Slavery

Are Americans Finally Facing Up to the True Costs of Mass Incarceration?

Are Americans Finally Facing Up to the True Costs of Mass Incarceration? Are Americans Finally Facing Up to the True Costs of Mass Incarceration?

The human devastation caused by prisons goes far beyond the cost to taxpayers.

Sep 16, 2015 / Dani McClain

W.E.B. Du Bois

Historians of Color Are Revolutionizing the Narrative of ‘American Exceptionalism’ Historians of Color Are Revolutionizing the Narrative of ‘American Exceptionalism’

For too long, we have looked in the wrong place and race for the genesis of our national story.

Sep 1, 2015 / David Levering Lewis

Donald Trump.

Give Trump This: The 14th Amendment Has Been Working Overtime Give Trump This: The 14th Amendment Has Been Working Overtime

How healthy is it to found a democracy on this one slender reed?

Aug 26, 2015 / Richard Kreitner

Col. Ty Seidule

Stop Turning the End of Slavery Into Army Propaganda Stop Turning the End of Slavery Into Army Propaganda

Yes, the United States army, “wearing this blue uniform,” helped destroy slavery. Doesn’t it matter what else that army has done?

Aug 12, 2015 / Richard Kreitner

Jeb Bush

Jeb Bush Admires a Really Lousy President — And It’s Not His Brother Jeb Bush Admires a Really Lousy President — And It’s Not His Brother

James K. Polk was condemned by John Quincy Adams, Henry David Thoreau, and Abraham Lincoln on issues of human bondage and lawless militarism.

Aug 3, 2015 / John Nichols

US Military Captain Waving the Confederate Flag

What Was the Confederate Flag Doing in Cuba, Vietnam, and Iraq? What Was the Confederate Flag Doing in Cuba, Vietnam, and Iraq?

The Confederate flag’s military tenure continued long after the Civil War ended.

Jul 7, 2015 / Greg Grandin

Why the Black Church Forgives Dylann Roof

Why the Black Church Forgives Dylann Roof Why the Black Church Forgives Dylann Roof

And how President Obama’s Charleston eulogy used the theology of black liberation to call the country to account for racism.

Jul 2, 2015 / Kelly Brown Douglas

A promotional poster for the film version of Gone With the Wind

June 30, 1936: Margaret Mitchell’s ‘Gone with the Wind’ Is Published June 30, 1936: Margaret Mitchell’s ‘Gone with the Wind’ Is Published

"Margaret Mitchell gives us our Civil War through Southern eyes exclusively, and no tolerant philosophy illumines the crimes of the invaders."

Jun 30, 2015 / Richard Kreitner

Confederate Flag

The Historical Roots of Dylann Roof’s Racism The Historical Roots of Dylann Roof’s Racism

South Carolina’s warped public display of its white-supremacist history confronts South Carolinians, white and black, with a stark message about who rules the state.

Jun 25, 2015 / Eric Foner

Blackness as Being, Whiteness as Nothingness

Blackness as Being, Whiteness as Nothingness Blackness as Being, Whiteness as Nothingness

Nell Painter and Herman Melville on American racism as existentialism.

Jun 23, 2015 / Greg Grandin

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