How Civil Rights Groups Used Photography for Change
As one activist said, “If our story is to be told, we will have to write it and photograph it and disseminate it ourselves.”
The Meaning of Racist Place Names
In one river town in central Illinois, a wetlands called N— Lake was scapegoated for destructive flooding.
How One Household Avoided Emancipation Laws
The Volunbruns enslaved twenty people and moved relentlessly between empires and states as more jurisdictions outlawed slavery.
Have Chinese Restaurants Always Looked “Chinese”?
In some places, that red-and-gold flair might not fly.
Community Care in the AIDS Crisis
The Shanti Project’s work in caring for people with AIDS provides valuable lessons in the efficacy of mutual aid in fighting disease.
The First Vietnamese in America
Before 1945, many Vietnamese migrants to the United States were laborers. One was Ho Chi Minh.
How the Civil War Got Its Name
From "insurrection" to "rebellion" to "Civil War," finding a name for the conflict was always political.
The Early American Radical Fiction of John Lithgow
In the early 1800s, the Scottish immigrant wrote an anonymous tract imagining equality. He was worried about the brand-new American republic.
Political Divisions Led to Violence in the U.S. Senate in 1856
The horrific caning of Charles Sumner on the floor of the Senate in 1856 marked one of the most divisive moments in U.S. political history.