civil rights movement
The whole, contradictory truth
Martin Luther King Jr. worked to expose the distance between what the United States professed and what it practiced.
Gutting the vote
The downfall of the Voting Rights Act is devastating—and familiar.
One day in April
Martin Luther King Jr. was killed exactly a year after he delivered his “Beyond Vietnam” sermon. The tension between these two events is still with us.
The racial dynamics of ICE violence
White people are not ICE’s targets. But allies who stand in solidarity often lose their privilege in the process.
The case that revolutionized libel law
Samantha Barbas’s history of New York Times v. Sullivan shows how easy it was to weaponize the law against southern civil rights leaders.
Following the long shadow of America’s original sin
Theologian Alison Benders takes an online pilgrimage through our country’s racial history.
The power of a swim-in
In 1964, Mimi Ford jumped into a pool—and changed the course of history.
A civil rights pilgrimage through the eyes of Congolese refugee teenagers
We began to understand why James Baldwin called US history “more beautiful and more terrible than anyone has ever said about it.”
Episode 3: Patient endurance | A conversation with Barbara Jean LaRochester
A contemplative Catholic nun touches the world through prayer.
Dr. King’s voice in verse
Joseph Ross’s poems are an elegy for the civil rights movement’s martyrs.
Why the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act is necessary
“The vote is precious,” said Lewis. Fifty-five years after Bloody Sunday and the Voting Rights Act, many Americans remain disenfranchised.