Justice

A Black transgender woman’s testimony helped ratify the 14th Amendment. Then conservatives began attacking her identity.

Universal birthright citizenship was never the original intent.

In the aftermath of the American Revolution, southern slaveholders were thinking about what a prison should look like for a society that was economically and socially dependent on slavery.

In the 19th century, John Conness defended the 14th Amendment and shut down proto-Trumpians.

For a century, Americans have embraced a punitive approach to addiction—one that has undermined treatment efforts.

Deferring to power and authority leads inevitably to autocracy.

José ‘Cha Cha’ Jiménez and the Young Lords laid the groundwork for radical racial justice movements.

Standardized forensic exams are a useful tool for sexual-violence investigations—or they would be if police departments consistently tested their findings.

The history of enslaved firefighters offers a cautionary tale about the dangers of relying on involuntary labor to fight blazes.

The general’s campaign through the South is known for its brutality against civilians. For the enslaved who followed his army, though, it was a shot at freedom.

Efforts to target immigrants amid the 1992 L.A. Uprising point to what deportations might look like under Trump 2.0.

Supreme Court rulings on gun laws highlight the struggle to balance individual rights and public safety.

President Woodrow Wilson presided over the segregation of government workers, putting Black people behind screens and in cages in 1913.

Does the text mean what it plainly says?

Gender-segregated bathrooms tell a story about who is and who is not welcome in public life.

On the ongoing legal struggle for educational and racial equality across the United States.

Two new biographies enhance our knowledge of John Lewis, the late congressman and civil rights hero.

Today’s legislative efforts against the Palestine solidarity movement bear a striking resemblance to McCarthyism in both tactics and ideology.

The fleet provided activists with reliable transportation in hostile and often dangerous environments.

Anita Bryant’s legacy is not what she hoped—but her destructive message lives on.

On John Huggins, Angela Y. Davis, and the complex history of an oft-misunderstood political movement.

New York City’s renewed efforts to tackle homelessness and untreated mental illness is raising questions about civil liberties, safety and effective care.

Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett each had a different vision of reproductive freedom. Would reproductive rights be more secure if Dennett’s had prevailed?

A newly released classified document shows that the National Security Agency knew Ethel Rosenberg was not a spy—and that the government executed her anyway.

History also changes because of strange, flawed, deeply human people doing unremarkable, tedious, and often boring work.

Understanding the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan in the early twentieth century gives insight into the roots of today’s reactionary activists and policymakers.

In 1984, only 18 American states denied that wives were the sexual property of their husbands.

Our new age of violence looks a lot like the Gilded Age.

Our country has a long history of admiring particular acts of violence.

The week between Christmas and the new year offered a rare opportunity for enslaved people to reclaim their humanity.