civil rights movement
The case that revolutionized libel law
Samantha Barbas’s history of New York Times v. Sullivan shows how easy it was to weaponize the law against southern civil rights leaders.
Following the long shadow of America’s original sin
Theologian Alison Benders takes an online pilgrimage through our country’s racial history.
The power of a swim-in
In 1964, Mimi Ford jumped into a pool—and changed the course of history.
A civil rights pilgrimage through the eyes of Congolese refugee teenagers
We began to understand why James Baldwin called US history “more beautiful and more terrible than anyone has ever said about it.”
Episode 3: Patient endurance | A conversation with Barbara Jean LaRochester
A contemplative Catholic nun touches the world through prayer.
Dr. King’s voice in verse
Joseph Ross’s poems are an elegy for the civil rights movement’s martyrs.
Why the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act is necessary
“The vote is precious,” said Lewis. Fifty-five years after Bloody Sunday and the Voting Rights Act, many Americans remain disenfranchised.
A pair of museums are reckoning with Mississippi’s racist past
But they don't say enough about racism in the present.
In the face of violent white supremacy, how should I respond?
I was invited to an interfaith solidarity service. Instead I spent the day reading Congressman John Lewis's graphic novel trilogy about the civil rights movement.
When black women lead
A century before Alicia Garza came Anna Arnold Hedgeman, Violet Johnson, and Florence Spearing Randolph.
A feel-good story's power and limits
There is a danger in responding to a film like Hidden Figures by congratulating ourselves on how far we’ve come.
Hubert Harrison’s wisdom on race, war, and equality
In 1911, Afro-Caribbean intellectual activist Hubert Harrison wrote in the New York Call that “politically the Negro is the touchstone of the modern democratic idea.”
This touchstone metaphor is both startling and profound.