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“Raise Up,” a statue by artist Hank Willis Thomas of African Americans with their hands raised above their heads, is featured in the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama.

How a Coerced Confession Shaped a Family History

A researcher delves into the past to tell the story of a relative—falsely accused as a boy of a crime in Jim Crow–era South Carolina.
A map marking The Bahamas with a pin of its flag.

In the 1930s, the Bahamas Became a Tax Problem for Treasury

When struggling with tax enforcement, rich countries have long tried to shift blame to poor countries.
Earthen mounds at Louisiana State University.

Oldest Human-made Structure in the Americas Is Older Than the Egyptian Pyramids

The grass-covered mounds represent 11,000 years of human history.
Cover of The Silver Palate Cookbook

‘The Silver Palate Cookbook’ Changed Home Cooking (and Pesto Consumption) As We Know It

Published in 1982, 'The Silver Palate Cookbook' taught a generation of American cooks to trust in bold flavors, fresh herbs, and the joys of improvisation.
Aerial view of Saint Helena Island.

“A Hot Dinner and a Bloody Supper”: St. Helena's Christmas Rebellions of 1783 and 1811

On this tiny British outpost, conditions of isolation and alcholism mixed with the era's revolutionary fervor to inspire a number of revolts.
Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus, and snowman.

How Mrs. Claus Embodied 19th-Century Debates About Women's Rights

Many early stories praise her work ethic and devotion. But with Mrs. Claus usually hitting the North Pole’s glass ceiling, some writers started to push back.
Crowds and escalators in the Mall of America.

The Rise and Fall of the Mall

Alexandra Lange's "Meet Me by the Fountain" recovers the forgotten past and the still hopeful future of the American shopping mall.
Titian room at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 1903.

It Belongs in a Museum

Isabella Stewart Gardner builds a place to house her art.
Firestone Library at night

How Firestone Exploited Liberia — and Made Princeton as We Know It

Firestone’s racist system of forced labor made Princeton one of the world’s foremost research universities.
Four white men kidnapping Black man

Kidnappers of Color Versus the Cause of Antislavery

Thousands of free-born Black people in the North were kidnapped into slavery through networks that operated as a form of “Reverse Underground Railroad.”
Collage of yoga, palm tree, police tape

The Birth of a New Brand of Exercise Fetish

From Bikram yoga to Tae Bo, the 1990s exploded with exoticized consumer fitness products.
Rep. Bennie Thompson speaking at the Jan. 6 committee hearings.

January 6 Committee Final Public Meeting

Video testimony and evidence presented by the House Select Committee to recommend criminal prosecution of Donald Trump.
George Wallace pointing to map of United States with "Wallace Country" written on it.

How the Right Turned “Freedom” Into a Dog Whistle

A new book traces the long history of cloaking racism in the language of resistance to an overbearing federal government.
Company of Black infantry at Fort Lincoln

The Civil War and Natchez U.S. Colored Troops

The Natchez USCT not only contributed to the war effort but was essential to establishing a post-war monument honoring President Lincoln and emancipation.
Illustration of U.S. bomber droping brick to form a wall (representing sanctions).

The Folly of Sanctions

Sanctions were conceived as an alternative to war. But they may have made the world more violent.
Illustration of Guitar, a Gun and Roses by Eric Hanson

The Bully in the Ballad

Was Mississippi John Hurt really the first person to sing the tragic tale of Louis Collins?
A nurse tends to a patient in the influenza ward of the Walter Reed hospital in Bethesda, Md.

1918 Flu Pandemic Upended Long-standing Social Inequalities – At Least for a Time

The first flu children encounter shapes their immune systems. This had a surprising effect on Black and white mortality rates in 1918.
Old computer with its mouse over the AOL logo.

America Online: A Cautionary Tale

On the rise and fall of the quintessential ’90s online service provider—and a warning about today’s social-media giants.

On Upward Mobility

Research shows the neighborhood you grow up in has profound impact on your future economic success. How did my family's journey across the country impact me?
Oil painting by Claire Lehmann called "Painter’s Hand, Patron’s Hand."

Learning and Not Learning Abortion

The fact that most doctors like me don't know how to perform abortions is one of the greatest scandals of contemporary medicine in the US.
Engraving of freed slaves arriving at Union lines, New Bern, North Carolina, 1863.

The Emancipators’ Vision

Was abolition intended as a perpetuation of slavery by other means?
POW/MIA flag draped over an empty chair with a photo of a soldier.

Have You Forgotten Him?

The “forgotten American” mythology of the POW/MIA movement continues to haunt our politics today.
Opened standardized test booklet with pencil on top.

Can Standardized Testing Escape Its Racist Past?

High-stakes testing has struggled with overt and implicit biases. Should it still have a place in modern education?
Farmers working in an orchard.
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The Unlikely Supporters of a Bill That Would Increase Guest Workers

The history of guest worker programs should give pause to supporters of the Farm Workforce Modernization Act.
Postcard of Wood Island Park.

How Logan Airport Almost Destroyed East Boston

The echoes of an airport expansion, completed half a century ago, continue to harm Bostonians' health and well-being today.
A 1955 AT&T publicity photo shows [in palm, from left] a phototransistor, a junction transistor, and a point-contact transistor.

How the First Transistor Worked

Even its inventors didn’t fully understand the point-contact transistor.
Chart of Democratic and Republican women in Congress from 1959 to 2019.

We Mapped Out the Road to Gender Parity in the House of Representatives

Exploring the last 100 years of women in politics through data.
Ripped American flag.

The Greatest Threat to the Unity of the Country Is the Class Divide

How many rich moderates would join the MAGA far right if redistribution policies threatened their wealth?
Collage of meat products emerging from Pat Buchanan's head.

How Food Became a Weapon in The Right’s Culture Wars

First came the politics of right-wing grievance. Then came the new foodie culture. Together, they combined to create one toxic food fight.
The statue of Confederate Gen. A.P. Hill was taken down Dec. 12. Hill’s remains beneath it are set to be relocated.

Richmond Takes Down Its Last Major City-Owned Confederate Memorial

Richmond's last major Confederate memorial on city property, a statue of Gen. A.P. Hill, was taken down Monday morning.

America’s Public Bible: A Commentary

An interactive scholarly work that uncovers the history of the Bible in the 19th- and early 20th-century United States.
Photo of a young Chinese worker carrying tea.

Inside the Diet That Fueled Chinese Transcontinental Railroad Workers

Denied the free meals of their Irish counterparts, Chinese laborers learned to thrive on their own.
Jumbo, a famous elephant that belonged to showman P.T. Barnum, at the London Zoo.
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How Jumbo the Elephant Paved the Way For Jumbo Mortgages

The 11-foot-tall elephant reshaped our language, which has proved surprisingly apt.
Henry Arthur McArdle’s The Battle of San Jacinto (1895), depicting the final battle of the Texas Revolution of 1836.

The Long American Counter-Revolution

Historian Gerald Horne has developed a grand theory of U.S. history as a series of devastating backlashes to progress—right down to the present day.

How the Third Way Made Neoliberal Politics Seem Inevitable

An overhyped new paradigm proved to be a slogan without a movement.
Woman shielding her face with a newspaper reporting "Cops Fired 41 Shots."

The Social Construction of Race

Race is a social fiction imposed by the powerful on those they wish to control.
A Black walks among the Willow Grove Cemetery, featuring raised graves sites.

She Warned the Grain Elevator Would Disrupt Sacred Black History. They Deleted Her Findings.

A whistleblower says new construction on an old plantation would disrupt important historic sites, including possibly unmarked graves of enslaved people.
Employees of print shop

Who Owns the Narrative? Texas Law Enforcement Versus Tejano Journalists

At the turn of the century, Mexican American publications paid a price for challenging the local sheriff and elements of the Texas Rangers.
Black and white scale of justice.

The Blindness of ‘Color-Blindness’

When the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the future of affirmative action, I knew I had to be there.
Roi Ottley and other African American panelists on radio quiz program.

How African Americans Entered Mainstream Radio

For nearly 50 years, commercial radio companies only employed white broadcasters to target information and entertainment to mainstream America.
Collage of people and water.

America’s Blueprint For Urban Inequity Was Drawn in Philly. Where Do We Go From Here?

From a bus line named Jim Crow to racial violence at public parks, racism shaped Philadelphia. Can we imagine a more equitable city?
Cup of eggnog with cinnamon

From Weddings to Riots, Everything to Know About Eggnog's History

People have been drinking eggnog for hundreds of years. Here's where it originated and how it became a traditional holiday drink.
Donald Trump supporters storm the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

The Failure of Reconstruction Is to Blame for the Weakness of American Democracy

A new book argues that the American right emerged out of a backlash to multiracial democracy following the Civil War.

Liquor on Sundays

A new book sets out to discover how Americans became such creatures of the seven-day week.
Supporters cheer during an election night watch party for Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D) in Atlanta
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Warnock’s Win Points to the Need For Ongoing Political Organizing

Georgia’s own history highlights what out-organizing voter suppression really entails.
Illustration depicting workmen and firemen dragging a fireman and engineer from a Baltimore freight train during the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad strike.

The Railway Labor Act Allowed Congress to Break the Rail Strike. We Should Get Rid of It.

Congress was able to break the rail strike last week because of a century-old law designed to weaken the disruptive power of unions.

Lydia Maria Child Taught Americans to Make Do With Less

A popular writer’s 1829 self-help book ‘The Frugal Housewife’ was based on the same democratic principles that made her a champion of the abolitionist cause.
National portrait of W. E. B. Du Bois

W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963)

This long overdue tribute honors historian W. E. B. Du Bois, who died on August 27, 1963.
U.S. sailors stand among wrecked airplanes during the Pearl Harbor Attack
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Pearl Harbor was the Site of Black Heroism and Protests Against Racism

The history of segregation in the Navy — and its abolition — show how to combat institutionalized bigotry.
Pew Research chart showing rising earnings disparity between young adults with and without college degrees

Pushing Everyone Into College Was a Policy Response to Other Policy

None of it happened by mistake.
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