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Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Ties the History of Housing Discrimination to Reparations

John Oliver breaks down the long history of housing discrimination in the U.S., the damage it’s done, and, crucially, what we can do about it.

Remembering Bob Moses, 1935–2021

by Margaret Burnham

Robert Moses's commitment to grassroots democratic organizing was best expressed through listening rather than speaking, and purposeful following rather than leading. 

Like JFK, Biden Has Good Reason to Be Wary of the Military

Joe Biden faces challenges like those that confronted JFK: both presidents faced a substantial presence of right-wing extremists within the active and retired ranks of military leadership. Biden must stand firm in the face of manufactured controversies including over diversity training. 

Can Affirmative Action Survive the Supreme Court?

by Nicholas Lemann

The moderate Republican appointee has always served as the Justice to protect modest versions of affirmative action. What will happen in a pending case now that such Justices are gone from the court? The historical trajectory of supposedly meritocratic admissions offers clues.

Pancho Villa, My Grandmother, and the Revolutionary History of the Border

by Carlos Sanchez

Conflicting family and neighborhood stories about the life of Pancho Villa – bandit or revolutionary? – showed the author how little of the complexity of the Mexican Revolution and the experiences of ethnic Mexican people made it into his school books in El Paso. Will new Texas laws push this knowledge back into the shadows? 

What the Congressional Black Caucus Lost When It Won Power

The Congressional Black Caucus has moved from the margins of power in the Democratic Party to the center, but has blunted its calls for change in the process, 

After a Mock Slave Auction and a Resolution Against Racism, Battle Against "Critical Race Theory" in a Small Town

The Traverse City, Michigan school system's response to a series of racist incidents sparked a backlash from white parents who now invoke the specter of "critical race theory" to accuse minority students and their parents of fomenting division. 

Spain Pledged Citizenship to Sephardic Jews. Now They Feel Betrayed

The Spanish government has recently begun rejecting most applications for citizenship from the descendants of Jews expelled from Spain during the Inquisition; most applicants under the initiative launched in 2015 had been accepted. 

‘He Had a Life Before Death’: Remembering Emmett Till for the Child He Was

Emmett Till's cousin Ollie Gordon describes Till's personality at what would be his 80th birthday, reminding us that he was a person, and not just a martyr.

Revisiting the 1976 Chowchilla School Bus Kidnapping

The ordeal of 26 children and their school bus driver in California's San Joaquin Valley highlighted the conflicts between rural California and the state's urban centers, class conflict, and the rising fear of crime in 1976. 

Opinion: Students Need to Learn About the Haters and the Helpers of our History

by Michele Norris

"We do our children no favors if we only feed them a steady diet of fairy tales that sidestep life’s complexities.... What’s really at work is adults trying to outrun a sense of shame."

Richard Pildes: Our Elections are Too Frequent for Democracy to Work

by Richard Pildes

The legal scholar argues that the Framers' belief in frequent Congressional elections has resulted in time for governing being squeezed out by campaigning. 

How America Lost the Commitment to the Right to Vote

"The Supreme Court, Justice Elena Kagan lamented in a dissenting opinion earlier this month, 'has treated no statute worse' than the Voting Rights Act. She’s right."

The Job of Honoring the Dead at an Oklahoma Native School has Fallen to the Alumni

"Students who died at boarding schools didn’t receive proper burials in accordance with tribal traditions, said Gordon Yellowman, director of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes’ language and culture program."

Latinos Forgotten Victims of US Nuclear Testing

Hispanic and Native residents of New Mexico who were excluded from the first Radiation Exposure Compensation Act are likely to be included in a bill to reauthorize the legislation. 

The Moral Panic Over Critical Race Theory Is Coming for a North Carolina Teacher of the Year

Rodney Pierce won honors for going beyond a teach-the-test approach to middle school social studies by pushing his students to understand the history of their local community, including racism. He fears making white parents uncomfortable may jeopardize his job.

‘Lean Into It. Lean Into the Culture War': Are Liberals Really Stoking Conflict?

by Thomas B. Edsall

Thomas Edsall argues that political science research on polarization undercuts recent liberal and centrist arguments that the left is responsible for the culture wars by pushing extreme identity politics. 

How Tucker Carlson Became the Voice of White Grievance

"What emerges is a portrait of an ambitious television personality who came of age in privilege — having grown up in an upper-class enclave and attended private schools — but who, by his own telling, is a victim."

Douthat: The War that Made Our World

Columnist Ross Douthat argues that greater attention to the French and Indian War can support a view of history that embraces the complexity of the past without falling into simplistic patriotism or cynicism. 

Bouie: America Punishes Only a Certain Kind of Rebel

by Jamelle Bouie

Impunity for the leaders of the Confederacy enabled the bloody overthrow of Reconstruction and the reestablishment of white supremacy. The mistake must not be repeated for the January 6 riots.