Resources
Race, Culture, and Society
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Asian American History
The Crime That Fueled an Asian American Civil Rights Movement
The 1982 attack against Vincent Chin redefined hate crimes and energized a push for today’s stronger legal protections. (Mural by Anthony Lee.)
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How a 1944 Supreme Court Ruling on Internment Camps Led to a Reckoning
The U.S. government ordered 120,000 people of Japanese descent, most American citizens, imprisoned during World War II. An admission of wrongdoing and reparations payments came decades later, but a Supreme Court ruling had lasting impact.
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Xenophobia in the Age of COVID-19
Scapegoating immigrant groups in times of disease outbreak has a long history.
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Black History
Decades After Displacement, Linnentown Families Seek Recognition
In the 1960s, Athens, Ga., used federal urban renewal funds to demolish Linnentown, a thriving Black neighborhood. Decades later, former residents are demanding recognition and redress.
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How Racial Propaganda was Used Against the United States in World War II
This excerpt explores the history of anti-lynching efforts in the U.S., and the failure by federal prosecutors to bring to justice anyone in the mob responsible for killing Cleo Wright in 1942.
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Shirley Chisholm Was a Trailblazer for Change
Explore the groundbreaking career of Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman to seek the U.S. presidency.
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Ida B. Wells and the Long Crusade to Outlaw Lynching
Ida B. Wells, a journalist, civil rights activist and suffragist, dedicated her life to documenting injustices against Black Americans and calling for change.
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A New Housing Program to Fight Poverty Has an Unexpected History
Some cities are trying to help poor children succeed by having their families move to middle-income, so-called “opportunity areas” – an idea that was once politically impossible.
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Racial Health Disparities Didn’t Start With Covid: The Overlooked History of Polio
The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted racial disparities with roots in the past.
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Burden of Richmond Evictions Weighs Heaviest in Black Neighborhoods
An eviction moratorium has slowed filings in cities like Richmond, but it hasn’t stopped them, and Black tenants are at highest risk.
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The Birth of Free Agency
The drama of modern free agency has become as much a part of professional sports as the games themselves. But it wasn’t always that way. Today’s free agents owe a big debt of gratitude to Curt Flood.
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Bringing Midwifery Back to Black Mothers
For care in pregnancy and childbirth, Black parents are turning to a traditional practice.
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Louis Armstrong And The Black Celebrity’s Dilemma
As America’s jazz icon, Louis Armstrong was seen as a smiling, easygoing entertainer. But in 1957, he invited controversy by speaking forcefully on behalf of his fellow African Americans, putting him in a position familiar to many Black athletes today.
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What Jesse Owens’s Story Tells Us About Sports and Politics
NFL players have been derided for injecting politics into the country’s favorite sport. But, when convenient, America has also celebrated black athletes for acting as political emissaries.
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Lessons From the 2004 Democratic Convention: Obama’s Speech
Sometimes the most important speech at the convention isn’t delivered by the nominee.
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How a Standoff with the Black Panthers Fueled the Rise of SWAT
S.W.A.T. teams, specially trained police teams, have been used increasingly in routine matters like serving drug warrants, sometimes with disastrous results.
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How Geography Drove MLK’s Fight for a Ferry in Alabama
Weeks before Selma’s Bloody Sunday in 1965, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. urged residents of Gee’s Bend, Ala., to vote, and fed a continuing fight over a small ferry that would last for decades.
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Beyond the Battlefield: Double V and Black Americans’ Fight for Equality
With the Double V campaign, Black Americans demanded fair treatment, both during and after World War II.
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Civil Rights
Beyond the Battlefield: Double V and Black Americans’ Fight for Equality
With the Double V campaign, Black Americans demanded fair treatment, both during and after World War II.
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Gerrymandering Tilts Political Power. Here’s How Redistricting Affects Democracy.
Both parties play the redistricting game, redrawing electoral boundaries to lock down power.
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Trump Administration Sued for Torpedoing Enforcement of Landmark Housing Law
Ben Carson, Secretary of HUD, is being sued for not enforcing the Fair Housing Act – landmark legislation that was passed 50 years ago during the Civil Rights era.
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Fair Housing
Has the government done enough to stop housing discrimination?
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Lessons from the 1968 Democratic Convention: Under the Shadow of Protests
There are important lessons to be learned from the Democrats’ 1968 Chicago convention.
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Athletes vs. Injustice: Protests in Sports
When N.F.L. players, starting with Colin Kaepernick, took a knee during the National Anthem to protest they ignited an uproar over injecting politics onto the playing field.
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Indigenous History
The 1969 Occupation of Alcatraz Was a Catalyst for Indigenous Activism
American Indian tribes have long used activism in their struggle for justice and the preservation of their lands and culture.
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In the Long Fight to Protect Native American Families, a Law Stands Guard
For generations, Native American children were removed from their homes and placed with white families. A recent Supreme Court ruling affirms the rights of Native families and tribes, giving them preference in adoption and foster care placement.
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Forced Into Federal Boarding Schools as Children, Native Americans Confront the Past
Native Americans demand accountability for a federal policy that aimed to erase Indigenous culture.
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Amazon Rainforest Defenders Confront Violence, Encroachment and Politics
Debates over development in the world’s largest rainforest have led to deadly conflicts, threats to its indigenous people and harm to the global atmosphere.
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Latinx History
What the World War II-Era Bracero Program Reveals About U.S. Immigration Debates
A conflict between labor needs and immigration laws has long shaped families, fears and today’s debates.
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How Today’s Debates on Immigration Were Shaped by a 1980s Church-Led Refugee Network
Churches once led a refugee rescue effort that shapes U.S. immigration policy today.
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How a 1968 Student Protest Fueled a Chicano Rights Movement
This Emmy-nominated video explores a massive protest by Mexican American high school students that became a milestone in a movement for Chicano rights.
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How Prop. 187 Transformed the Immigration Debate and California Politics
Today’s immigration policies echo an anti-immigration movement from the 1990s in California.
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Coronavirus Reignites a Fight Over Rights of Detained Migrant Children
Migrant children in federal custody have tested positive for Covid-19, reopening a legal battle over the rights of children in custody.
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How a Folk Singer’s Murder Forced Chile to Confront Its Past
Víctor Jara was a legendary Chilean folk singer and political activist, whose brutal killing during a military coup in 1973 went unsolved for decades. Now, his family may finally get justice.
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LGBTQ+
Transgender Rights, Won Over Decades, Face New Restrictions
More than 50 years after the Stonewall uprising marked the birth of a movement for LGBTQ+ rights, transgender activists continue to push for inclusion.
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AIDS: From Ryan White to Today’s Silent Epidemic
Rates of H.I.V. infection have fallen in many places, but the AIDS crisis persists in some parts of the country. What can be learned from history – and specifically the story of Ryan White?
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How the Supreme Court Ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges Legalized Same-Sex Marriage
This story revisits the landmark Supreme Court decision from the perspective of the two named participants, Jim Obergefell and Richard Hodges.
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Race and Racism
The Lasting Impact of a Lynching
This excerpt examines the lynching of Cleo Wright in 1942, reflecting the racial violence and societal tensions of the time.
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Whites-Only Suburbs: How the New Deal Shut Out Black Homebuyers
Race-based federal lending rules from New Deal programs in the 1930s kept Black families locked out of suburban neighborhoods, a policy that continues to slow their economic mobility.
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How Trump’s Red Wave Builds on the Past
Donald Trump’s resounding 2024 victory echoes electoral shifts of the past.
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Why the Supreme Court Endorsed, Then Limited Affirmative Action
Ruling in a case that challenged practices that colleges use to select a diverse student body, the Supreme Court reverses itself.
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The Tawana Brawley Story
In 1988, the nation learned the truth about the alleged crimes against Tawana Brawley, but the shocking story was far from over.
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Why Are Schools Still Segregated? The Broken Promise of Brown v. Board of Education
The history of racial integration in public schools, and what happened after the buses stopped rolling.
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Extremism in America: Out of the Shadows
According to experts who monitor the radical right, the white supremacist ideology that police say drove the Buffalo gunman has begun moving from the extremes into the mainstream. This is the fifth episode of a five-part series produced in collaboration with The WNET Group’s reporting initiative Exploring Hate.
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Extremism in America: Missed Warnings
In the years before Barack Obama was elected, many groups on the extreme right kept a relatively low profile. With the election of a Black president, that changed. This is the third episode of a five-part series produced in collaboration with The WNET Group’s reporting initiative Exploring Hate.
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How Decades of Housing Discrimination Hurts Fresno in the Pandemic
Decades of discrimination in Fresno laid the groundwork for a housing crisis today.
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Poll Watchers and the Long History of Voter Intimidation
President Trump has called on supporters, including law enforcement officers, to monitor election sites. Voter intimidation tactics have a long history.
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Racial Inequality Was Tearing the U.S. Apart, a 1968 Report Warned. It Was Ignored.
Anger over policing and inequality boiled over in 1967 in protests and violence across the United States. A landmark report warned that without major changes, it would happen again.
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Combating the Myth of the Superpredator
In the 1990s, a handful of researchers inspired panic with a dire but flawed prediction: the imminent arrival of a new breed of “superpredators.”
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How Segregation Influenced Evangelical Political Activism
While abortion is often cited as the motivation behind evangelical Christians becoming politically active in the 1970s, there’s another little-known reason that involves the IRS and segregated schools.
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Operation Ceasefire: Inside a Community’s Radical Approach to Gang Violence
This is the story of cops, African-American pastors, gang members, and academics coming together to create positive change for Boston, while upending notions of traditional policing in a way that is especially pertinent today.
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Us vs. Them: From George Wallace to Donald Trump
Donald Trump has used populist politics to appeal to voters who are fed up with the status quo. We look at another politician who tapped into America’s divisions decades ago: George Wallace.
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How ‘Zero Tolerance’ Blurred the Lines Between Schools and Criminal Justice
Over the last 30 years, schools across the country have enacted tough new discipline policies. Some of those schools say they went too far.
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Upheaval at the 1860 Democratic Convention: What Happened When a Party Split
Some issues are too fundamental for a party to withstand, and the consequences can last for a generation.
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Willie Horton: Political Ads That Shaped the Battle for the White House
The infamous Willie Horton ad placed a nail in the coffin of Michael Dukakis’ 1988 presidential run.
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Women's History
How Black Women Fought Racism and Sexism for the Right to Vote
African American women played a significant and sometimes overlooked role in the struggle to gain the vote.
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From Women’s Suffrage to the ERA, a Century-Long Push for Equality
The Equal Rights Amendment, proposed in 1923, sparked debate from its very beginning, even among many of the women who had worked together for suffrage.
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She Derailed the Fight for Equal Rights for Women
Even in the #MeToo era, many people don’t know that the Equal Rights Amendment never passed…because of one woman. Her name is Phyllis Schlafly.
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How an Underground Abortion Network Got Started
It started with one request. A friend’s sister was pregnant and suicidal. Before long a clandestine group called Jane was created to help women in Chicago with illegal abortions.
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