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Pro-Trump protesters gather in front of the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC.
Politics & History

The Legacy of Racial Hatred in the January 6 Insurrection

The U.S.’s politics of racial hatred are sustained by a culture of making political compromises when bold action is required.

Black Radicals

A 19th-century engraving depicting an Arab slave-trading caravan transporting black African slaves across the Sahara.

What Was the Zanj Rebellion?

A remarkable episode of Medieval Islamic history that often goes untold.

Reading Lists

The 135th St Branch of the New York Public Library

JSTOR Companion to the Schomburg Center’s Black Liberation Reading List

JSTOR has created an open library to support readers seeking to engage with BIPOC+Q-authored reading lists like the one developed by the New York Public Library.

Security State of Mind

Man with a sealed mouth

After the Capitol Riot, Who Will Govern Speech Online?

Protecting democracy from the power of free speech seems like a paradox. However, free speech on the internet has never truly been free.

Roundup

Poems by 10 Contemporary Black Poets

Poems by Black poets, including Morgan Parker, Hanif Abdurraqib, Simone White, Terrance Hayes, and more.

Most Recent

Kuan Yin and Attendants, 1368
Art & Art History

Hair Embroidery as Women’s Buddhist Practice

In late imperial China, it was a devotional art using hairs plucked from devotees' own heads.
An African-American miner poses with a shovel in Auburn Ravine during the Gold Rush, California, 1852.
Politics & History

Slavery in a Free State: The Case of California

California came into the Union as a free state in 1850, but proslavery politicians held considerable sway there.
A punk with a mohawk in a cottagecore painting
Lingua Obscura

The Punk Rock Linguistics of Cottagecore

So you want to borrow a concept from another culture but don’t know what to call it? Try a morpheme!
Stephanie St. Clair
Politics & History

Madame Stephanie St. Clair: Numbers Queen of Harlem

The colorful career of a woman who ran a gambling ring, fought police corruption, and challenged white mobsters.

More Stories

Black Radicals

A 19th-century engraving depicting an Arab slave-trading caravan transporting black African slaves across the Sahara.

What Was the Zanj Rebellion?

A remarkable episode of Medieval Islamic history that often goes untold.

Reading Lists

The 135th St Branch of the New York Public Library

JSTOR Companion to the Schomburg Center’s Black Liberation Reading List

JSTOR has created an open library to support readers seeking to engage with BIPOC+Q-authored reading lists like the one developed by the New York Public Library.

Security State of Mind

Man with a sealed mouth

After the Capitol Riot, Who Will Govern Speech Online?

Protecting democracy from the power of free speech seems like a paradox. However, free speech on the internet has never truly been free.

Roundup

Poems by 10 Contemporary Black Poets

Poems by Black poets, including Morgan Parker, Hanif Abdurraqib, Simone White, Terrance Hayes, and more.

Trending

A punk with a mohawk in a cottagecore painting
Lingua Obscura

The Punk Rock Linguistics of Cottagecore

So you want to borrow a concept from another culture but don’t know what to call it? Try a morpheme!
English Herbarium
Education & Society

Herbs & Verbs: How to Do Witchcraft for Real

Like for real real.
Smoke billowing over Tulsa, Oklahoma during 1921 race riots
Politics & History

The Devastation of Black Wall Street

Tulsa, Oklahoma. 1921. A wave of racial violence destroys an affluent African-American community, seen as a threat to white-dominated American capitalism.

Long Reads

Paradisaea rubra
Natural Science

Charles Darwin’s Descent of Man, 150 Years Later

A new book on Darwin’s classic asks what he got right and wrong about “the highest and most interesting problem for the naturalist:” human evolution.
Open Community Collections

A New Civil Rights Movement, a New Journal

Freedomways, the African American journal of politics and culture chronicled the civil rights and Black freedom movements starting in the early 1960s. Read it on JSTOR.
Arts & Culture

The “Tragic Mulatta” of Bridgerton

While colorblind casting increases opportunities for diverse casts, colorblindness after casting can result in the perpetuation of stereotypes.
Five female literacy volunteers return to Havana at the end of the literacy campaign in December 1961.
Public Intellectuals

Rosa Hernández Acosta habla sobre la Campaña de Alfabetización Cubana

Armada solamente con unos cuantos libros de texto y una lámpara de queroseno, Rosa Hernández Acosta alfabetizaba en la Cuba rural sin electricidad, agua corriente ni carreteras asfaltadas.

Editors' Picks

Politics & History

The Alpha Suffrage Club and Black Women’s Fight for the Vote

Black women's experiences in the suffrage movement show that the Nineteenth Amendment marked one event in the fight for the vote, not an endpoint.
Arts & Culture

Marian Anderson Photo Archives

The African American opera singer made history with a stirring concert at the Lincoln Memorial. But there was much more to Marian Anderson.
Politics & History

Why Black Women Joined the Communist Party

During the Great Depression, Communists took to the streets to fight racism, poverty, and injustice. Among them were Black women.
Arts & Culture

10 Poems by African-American Poets

Poems by African-American poets, including Gwendolyn Brooks, Kwame Dawes, Rita Dove, Langston Hughes, Tyehimba Jess, Kevin Young, and more.
Arts & Culture

JSTOR Companion to the Schomburg Center’s Black Liberation Reading List

JSTOR has created an open library to support readers seeking to engage with BIPOC+Q-authored reading lists like the one developed by the New York Public Library.

U.S. History

An African-American miner poses with a shovel in Auburn Ravine during the Gold Rush, California, 1852.

Slavery in a Free State: The Case of California

California came into the Union as a free state in 1850, but proslavery politicians held considerable sway there.
Stephanie St. Clair

Madame Stephanie St. Clair: Numbers Queen of Harlem

The colorful career of a woman who ran a gambling ring, fought police corruption, and challenged white mobsters.
Photograph: Muhammad Ali, 1966 Source: Getty

How Muhammad Ali Prevailed as a Conscientious Objector

The heavyweight champion lost his title when he refused induction into the military during the Vietnam War.

Almost a quarter of Harlem’s Black population was foreign-born in the 1920s. They included, most famously, Marcus and Amy Jacques Garvey.

Black Caribbeans in the Harlem Renaissance

Pedagogies

Malcolm X at Temple 7, a Halal restaurant on Lenox Avenue and 116th Street, Harlem, 1963

Teaching U.S. History with JSTOR Daily

A survey course may be the only college-level history course a student takes. Here's an easy way to incorporate fascinating scholarship.
A person typing on a computer

How to Use Zotero and Scrivener for Research-Driven Writing

This month, I’m doing something a little different with my column: I’m sharing the system I use to write it, so that you can use or adapt my system.
A person's hand drawing a Big Mac hamburger on a sheet of lined paper

Are Students Just Telling Us What We Want to Hear?

Students tend to fill out end-of-year evaluations so as to describe a “narrative of progress.” For teachers, this is fast food of the mind.

Open Community Collections

A New Civil Rights Movement, a New Journal

Freedomways, the African American journal of politics and culture chronicled the civil rights and Black freedom movements starting in the early 1960s. Read it on JSTOR.

Send Your Valentine a Song

These love songs from the Bowling Green State University Sheet Music Collection make the perfect gift. Plus, the covers are gorgeous.
I.W.W. Picnic, July 1919, Seattle, Washington.

How the IWW Grew after the Centralia Tragedy

A violent confrontation between the IWW and the American Legion put organized labor on trial, but a hostile federal government didn’t stop the IWW from growing.

Syllabus

Pro-Trump supporters storm the U.S. Capitol following a rally with President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC.

Politics and Power in the United States: A Syllabus

Historical and scholarly context for the January 6, 2021 insurrection.
"I Voted" stickers

Voting in American Politics: A Syllabus

From battles to expand the franchise to the mysteries of turnout, voting is one of the most important things to understand about U.S. politics.
A forest fire reflected in Okanagan Lake, British Columbia, Canada

Wildfires and Climate Change

Scholarly research offers insight into the ways climate change and other factors are contributing to the wildfire crisis.

Health

An illustration of digital viruses

Do Viruses Cheat to Win at Evolution?

How one pair of researchers used game theory to predict the sneaky, underhanded behavior of microbial competitors.
A woman's hand holding a turkey baster

Notes on Queer Conception and the Redefinition of Family

Feminist scholars refer to the “intensely communal, queer, and playful nature” of DIY LGBTQ conception, but Fertility, Inc. is another story.
Florence Nightingale

How Courageous Should Nurses Have to Be?

According to three scholars, it's asking a lot for health care professionals to be completely selfless.

Education

Schoolchildren in Soweto, South Africa

Kids’ Games in South Africa

Formal education in language and music is important for children, but as one scholar found, so is their own play involving gesture, slang, and pop songs.
Malcolm X at Temple 7, a Halal restaurant on Lenox Avenue and 116th Street, Harlem, 1963

Teaching U.S. History with JSTOR Daily

A survey course may be the only college-level history course a student takes. Here's an easy way to incorporate fascinating scholarship.
A girl scout troupe marching in parade in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn in the 1960s

Desegregating the Girl Scouts

The Girl Scouts had always professed that they were open to all girls. But how did that play out in segregated cities?

Arts & Culture

Kuan Yin and Attendants, 1368

Hair Embroidery as Women’s Buddhist Practice

In late imperial China, it was a devotional art using hairs plucked from devotees' own heads.
A punk with a mohawk in a cottagecore painting

The Punk Rock Linguistics of Cottagecore

So you want to borrow a concept from another culture but don’t know what to call it? Try a morpheme!
Meta Warrick Fuller

How Sculptor Meta Warrick Challenged White Supremacy

A 1907 exhibition on the founding of Jamestown featured the work of an artist determined to counter demeaning stereotypes.

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