Ben Fletcher’s One Big Union
Ben Fletcher, once one of the most important black labor figures in the United States, has faded into obscurity. But he couldn’t be more relevant to the most urgent political projects of the present.
Fall 2024
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Remember the Orangeburg Massacre
Too often forgotten, the February 1968 killing of three student protesters by state troopers in Orangeburg, South Carolina marked a turning point in the black freedom struggle.
The First Abolitionists
Abolitionism is often depicted as an ineffectual campaign led by white liberals, but it was actually a radical, interracial movement—galvanized above all by the resistance of slaves themselves.
A White Story
In the standard narrative of neoliberalism’s rise, the demise of the white social contract gets cast as universal.
How to Fight White Backlash
What three seminal books by black intellectuals, all published in 1967, can teach us about fighting racism in the Trump era.
Learning from Fannie Lou Hamer
A shrewd movement strategist, Fannie Lou Hamer rose from abject poverty to reshape the American political order.
The Apocalyptic Baldwin
I Am Not Your Negro shows how James Baldwin became disillusioned about the possibility of any peaceful resolution to racism, but underplays the force of his internationalist and anti-capitalist perspective.
The Price of Life: From Slavery to Corporate Life Insurance
Coal embodies capitalism’s most telling paradox: that the most lucrative industries are often the most dangerous. And from the days of slavery to the present, corporations have found ways to profit from the resulting deaths.
Slavery on Screen 
The films about slavery that came out during the Obama years have given us more powerful and nuanced representations of slavery than we have seen before.
The Return of Border Discrimination
A product of the civil rights era, the 1965 Immigration Act changed the United States in ways its supporters could hardly imagine. But will the principle of open immigration withstand Trump’s presidency?
Martin Luther King’s Radical Legacy, From the Poor People’s Campaign to Black Lives Matter
Those who invoke Martin Luther King to criticize Black Lives Matter misunderstand the life and legacy of America’s favorite civil rights leader.
Red Lines, Black Lives
A new digital archive reveals the extent of the federal government’s role in fueling and enforcing midcentury housing discrimination.
On Blueness: A Conversation with Joshua Bennett
Joshua Bennett talks about writing poetry after Ferguson.
In Praise of Impractical Movements
Social change is seldom either as incremental or predictable as insiders suggest. Instead, movements win by changing the political weather, turning demands considered unrealistic into ones that can no longer be ignored.
This Day in Feminist History: Johnnie Tillmon
Johnnie Tillmon, activist and chairperson of the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO), was a visionary feminist of the second-wave era who advocated for a universal basic income and dignity for all.
