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Remembering Emmett Till in Song

The murder of Emmett Till has been memorialized in song by such artists as Langston Hughes and Bob Dylan.
An illustration from The surprising adventures of a female husband! by Henry Fielding

The Female Husband is So Eighteenth Century

Henry Fielding's novel, a fictional account of the life of Charles Hamilton, conflates vagrancy with sexual, gender, and religious deviance.
A line of black civil war soldiers holding their rifles circa 1860

Black Soldier Desertion in the Civil War

The reasons Black Union soldiers left their army during the Civil war were varied, with poor pay, family needs and racism among them.
George Psalmanazar

Grifting In The 18th Century: The Grift Remains the Same

When faking an identity, it helps to choose something foreign to your audience.
A broken heart illustration

Only Love Can Break Your Heart?

Broken heart syndrome, or Takotsubo syndrome, is thought to be caused by stress. It seems to be on the increase during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A gavel against a black background

Fact-Based Courts, but What Facts?

US courts operate as "informationally disabled" institutions that may lack (or intentionally exclude) important facts when making complex legal decisions.
Source: https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/ids:4589524

When Harvard Students Couldn’t Get Warm

The early heating systems of New England kept Harvard students cold until the early twentieth century.
Illustration depicting a family in their back yard underground bomb shelter, early 1960s.

Jim Crow’s Civil Defense Plans

The first head of the Federal Civil Defense Administration planned on maintaining segregation in bomb shelters, and in the post-nuclear future.
Canopy gaps in a forest

Canopy Gaps Define Growth in the Forest

Gaps in the forest canopy can reveal important information, and result in regeneration.
Donald Goines, from the back cover of an early edition of Dopefiend

Donald Goines, Detroit’s Crime Writer Par Excellence

The writer used hard-boiled fiction as a wide lens to accurately capture the widescreen disparity of Black life in the 1970s.