Gun rights advocates holding Second Amendment rally at which police officer Dick Heller spoke, at the State Capitol in Frankfort, Kentucky, January 31, 2020.

The Remaking of the Second Amendment

The Supreme Court’s expanding interpretation of the Second Amendment threatens longstanding democratic authority to enact gun safety measures.
People walking towards the vigil for mass shooting victims.

Hiding Buffalo’s History of Racism Behind a Cloak of Unity

Officials have described the recent shooting as an aberration in the “City of Good Neighbors.” But this conceals the city’s long-standing racial divisions.
Artwork of the Supreme Court but with chess pieces used as columns..

The Supreme Court Is Not Supposed to Have This Much Power

And Congress should claw it back.

Inventing Solitary

In 1790, Philadelphia opened the first American penitentiary, with the nation’s first solitary cells. Black people were disproportionately punished from the start.
Wilma Mankiller on a quarter

Reconsidering Wilma Mankiller

As the Cherokee Nation’s first female chief’s image is minted onto a coin, her full humanity should be examined.
Lithograph depicting Margert Garner standing over the body of her dead daughter, to the shock of slave catchers.
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Discarding Legal Precedent to Control Women's Reproductive Rights is Rooted in Colonial Slavery

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito made reference to the legal opinions of English jurist Henry de Bracton, foreshadowing the court overturning Roe v. Wade.
Illustration of Hubert Harrison by Joe Ciardiello.

Hubert Harrison, Giant of Harlem Radicalism

A two-volume biography tracks the life and times of one of Harlem’s leading socialists.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony with backdrop of abortion protest posters

What Did the Suffragists Really Think About Abortion?

Contrary to contemporary claims, Susan B. Anthony and her peers rarely discussed abortion, which only emerged as a key political issue in the 1960s.
Box of Mifepristone tablets
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Tennessee Republicans Turn to Mail Regulation to Restrict Abortion

This isn’t the first time the U.S. Postal Service has played a role in curbing women’s reproductive rights.
Picture of Donna Murch and her new book. (Photo by Don J. Usner)

The Long History of Resistance That Birthed Black Lives Matter

A conversation with historian Donna Murch about the past, present, and future of Black radical organizing.
Guinan Phillips, 31, attends a candlelit memorial for victims of the mass shooting at Tops supermarket in Buffalo. (Heather Ainsworth for The Washington Post)
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The Tie Between the Buffalo Shooting and Banning Abortion

The two may seem unconnected, but a centuries-long history of panic about White birth rates binds them together.
"IX" surrounded by female athletes

The Pursuit of Equal Play: Reflecting on 50 Years of Title IX

How a 37-word clause tucked inside a new education legislation reshape women’s sports forever.
Illustration of catcher Buck Ewing of the New York Giants

Baseball's Reserve Clause and the "Antitrust Exemption"

The controversy between players and owners frequently brought baseball into the federal courts between the late nineteenth and late twentieth centuries.
Sarah L. Murphy teaches children in a two-room schoolhouse in Rockmart, Ga. on June 23, 1950.

The Ugly Backlash to Brown v. Board of Ed That No One Talks About

The 1954 Supreme Court ruling was hailed as a victory for desegregation. But protracted white resistance decimated the pipeline of Black principals and teachers.
Book cover for Captives: How Rikers Island Took New York City Hostage," showing a photo of incarcerated men speaking to the media.

How Rikers Island Made New York

In “Captives,” former Rikers detainee Jarrod Shanahan traces the history of New York City’s sprawling jail complex, and its centrality to brutal class struggle.
"Stalls for All" sign with transgender flag hearts

Transgender Legal Battles: A Timeline

New laws regarding transgender youth are based on the assumption that the gender binary is natural.
Horses and carriages in front of funeral home

Report of Action Not Received

An accounting of racist murders in nineteenth-century America.
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Extremism in America: A Surge in Violence

During the 2010s, violent attacks by white supremacists and other extremists increased, including at a church in Charleston, S.C. and a synagogue in Pittsburgh.
Elderly woman holding a Gray Panthers sign. (from Wikimedia Commons)

Gray Panthers: Bending Bureaucracy and Building Power

The Gray Panthers empowered elderly people to see themselves as experts capable of disentangling convoluted bureaucracies.
Lithograph of Sir Matthew Hale

On Roe, Alito Cites a Judge Who Treated Women as Witches and Property

Sir Matthew Hale, a 17th-century jurist, has been endlessly quoted by American judges and lawyers, with awful repercussions for women.
U.S. Supreme Court building, Washington, D.C.

"A Man of His Time": From Patrick Henry to Samuel Alito in U.S. History

The struggle for progress is always two steps forward and at least one step back.
Linda Coffee working on the Roe v. Wade case

I Argued Roe v. Wade. It Would Be a Tragedy to Overturn It.

To take away the right to privacy is to take a giant step backward in American history.
Portrait of Medgar Evers.

The Day The Civil-Rights Movement Changed

What my father saw in Mississippi.
Photograph of abortion pro-choice activists demonstrating outside the Supreme Court.
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Originalists are Misreading the Constitution’s Silence on Abortion

The originalist case for lifting abortion restrictions.

“Deeply Rooted in this Nation’s History and Tradition"

The bad history in Alito’s draft overturning Roe v. Wade.
Florida Governor Rob DeSantis addresses a crowd behind a podium reading "freedom from indoctrination"
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Too Many White Parents Don’t Understand The True Purpose of Public Schools

Black Americans continue to fight for access to the public school systems their forebears created, against a history of white backlash and appropriation.
In 1992, a fire burns out of control at 67th Street and West Boulevard in South Central Los Angeles. (Paul Sakuma/AP)
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The L.A. Uprisings Sparked an Evangelical Racial Reckoning

But it remains unfinished.
Deborah Lipstadt at her Senate nomination hearing.

Deborah Lipstadt vs. “The Oldest Hatred”

In her new role as antisemitism envoy, Deborah Lipstadt will attempt to fight a scourge of antisemitism that she seems to regard as incurable.
A gate opening to the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Mass.

Harvard Leaders and Staff Enslaved 79 People, University Finds

The school said it had benefited from slave-generated wealth and practiced racial discrimination.
Students paddling rafts on Milwaukee River

Remember When Earth Day Used to Be Cool?

Today, the holiday is just a chance for ExxonMobil to release nonsensical ad campaigns. But once upon a time, it was a radical success story.