Excerpts

Curated stories from around the web.
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Simeon Booker, Intrepid Chronicler of Civil Rights Struggle for Jet and Ebony, Dies at 99

He risked his life to expose Emmett Till’s death and the Freedom Rides to a national audience.

The Republican Tax Bill Is a Poison Pill That Kills the New Deal

Today’s Republicans would have fit right into Herbert Hoover’s administration.
Civil War rifles mounted on wall

The Brutal Origins of Gun Rights

A new history argues that the Second Amendment was intended to perpetuate white settlers' violence toward Native Americans.
Funeral flower arrangement with a ribbon reading "R.I.P. Internet."
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Why Ajit Pai is Wrong About Net Neutrality

FCC regulations have long promoted innovation that benefits consumers, not stifled it.
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Before Net Neutrality, There Was Radio Regulation

How today's media landscape was shaped by a 1920s decision to privilege corporate broadcasters over noncommercial ones.
A row of wood frame houses in an African American neighborhood of Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963. (Credit: Marion S. Trikosko, Library of Congress)

Discourse on Race and Inequality in the United States

We must understand America's history of inequality to confront the racial wealth gap.

The Bombs, the Church, the City, the State

What was Alabama back then? And what is Alabama right now?
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Renewing Inequality

An interactive set of maps documenting the more than 300,000 families displaced by urban renewal projects between 1955 and 1966.
Robert E. Lee statue

The Fight Over Virginia’s Confederate Monuments

How the state’s past spurred a racial reckoning.

The Painful History of a Confederate Monument Tells Itself

Haunting archival footage of Stone Mountain's creation.
Semi on a mountain highway.
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The Populist Power of the American Trucker

How did truckers nudge the American economy toward deregulation?

The New Racism

A glimpse inside the Alabama State House suggests that the civil rights movement may have reached its end.

Will Feminism’s Past Mistakes Haunt #MeToo?

#MeToo must go beyond the demand for punishment.
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Worse than Roy Moore?

The congressman who Alabamians later complained "made them the laughing stock of the Union."
Protester with a #MeToo sign
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#MeToo is Undoing the Devil’s Bargain of the 1990s

Men accepted women’s rise to prominence, but used sexual coercion to maintain control.
A house with Christmas lights, and wildfires advancing towards it.

Southern California’s Uncanny, Inevitable Yuletide Fires

The current level of fire danger is so high that the U.S. Forest Service has described them using the color purple, to signify “extreme.”

The Artifacts of White Supremacy

Why fiery crosses, white robes, and the American flag were seized upon by the 1920s Klan in its campaign for white nationalism.
"Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky," a painting by Benjamin West (ca. 1816).

Flash Mob: Revolution, Lightning, and the People’s Will

Why French revolutionaries, in need of an image to represent the all important “will of the people”, turned to the thunderbolt.
Circus Sideshow, by Georges Seurat, 1887–88.

Unforgettable

W.E.B. Du Bois on the beauty of sorrow songs.
Harvey Weinstein
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No, There Is No Witch Hunt Against Powerful Men

They're the hunters, not the hunted.

What The Industry Knew About Sugar's Health Effects, But Didn't Tell Us

A new report says the sugar industry pulled the plug on evidence linking sugar consumption to heart disease.

Sanctuary Syllabus

Inspired by Trump's election and his anti-immigrant policies, a group of scholars compiled this collection on the idea of "sanctuary."
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When 'Welfare Reform' Meant Expanding Benefits

We often forget that Nixon took decidely liberal stances on welfare, healthcare, and universal basic income.

The Cold War and the Welfare State

If you look hard enough, you can almost find ideological consistency in the Republicans’ breathtaking tax bill.
Customers at an African American bank in Harlem.
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We Need More Government, Not Less, in The War on Poverty

The myth of the “dependent” poor.

How Redlining Segregated Philadelphia

Decades after civil rights laws overruled policies that starved non-white neighborhoods of investment, deep disparities linger.

What Facebook Did to American Democracy

And why it was so hard to see it coming.
Skull and crossbones with message reading "This is the place to affix the STAMP."
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Paying Up: A History of Taxation

From the Stamp Act of 1765 to the Tea Party Movement, how have – and haven't – American attitudes about taxes changed over time?

#MeToo? In 80 years, No American Woman Has Won Time’s ‘Person of the Year’ by Herself

The history of Time's 'Person of the Year' exemplifies the problem that led to this year's winner.

Future Historians Probably Won't Understand Our Internet, and That's Okay

Archivists are working to document our chaotic, opaque, algorithmically complex world—and in many cases, they simply can’t.
Lithograph depicting Pocahontas saving John Smith from execution.

Will the Real Pocahontas Please Stand Up?

We might be better off if we knew a little more – or a little less – about her actual life.

How Obama Destroyed Black Wealth

The nation's first African-American president was a disaster for black wealth.

Land and The Roots of African-American Poverty

Land redistribution could have served as the primary means of reparations for former slaves. Instead, it did exactly the opposite.

The Cruel Truth About Rock And Roll

A lifelong fan reflects on how sexual exploitation is part of rock's DNA.

The Troubled Rise of the Technocrat

The notion that a government’s chief obligation is getting stuff done is a fairly recent arrival on the historical scene.
Robert Mugabe
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How the U.S. Aided Robert Mugabe’s Rise

Cold War politics empowered democracy — and dictatorship.
Line graphs of Democratic shares of the vote.

America's 'Big Sort' Is Only Getting Bigger

Political polarization in the U.S. mirrors its spatial divide.

The Census Always Boxed Us Out

For most of our history, the U.S. government treated biracial Americans as if we didn’t even exist, but my family has stories to tell.
Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Keeping the Faith

Ta-Nehisi Coates' latest book preaches political fatalism. But black activism has always believed in the possibility of change.
Game board with squares about life events.

Board Games Were Indoctrination Tools for Christ, Then Capitalism

The very weird tale of how American board games used to teach you how to get to heaven, and later, how to make bank.

Nativism, Violence, and the Origins of the Paranoid Style

How a lurid 19th-century memoir of sexual abuse produced one of the ugliest features of American politics.
Roosevelt signing the Social Security Act.

This Amazing Woman is the Forgotten Architect of the American Social Security System

You can thank her for your retirement benefits.

For Republicans, an Unpopular Tax Cut May Be Better Than Nothing – But Still Not Enough

In 1948, the GOP passed the third biggest tax cut in U.S. history. In the next election, they learned the devil is in the details.

Policing the Colony: From the American Revolution to Ferguson

King George's tax collectors abused police powers to fill his coffers. Sound familiar?

How the Right Gets Reagan Wrong

And what will happen if they don't start getting him right.
Map of the British Colonies in North America between 1763 and 1775.

3 Ways to Think About the American Revolution

The complex combination of grievances that fueled the war had to do with taxes, class, and nationalism.

The Notion of Tax Reform in Historical Perspective

President Trump's tax plan may be "great", but it will likely not be truly transformative.
Busy horse and buggy outside of North Station in Boston.

The Frontiers of American Capitalism

Noam Maggor’s new book captures how it took both sides of the American continent to revitalize the economy after the Civil War.

The Deeper Problem Behind the Sale of a Posh San Francisco Street

The news that a posh San Francisco street was sold for delinquent taxes exposes the deeper issue with America’s local revenue system.

Triumph of the Shill

The political theory of Trumpism.
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