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Ibram X. Kendi

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Ibram Kendi, One of the Nation’s Leading Scholars of Racism, Says Education and Love Are Not the Answer

A profile of the founder of American University's new anti-racism center.
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?

Sam Harris, Charles Murray, and the Allure of Race Science

This is not "forbidden knowledge." It is America’s most ancient justification for bigotry and racial inequality.
Empty speech bubbles emanating from people in an old house.

Popular History

What role do we really want history to be playing in our public life? And is the history we have actually doing that work?
The Varner-Hogg Plantation House, Brazoria County, Texas.

The Texas Historical Commission Removed Books on Slavery From Plantation Gift Shops

An agency spokesperson claimed that the move had nothing to do with politics. Internal emails show otherwise.
A U.S. flag superimposed over a crowd of faces.

Howard Zinn and the Politics of Popular History

The controversial historian drew criticism from both left and right. We need more like him today.
Cover page of "Cotton Mather's Spanish Lessons." Beige cover with a small red image of a tonsured monastic scribe with a book in front of him, evidentally engaged in scholarship.

Structures of Belonging and Nonbelonging

A Spanish-language pamphlet by Cotton Mather explodes the Black-versus-white binary that dominates most discussions of race in our time.
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?
Mount Rushmore with painted crowd behind it

A Usable Past for a Post-American Nation

We are living through a time when we cannot take our shared identity—and therefore our shared stories—for granted.
Booker T. Washington addressing a laughing crowd of African American men in Lakeland, Tennessee, during his campaign promoting African American education. Ca. 1900.

Market Solutions to Ancient Sins

Freedom and prosperity are the most effective cure for the scars of slavery and racism.
Illustration of a classroom by Joan Yang.

Why Teachers Are Afraid to Teach History

The attacks on CRT have terrified our educators. But the public school system has always made it hard to teach controversial subjects.
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.
In the preface to a new book version of the 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones, a reporter and the leading force behind the endeavor, recalls that it began as a “simple pitch.”

The 1619 Project and the Demands of Public History

The ambitious Times endeavor reveals the difficulties that greet a journalistic project when it aspires to shift a founding narrative of the past.
Cover of TIME magazine featuring a redacted textbook and the title "The History Wars"

Inside the Fight Over What Kids Learn About America's History

The debate over how to teach the history of race in the U.S. is entangling local school boards and engulfing national politics.
A supporter of US President Donald Trump holds a Confederate flag outside the Senate Chamber during a protest after breaching the US Capitol in Washington, DC, January 6, 2021. - The demonstrators breeched security and entered the Capitol as Congress debated the 2020 presidential election Electoral Vote Certification.

Jan. 6 Was a "Turning Point" in American History

Pulitzer-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed reflects on the battle for the past and the fragile state of American democracy.
An anti-critical race theory rally

To Understand the History Wars, Follow the Paper Trail

The history of racism, slavery and its impacts on American society is essential and appropriate for school history classes.
Graphic illustration of a tilted white column with a pointed white top, resembling a race, against a red background. The words: "Media Monuments and Hooded Headlines" are printed within the triangular top.

American Journalism’s Role in Promoting Racist Terror

History must be acknowledged before justice can be done.
Student completing standardized test

The Racist Beginnings of Standardized Testing

From grade school to college, students of color have suffered from the effects of biased testing.
Collage of images related to Monopoly's history

The Prices on Your Monopoly Board Hold a Dark Secret

The property values of the popular game reflect a legacy of racism and inequality.
COVID-19 particles with the bill of rights written over them

The Forgotten Third Amendment Could Give Pandemic-Struck America a Way Forward

An overlooked corner of the Constitution hints at a right to be protected from infection.