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Fistfight in Peekskill, NY, 1949.

75 Years Ago, the KKK and Anti-communists Teamed Up to Violently Stop a Folk Concert in NY

Racist mobs attacked a 1949 concert in Peekskill, NY, raising anti-communist fervor and showing how hatred could gain legitimacy amid today’s political turmoil.
Baseball players for the Texas Rangers restraining fan from running onto field.

The Beer Night Riot, 50 Years Ago: What Was That America Like?

The melee, the mayhem, the metal chairs.
Lithograph of an armed mob attacking another group in the street.

The Philadelphia Bible Riots

The debate regarding which Bible kids should read in school was about whether Catholic immigrants should have the full rights of American citizenship.
President Abraham Lincoln, bareheaded at center, giving the Gettysburg Address, Pennsylvania, 1863

The Party of Lincoln Ignores His Warning Against Mobocracy

“There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law,” declared the man who would be America’s sixteenth president.

Reconstruction in America

Mass lynchings of Black people following the Civil War.

The Most Fascinating Riot You've Never Heard Of

The Astor Place Opera House Riot of 1849 combined two of 19th-century America’s favorite pastimes: going to the theater and rioting.
Protesters storming the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

What’s the Difference Between a Rampaging Mob and a Righteous Protest?

From the French Revolution to January 6th, crowds have been heroized and vilified. Now they’re a field of study.
Soldiers honoring Robert Imbrie's casket in Washington, D.C. on September 29, 1924.

A Century Ago, a Mob Brutally Attacked an American Diplomat in Persia

The July 1924 killing of Robert Imbrie fueled the rise of the Pahlavi dynasty and set the stage for a CIA-backed 1953 coup and the 1979 Iran hostage crisis.
Forest of pine trees.

Tree of Peace, Spark of War

The white pines of New England may have done more than any leaf of tea to kick off the American Revolution.
Barry Goldwater giving a speech at the Republican National Convention.
partner

The Republican National Convention That Shocked the Country

The pulsating anger in San Francisco 60 years ago became the party's animating spirit.
Pennsylvania Hall in flames.
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Sordid Mercantile Souls

When labor found a common cause — and enemy — with the abolition movement.
Richard Slotkin.

“A Theory of America”: Mythmaking with Richard Slotkin

"I was always working on a theory of America."
Abraham Lincoln campaigning with the Wide Awakes.

The Club of Cape-Wearing Activists Who Helped Elect Lincoln—and Spark the Civil War

The untold story of the Wide Awakes, the young Americans who took up the torch for their antislavery cause and stirred the nation.
New York City draft riots.

The 1863 Draft Riots and the Birth of the New York City Police

With low police morale, limited peacekeeping ability and agitated immigrants, the city only needed a match to set it ablaze.
1924 map of Baltimore city. An orange circle marks the location of Burton's store

Samuel L. Burton’s Remarkable Comeback Story

In one of the most unique cases in the history of race riots, the African American businessperson sued his birthplace of Onancock, Virginia, in September 1910.
A supporter of Donald Trump holds a Confederate flag inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, after the crowd breached the building as Congress was proceeding with the electoral vote certification of the 2020 presidential election.

Trump's 'Lost Cause,' a Kind of Gangster Cult, Won't Go Away

Lost cause narratives sometimes have been powerful enough to build or destroy political regimes. They can advance a politics of grievance.
Opal Lee.

A Racist Mob Destroyed Her Home. She Was Given the Land 84 Years Later.

A racist mob forced Opal Lee and her family from their Fort Worth home. Now she has been given the land and a new house is being built for her.
A white mob poses for a photograph in front of the charred remains of the Daily Record building they burned.

Majority-Black Wilmington, N.C., Fell to White Mob’s Coup 125 Years Ago

The 1898 Wilmington massacre overthrew the elected government in the majority-Black city, killed many Black residents and torched a Black-run newspaper.
Newspaper clippings about the Octavius V. Catto.

Lynchings in the North

A project to bring to light the stories of these victims’ lives and to highlight the patterns of racial terror perpetrated across the Northeast and Midwest.
Maury County Courthouse

The Story of the Lynching Site where Jason Aldean Filmed a Music Video

Henry Choate, 18, was killed, dragged from the back of a car through Columbia, Tenn., and his body was hanged at the Maury County Courthouse.
Illustration, The Burning of the Convent in 1834.

The Banality of Conspiracy Theories

Moral panics repeat, again and again.
Men hearing testimony at the courts marshal of 64 African American soldiers in Houston in 1917.

How Fake History Gets Made

A minor incident gets distorted in order to provide a desired racial story.
Historic marker for the 1892 lynching of Robert Lewis at Port Jervis.

Death by Northern White Hands

On Philip Dray’s “A Lynching at Port Jervis.”
Mural depicting Charlotta Bass and victims of Zoot Suit Riots.

The Untold Story of the Zoot Suit Riots: How Black L.A. Defended Mexican Americans

The unity of two long-neglected communities during trying times is a reminder of what we desperately need in Los Angeles.
Soldiers, sailors and marines in Los Angeles, June 7, 1943, stopping a street car looking for zoot suits.

Where and How the Zoot Suit Riots Swept Across L.A.

A location-based timeline and interactive map of the L.A. Zoot Suit Riots.
Tulsa, Oklahoma on fire during the Tulsa Massacre.

How World War I Inspired Black Americans to Fight for Dignity at Home

The war marked a sea change in how black men viewed their own citizenship.
Tenant farmers picking cotton in Mississippi circa 1890.

The Black Populist Movement Has Been Snuffed Out of the History Books

Often forgotten today, the black populists and their acts of cross-racial solidarity terrified the planter class, who responded with violence and Jim Crow laws.
Lithograph of African Americans gathering the dead and wounded from the Colfax Massacre in Louisiana, on April 13, 1873, originally published in Harper's Weekly.

The 1873 Colfax Massacre Was a Racist Attack on Black People’s Democratic Rights

In northern Louisiana, white supremacists slaughtered 150 African Americans, brutally thwarting their hopes for autonomy and self-governance.
Waco City Hall and a historical marker for the lynching.

Inside the Decades-long Effort to Commemorate a Notorious Waco Lynching

After years of opposition and delay, Waco finally has posted a historical marker about the 1916 murder of Jesse Washington.
People walk amid the destruction in Rosewood.

How History Forgot Rosewood, a Black Town Razed by a White Mob

A century ago, a false accusation sparked the destruction of the Florida community.

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