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Members of the National Guard stand behind a fence outside of the U.S. Capitol building.

Impeachment May Not Work. Here’s the Next Best Way to Dump Trump

The 14th Amendment offers a remedy that is both simpler and likelier to work.
A composite photograph of South Carolina's majority-black legislature created and circulated by opponents of Reconstruction

The Austerity Politics of White Supremacy

Since the end of the Confederacy, the cult of the “taxpayer” has provided a socially acceptable veneer for racist attacks on democracy.
Man with a pistol at his hip carries the retired flag of Mississippi with a confederate battle emblem in it, and a Trump 2020 flag.
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Yes, Wednesday’s Attempted Insurrection Is Who We Are

While Wednesday's images shocked us, they fit into our history.
Man walks through the U.S. Capitol holding a confederate flag on Jan 6, 2021.
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1871 Provides A Road Map for Addressing the Pro-Trump Attempted Insurrection

Commitment to racial justice, not conciliation, is needed to save democracy.

Meet Joseph Rainey, the First Black Congressman

Born enslaved, he was elected to Congress in the wake of the Civil War. But the impact of this momentous step in U.S. race relationships did not last long.
Portrait of Martin Delany in uniform

The Organizer’s Mind of Martin Delany

Why did the man known as the “father of Black nationalism” defect to the Democratic Party during Reconstruction?
Illustration of a black man laying on the ground while three men step on him, 1868.

Echoes of the Reconstruction Era: The Political Violence of 1868

The 1868 Election was the first one in which hundreds of thousands of African American men voted. It also began an unfortunate history of voter suppression.

An American Pogrom

Uncovering the truth about the 1898 massacre of black voters in Wilmington, North Carolina.
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Contested Elections Can Unleash Violent White Supremacy. We Have Seen It Before.

Why President Trump’s refusal to commit to accepting the election results is so dangerous.
Rutherford B. Hayes and Donald Trump.
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The Election From Our Past That Blares a Warning for 2020

A contested presidential election in 1876 produced a devastating compromise.

A Disputed Election, a Constitutional Crisis, Polarisation… Welcome to 1876

Eric Foner sees parallels with our own time but warns that yesterday’s solution would be a disaster.

Beyond Speeches and Leaders

The role of Black churches in the Reconstruction of the United States.
Lithograph depicting police attacking African Americans in New Orleans, 1874

On Riots and Resistance

Exploring freedpeople’s struggle against police brutality during Reconstruction.

History, Civil Rights and the Original Cancel Culture

The initial movement to build memorials to the Confederacy and its supposed “lost cause” were the original cancel culture.
A campaign illustration supporting Ulysses S. Grant for the Election of 1868.

A World “Transfixed”: The International Resonance of American Political Crises

The world's eyes are upon America as it struggles with racism and inequality. This is nothing new.

J.F.K.’s “Profiles in Courage” Has a Racism Problem. What Should We Do About It?

Kennedy defined courage as a willingness to take an unpopular stand in service of a larger, higher cause. But what cause?
Drawing of two men on horse overlaid with writing regarding prejudice and civil rights

The 14th Amendment Was Meant to Be a Protection Against State Violence

The Supreme Court has betrayed the promise of equal citizenship by allowing police to arrest and kill Americans at will.
A campaign illustration featuring busts of Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson over festoons featuring eagles, smoke, and the American flag.

Andrew Johnson’s Abuse of Pardons Was Relentless

Worried that the presidential power to undo convictions can be taken too far? Look no further than Lincoln’s successor.
Formal photograph of Ulysses S. Grant.

Public Monuments and Ulysses S. Grant’s Contested Legacy

It is fair to ask whether Grant’s prewar experiences define the entirety of his character, and who sets the bar for which public figures deserve commemoration.
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"It Has Not Been My Habit to Yield"

Charles Sumner and the fight for equal naturalization rights.
Robert Smalls

What Woodrow Wilson Did to Robert Smalls

We all know, in the abstract, that Wilson was a white supremacist. But here’s how he wielded his racism against one accomplished Black American.
People raising their fists and gathered around the Robert E. Lee Memorial in Richmond, Virginia

Europe in 1989, America in 2020, and the Death of the Lost Cause

A whole vision of history seems to be leaving the stage.
Robert E. Lee Memorial covered in graffiti and projections and surrounded by protesters.

The Racism of Confederate Monuments Extends to Voter Suppression

GOP-led state legislatures have not only prevented voters from exercising their rights as citizens, they have usurped local control to remove monuments legally.
Freedmen's Memorial

Yes, the Freedmen’s Memorial Uses Racist Imagery. But Don’t Tear It Down.

Keep in mind what it meant to the people who created it.
Protesters in front of a Confederate monument hold a banner that reads "Take the statue down."

Ole Miss’s Monument to White Supremacy

New evidence shows what the 30-foot-tall Confederate memorial was actually meant to commemorate.  
Woman in the doorway of a kitchen.

Abolish Oil

The New Deal's legacies of infrastructure and economic development, and entrenching structural racism, reveal the potential and mistakes to avoid for the Green New Deal.
A man plowing with a mule

Revisiting “Forty Acres and a Mule”

The backstory to the backstory of America’s mythic promise.

Eugenics and the White Moderate

Reflections on the COVID crisis from Reconstruction.

How White Backlash Controls American Progress

Backlash dynamics are one of the defining patterns of the country’s history.

Is Impeachment Only About Getting a Conviction?

A new history of Andrew Johnson’s trial reminds us the impeachment is a tool to constrain executive abuse of power and publicize dissent on matters of policy.

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