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Demonstrators surround a police car during the Watts uprising in 1965
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Understanding Today’s Uprisings Requires Understanding What Came Before Them

The media must make the long years of organizing as visible as the eruptions and uprisings.
A reporter interviewing another man near the wreckage from the Watts Rebellion.
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Did The 1965 Watts Riots Change Anything?

Sociological data from immediately after the riots in Watts, Los Angeles, in 1965 show major disparities in attitude by race.
Black Panther Party members demonstrating outside the New York County Criminal Court, April 11, 1969.

The Black Radical Tradition Can Guide Our Struggles Against Oppression

Uncovering a tradition of African American radicalism that was—and is—a crucial part of the American left’s history.
The Police Beat Algorithm, along with its computational key. Illustrated by Kelly Chudler.

The 1960s Experiment That Created Today’s Biased Police Surveillance

The Police Beat Algorithm’s outputs were not so much predictive of future crime as they were self-fulfilling prophesies.
Newark protesters and National Guard

A Warning Ignored

America did exactly what the Kerner Commission on the urban riots of the mid-1960s advised against, and fifty years later reaped the consequences it predicted.
African American man leaning on his car, by a wall spray painted with the words "let's remember McDuffie"

The Long, Painful History of Racial Unrest

A lethal incident of police brutality in Miami in 1979 offers just one of countless examples of the reality generations of African Americans have faced.
Seattle police dressed in riot gear, standing in front of graffiti that reads "abolish the cops."

Police Reform Hasn't Stopped the Killings Before. It Won't Now Either.

Police reform is a time-honored counter-insurgency measure to quell rebellion.

The Many Explosions of Los Angeles in the 1960s

Set the Night on Fire isn't just a portrait of a city in upheaval. It's a history of uprisings for civil rights, against poverty, and for a better world.

The History of the “Riot” Report

How government commissions became alibis for inaction.
A row of police officers with guns

Police Have Long History of Responding to Black Movements by Playing the Victim

Amid calls to defund police, cops are framing themselves as victims. We must remember who is really being brutalized.
Heavily armed police patrolling Los Angeles in the 1960s.

“No Matter How Different the Movements Were, the LAPD Targeted Every One of Them”

From the Black Panthers to the Communist Party, radical Los Angeles in the ’60s was a seething cauldron of unrest, united by the brutal repression of the LAPD.

Was 1960's Liberalism the Cause of Today's Overincarceration Crisis?

Today, nearly 2.2 million Americans are behind bars. Can contemporary mass incarceration's roots be traced to LBJ's Great Society?
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How a Standoff with the Black Panthers Fueled the Rise of SWAT

SWAT teams were created in the 1960s to combat violent events. Since then, the specialized teams have morphed into something very different.
A picture of Huey Newton and Fredrika Newton embracing.

The Misunderstood Visionary Behind the Black Panther Party

Huey P. Newton has been mythologized and maligned since his murder 34 years ago. His family and friends offer an intimate look inside his life and mind.
Aftermath of a riot in Washington, D.C., following Martin Luther King, Jr.'s funeral in 1968. Photography by Warren K. Leffler, via the Library of Congress.

After the Murder

Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination was the fateful moment that the wave of hope finally broke for Black America.
Image of army soldiers and weapons facing crowd of protestors holding signs

A Theater of State Panic

Beginning in 1967, the Army built fake towns to train police and military officers in counterinsurgency.
Headshot illustration of Angela Davis

‘Hell, Yes, We Are Subversive’

For all her influence as an activist, intellectual, and writer, Angela Davis has not always been taken as seriously as her peers. Why not?
Men wearing tuxedos carry a coffin and a "Here Lies Jim Crow" sign down a street as a demonstration against "Jim Crow" segregation laws in 1944.

No Quick Fixes: Working Class Politics From Jim Crow to the Present

Political scientist Adolph Reed Jr. discusses his new memoir.
Side profile of Nikole Hannah-Jones

What the 1619 Project Means

Nothing could be more toxic to our ongoing effort to build a multiracial democracy than to cast any race as a perennial hero or villain.
MLK in a police station

Martin Luther King Knew That Fighting Racism Meant Fighting Police Brutality

Critics of Black Lives Matter have held up King as a foil to the movement’s criticisms of law enforcement, but those are views that King himself shared.
A car window with a sign in it that reads "let freedom ring" with an illustration of Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Martin Luther King Jr.’s Challenge to Liberal Allies — and Why It Resonates Today

King understood the perils of submerged racism.
Christmas yard decorations with an inflatable black Santa and "JOY".
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Black Santas Have a Long and Contested History in the U.S.

What’s at stake in debates about the meaning and visibility of the Black Santa.
A support of President Donald Trump at a rally in Staten Island, New York, in October.

What Trump Really Means When He Tweets “LAW & ORDER!!!”

A brief history of a political dog whistle.
Covers of issues of One magazine, featuring line drawings and article titles including "I am glad I am homosexual," and "I Just Had to Write".
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ONE: The First Gay Magazine in the United States

ONE is a vital archive, but its focus on citizenship and “rational acceptance” ultimately blocked it from being the safe home for all that it claimed to be.
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Liberal Reform Threatens to Expand the Police Power – Just as it Did in the Past

How calls for “real reforms” have resulted in measures that further shield police from real accountability.
Black and white photo of black child with his hands up, with police wielding weapons behind him
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The 1968 Kerner Commission Report Still Echoes Across America

Anger over policing and inequality boiled over more than 50 years ago, and a landmark report warned that it could happen again.
Demonstrators against police brutality.
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The Explicit Anthem of Anti-Racist Protest

Rap group N.W.A. understood vulgarity and controversy were necessary to draw attention to police brutality.

The Racist History of Curfews in America

The restrictions imposed during recent racial justice protests have their roots in efforts to “contain” Black Americans. 
From left, actors Bernnadette Stanis, John Amos and Ja'Net Dubois accept the Impact Award for “Good Times” at the 2006 TV Land Awards in Santa Monica, Calif. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
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Television Is Already Moving to Address Racism — But Will the Effort Last?

Past network efforts to address racism faded as uprisings stopped dominating headlines.
A wanted poster that reads "Wanted by the people: murder, aggravated assault and battery, denying civil rights, perjury. Brinley Evans, Thomas Lyons."

Wanted: An End to Police Terror

The pursuit of justice has been defined by a rote binary of punished in a cage versus unpunished and free.

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