A photo of Emmett Till is included on the plaque that marks his gravesite at Burr Oak Cemetery in Aslip, Illinois.

How Local Newspapers Helped Emmett Till’s Murderers Go Free

Emmett Till was a boy of fourteen when he was lynched in Mississippi. The press would influence public opinion, and the outcome of the trial.
Protest Against Closing of Child Care Center

Is Childcare a Right?

Feminists supported universal childcare as a means of allowing women to advance in the workforce. But did this argument focus mostly on white women?
Morgan Jerkins

Morgan Jerkins: Exploring the Multitudes within American Blackness

In her new book, Wandering in Strange Lands, Morgan Jerkins takes a deeply personal look at the effects of the Great Migration.
Pee Dee Rosenwald School, Marion County, South Carolina, c. 1935.

How Black Communities Built Their Own Schools

Rosenwald schools, named for a philanthropist, were funded mostly by Black people of the segregated South.
Alexander Hamilton by John Trumbull

The Erotic Appeal of Alexander Hamilton

The handsome Founding Father has always had a robust fandom—even before the ten-dollar bill, or a certain musical.
Bella Abzug for Mayor Button, New York City 1977

Bella Abzug Began Her Career as an Anti-Racist Lawyer

As an outspoken lawyer, the future congresswoman defended a Black man accused of raping a white woman.
David Ruggles

The First Black-Owned Bookstore and the Fight for Freedom

Black abolitionist David Ruggles opened the first Black-owned bookstore in 1834, pointing the way to freedom—in more ways than one.
Two boys share candy on a New York street, circa 1925

How Residential Segregation Looked in the South

A longstanding idea about southern segregation is that it was more "intimate" than its northern counterpart. What's the truth?
Darryl “Waistline” Mitchell (left) and Donald Abdul Roberts (right)

Interview: The League of Revolutionary Black Workers

Two industrial workers, members of Detroit’s League of Revolutionary Black Workers, share experiences with political organizing and education.
Two police officers in full riot gear arrest a Black man during a breakout of rioting and looting on the West side of Detroit, Michigan, July 23, 1967.

The Detroit Rebellion

From 1964 to 1972, at least 300 U.S. cities faced violent upheavals, the biggest led by the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, in Detroit.