The First New Deal Was Green, Too
An integral part of FDR's New Deal was the Civilian Conservation Corps, which focused on environmental conservation work.
An Untested Businessman Almost Became President During WWII
In 1940, Wendell Willkie ran against FDR. The rumpled "man of the people" was a New York businessman with no political experience, but voters loved him.
How “Measured Militancy” Empowered California’s Fieldworkers
When Mexican-American fieldworkers' strikes didn't net results, César Chávez led the Ventura County Community Service Organization in alternate tactics.
W.E.B. Du Bois Fought “Scientific” Racism
Early 20th century intellectual W.E.B. DuBois countered the then-popular idea that African-Americans could be scientifically proven to be inferior.
The “Miscegenation” Troll
The term “miscegenation” was coined in an 1864 pamphlet by an anonymous author.
The Free People of Color of Pre-Civil War New Orleans
Before American concepts of race took hold in the newly-acquired Louisiana, early 19th-century New Orleans had large population of free people of color.
Whitewashing American History
One of the National Park Service's first historic preservation projects, the Colonial National Monument, wrote people of color completely out of the story.
How Love Transformed American Immigration Law
Love was a deciding factor in the expansion of Asian immigration to the United States, via laws that emerged from Congress in the 1960s.
Racial Violence as Impetus for the Great Migration
Historians traditionally point to economic and social conditions as the primary causes for the Great Migration, but racist hate crimes played a role as well.
The Man Behind the USA’s Decision to Build the Bomb
FDR's "czar of research," an electrical engineer named Vannevar Bush, was working on an atomic bomb months before Pearl Harbor.