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.
Voters dropping their voting slips into the ballot box.

Why Do We Vote by Secret Ballot?

Election days used to be raucous affairs, with individual votes sometimes cast orally for all to hear.
UNITED STATES - OCTOBER 13: Supreme Court justice nominee Amy Coney Barrett testifies on the second day of her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing in Hart Senate Office Building on Tuesday, October 13, 2020. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/POOL)

Religious Identity and Supreme Court Justices

If successful, Amy Coney Barrett would become the 7th current Supreme Court justice to be raised a Catholic, and the sixth conservative Christian.
Demonstrators protest the death of George Floyd in downtown Washington, DC on June 1, 2020.

The Power of the Intersectional Protest Image

In an age of hashtag activism and partisan news, social media offers possibilities for intersectional movements to reimagine images of Black protest.
Convicts working at Reed Camp, South Carolina, 1934

How Mass Incarceration Has Shaped History

A historian argues that it's time to look at the consequences of locking up millions of people over several decades.
Steve Biko

The Death of Steve Biko, Revisited

Like the death of George Floyd, the South African activist Steve Biko’s death galvanized a global movement against racism.
Noam Chomsky in Toronto, 2011

Noam Chomsky: There’s Reason for Hope

The celebrated linguist and scholar on his new book on global climate change, the mediated reality of Fox News, and the economics of the Green New Deal.
A young protester marches during the All Black Lives Matter Solidarity March on June 14, 2020 in Los Angeles, California.

A Century of Black Youth Activism

The history of the 1950s and 1960s Civil Rights Movement is widely studied, but young Black Americans have been organizing for justice for much longer.
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, 1941

Suppressing Native American Voters

South Dakota has been called "the Mississippi of the North" for its long history of making voting hard for Native Americans.
A gas flare from the Shell Chemical LP petroleum refinery illuminates the sky on August 21, 2019 in Norco, Louisiana

Environmental Racism and the Coronavirus Pandemic

COVID-19 is disproportionately deadly among people of color. Long-term environmental racism could be a major factor in this disparity.