and learn from what he actually did and believed.
by Jeanne Theoharis via The Nation
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on June 19, 2025
Statue of Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln Wasn't Born an Abolitionist, He Became One

We live in polarized times when freedom is threatened but this Juneteenth we should remind ourselves that we have overcome far worse.
by Manisha Sinha via The UnPopulist on June 19, 2025
A hand holds a US flag and a pride flag in front of the Supreme Court building in a crowd celebrating the Obergefell v. Hodges decision.
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How the Supreme Court Ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges Legalized Same-Sex Marriage

When Jim Obergefell and his partner John Arthur decided to marry after more than 20 years together, their home state refused to recognize same-sex marriages.
by Kit R. Roane via Retro Report on June 18, 2025
Protestors confronting Army military police.

When the Military Comes to American Soil

Domestic deployments have generally been quite restrained. Can they still be?
by Joshua Braver via The Atlantic
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on June 17, 2025
Cover of Mark Whitaker's book "The Afterlife of Malcolm X"

Seeing Malcolm X as a Man for Our Troubled Times

Black Americans have long known that rights and protections can be taken away at any time. Facing such uncertainty, they found inspiration in Malcolm X's words.
by Jim Swearingen via The National Book Review on June 17, 2025

Eco-Terrorists Aren't What They Used to Be

Fifty years on, "The Monkey Wrench Gang" remains a problematic text for environmental activists, who are inclined to endorse its violent tendencies.
by John Bicknell via Law & Liberty on June 13, 2025
A row of California National Guardsmen stand atop a top step in riot gear.

Trump’s Deportation Frenzy Echoes the Fugitive Slave Hunts of the 1850s

Trump's crackdown on immigrants bears alarming parallels to the fugitive slave obsessions of the pre-Civil War South.
by Garrett Epps via Washington Monthly on June 11, 2025

The Revolutionary Idea That Remade the New World

Birthright citizenship is distinctly American—but not in the way Trump thinks.
by Greg Grandin via The Atlantic
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on June 10, 2025
Thomas Jefferson
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Thomas Jefferson: A Vote for Cutting Off Your Nose

To reduce Virginia’s use of the death penalty, Thomas Jefferson proposed using permanent disfigurement as a punishment for rape, polygamy, and sodomy.
by Matthew Wills, Emily Cock via JSTOR Daily on June 4, 2025
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Not Just the Dog-Eared Pages

Considering a novel as a whole, rather than as the sum of its parts, was an approach favored by mid-20th-century literary critics. It was also useful for fighting book bans.
by Anthony Aycock via HNN on June 3, 2025
Children jump rope in the dirt yard of a Catholic school while their peers watch.

Pierce at 100

A century ago, the Court recognized the essential right of parents to direct the education of their children.
by Mark David Hall, Ernie Walton via Law & Liberty on May 30, 2025
Scroll and quill pen

Brutality and Opacity

Birthright citizenship under attack.
by Elisa Gonzalez via The Drift
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on May 29, 2025
William E. Humphrey and Franklin D. Roosevelt with national symbols.

The Supreme Court Undercuts Another Check on Executive Power

To defend the Trump Administration, the Court ignored long-standing precedent barring Presidents from firing independent-agency heads at will.
by Ruth Marcus via The New Yorker
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on May 29, 2025
Attica after state police stormed the prison, 1971.

How Should We Remember Attica?

Orisanmi Burton’s "Tip of the Spear" uncovers the obscured and radical demands of the inmates who staged the 1971 prison uprising—a world without prisons.
by Charlotte E. Rosen via The Nation
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on May 26, 2025
Arrows circling the word "Invasion"

The “Invasion” Invention: The Far Right’s Long Legal Battle to Make Immigrants the Enemy

Trump allies push “invasion” claims to justify suspending habeas corpus, a far-right legal effort years in the making.
by Molly Redden via ProPublica on May 23, 2025
A student protest at Gallaudet University.

A Striking Moment in American Activism

A new documentary revisits a pivotal week at Gallaudet University in 1988.
by John Hendrickson via The Atlantic
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on May 23, 2025
A still from the Sound of Fury of two men fighting.

Dangerous Work

Cy Endfield, film noir, and the blacklist.
by Imogen Sara Smith via Current [The Criterion Collection] on May 21, 2025
Malcolm X

What Made Malcolm X Dangerous

He challenged the violence of US power, abroad and at home. His radical internationalism, from Congo to Palestine, speaks to our moment.
by Donté L. Stallworth via Jacobin
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on May 21, 2025
A racially diverse group of children saying the Pledge of Allegiance while one holds an American flag.

Who Gets to Be an American?

Since the earliest days of the Republic, American citizenship has been contested, subject to the anti-democratic impulses of racism, suspicion, and paranoia.
by Michael Luo via The New Yorker
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on May 20, 2025
Broadside about the Fugitive Slave law.
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The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850: Annotated

The Fugitive Slave Act erased the most basic of constitutional rights for enslaved people and incentivized US Commissioners to support kidnappers.
by Liz Tracey via JSTOR Daily on May 19, 2025
David Souter

Justice David Souter Was the Antithesis of the Present

His jurisprudence has been overshadowed by that of his showier colleagues but was a model of principled restraint.
by Jeannie Suk Gersen via The New Yorker
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on May 15, 2025
Student Carl Griffin shows Senators Walter Mondale and Birch Bayh the bullet holes left by the police shooting at Jackson State.

DOJ Shakeup May Put Civil Rights Probe of 1970 Jackson State, Mississippi, Killings At Risk

The Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Act made way for investigations of racially motivated killings. The federal agency enforcing it is in disarray.
by Daja E. Henry via The Marshall Project on May 14, 2025
Cartoon drawing with Red Scare history written on New York City buildings.

When the Red Scare Came for Jessica Mitford

A graphic episode from "Do Admit: The Mitford Sisters and Me."
by Mimi Pond via The Nation
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on May 13, 2025
Japanese internment camp

How Trump’s Anti-Trans Policies Mirror the WWII Persecution of Japanese Americans

A warning for us all about history repeating itself.
by Tracy Slater via Literary Hub on May 12, 2025
A National Police Week ceremony.

The Jim Crow Origins of National Police Week

Police brutality and corruption are painful realities. So are officers who die performing their duty. But the memorial in Washington fails to distinguish them.
by Elizabeth Robeson via The Nation
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on May 9, 2025
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California's 'Bum Blockade'

During the Dust Bowl and Great Depression, hundreds of thousands of Americans left the Great Plains for California seeking work and survival. Fearing economic burdens, labor unrest, and social change, Los Angeles Police Chief James E. Davis launched a border blockade to stop poor migrants from entering the state. The effort was widely criticized, ruled unconstitutional, and ultimately failed, highlighting tensions over migration, citizenship, civil rights, and who is considered to belong.
May 8, 2025
Line drawings of related is school desegregation activism.

How Brown Came North and Failed

Half a century ago the civil rights movement’s effort to carry the campaign for school desegregation from the South to the urban North ended in failure.
by Linda Greenhouse via New York Review of Books
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on May 8, 2025
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