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A group of black prisoners, shoveling.

Race, Prison, and the Thirteenth Amendment

Critiques of the Thirteenth Amendment have roots in a long history of activists who understood the imprisonment of Black people as a type of slavery.
Lincoln Memorial.

The Civil War Almost Didn't End Slavery

On the 150th anniversary of the ratification of the 13th Amendment, we should reflect on the arduous battle to rid the nation once and for all of the ‘peculiar institution.’
Elder M. Andrew Robinson-Gaither demonstrates for reparations for slavery.

The Thirteenth Amendment and a Reparations Program

The amendment, which brought an end to slavery in the U.S., could be used to begin a national debate on reparations.
Aerial view of Pennsylvania's Eastern State Penitentiary, 19th century.

Untangling the 19th Century Roots of Mass Incarceration

Popular accounts often trace the origins of forced penal labor to the post-Civil War South. But a vast system of forced penal labor existed in the antebellum North.
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice.

Grappling With the Overthrow of Reconstruction

Two new books ask us to shift our attention away from the white vigilantes of Jim Crow and instead focus on what it meant for the survivors.
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?
Photograph shows two white men overseeing African American men hammering boulders as others walk with wheelbarrows.

Locked Up: The Prison Labor That Built Business Empires

Companies across the South profited off the forced labor of people in prison after the Civil War – a racist system known as convict leasing.
Artistic collage of the preamble to the U.S. Constitution.

Was Emancipation Constitutional?

Did the Confederacy have a constitutional right to secede? And did Lincoln violate the Constitution in forcing them back into the Union and freeing the slaves?
Nipsey Russell, Harry Belafonte, Coretta Scott King and Martin Luther King Jr. smiling and laughing.
partner

The Right to Joy and Pleasure is a Crucial Element of Racial Justice

Addressing systemic racism and state violence is not enough.
Statue of Dred Scott and wife

Allegiance, Birthright, and Race in America

What the Dred Scott v. Sandford case meant for black citizenship.
A painting entitled Our Town, with Black children playing on a suburban street

The Truth About Black Freedom

This year’s Juneteenth commemorations must take a deeper look at the history of Black self-liberation to understand what emancipation really means.
Daryl Michael Scott.

"Bad History and Worse Social Science Have Replaced Truth"

Daryl Michael Scott on propaganda and myth from ‘The 1619 Project’ to Trumpism.

The Origins of Policing in America

How American policing grew out of efforts to control the labor of poor and enslaved people.

The Achievements, and Compromises, of Two Reconstruction-era Amendments

While they advanced African American rights, they had serious flaws, Eric Foner writes.
Painting of a slave auction.

Teaching Hard History

A new study suggests that high school students lack a basic knowledge of the role slavery played in shaping the United States.

The Roots of Segregation

"The Color of Law" offers an indicting critique of the progressive agenda.

Killing Reconstruction

During Reconstruction, elites used racist appeals to silence calls for redistribution and worker empowerment.
Edward Blum superimposed on the Supreme Court building.

The People Who Dismantled Affirmative Action Have a New Strategy to Crush Racial Justice

In throwing up new roadblocks to the use of private money to redress racial and economic inequality, the Fearless Fund ruling is antihistorical.
A print titled "Heroes of the Colored Race," centered on portraits of Blanche Bruce, Frederick Douglas, and Hiram Revels.

Slavery, Capitalism, and the Politics of Abolition

"The Reckoning," Robin Blackburn’s monumental history, offers a dizzying account of the politics behind slavery's rise and fall.
A field of cotton.

What a Series of Killings in Rural Georgia Revealed About Early 20th-Century America

On the continuing regime of racial terror in the post-Civil War American South.
Gen. Robt. E. Lee, 1886.

After the Civil War, Robert E. Lee Couldn't Run for President, but Trump Can?

Despite Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, a Colorado state judge stretches the word “officer,” permitting him to remain on the state’s ballot.
Enslaved men gathered in the woods to plot a revolt.

Slavery and Rebellion in Eighteenth-Century New Jersey

While documented revolts of enslaved persons in New Jersey aren’t abundant, some examples speak to the spirit of resistance among African people held captive.
African American prisoners in Alabama post-Reconstruction.

How the Slavery-Like Conditions of Convict Leasing Flourished After the Collapse of Reconstruction

On the terror that filled the void left by the retreat of federal authority in the South.
Federal Reserve Note featuring Salmon Chase held by the National Numismatic Collection, National Museum of American History

The War with Inflation and the Confederacy

During the Civil War, the Lincoln administration demonstrated that a progressive agenda and effective anti-inflationary measures could overlap.
Illustration of Abraham Lincoln getting ready to give a speech.

Re-imagining the Great Emancipator

How shall a generation know its story, if it will know no other?
A jar of soil from the burial site of Howard Cooper, dated 1885.

Now We Know Their Names

In Maryland, a memorial for two lynching victims reveals how America is grappling with its history of racial terror.
Colorful portrait collage of Harriet Tubman with stars in the background

The Harriet Tubman Bicentennial Project

The Harriet Tubman Bicentennial Project explores the meaning of freedom through the example of one extraordinary life.

50 Years After Attica, Prisoners Protest Brutal Conditions

If this nation hopes to achieve a justice system that is just, it must remain ever vigilant for any echo from Attica.
Bus station with 'colored waiting room' sign.

Plessy v. Ferguson at 125

One hundred and twenty five years after the Supreme Court’s decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, there are still lessons to be gleaned from the case.
Deputy sheriff at county fair in Gonzales, Texas.

New Sheriff in Town

Law enforcement and the urban-rural divide.

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