From the racism and poverty of the Jim Crow South, Willie Mays rose to the height of fame and respect as perhaps the country’s greatest baseball player – one who inspired a president.
Beyoncé’s country-inspired album has caused a stir because the country music scene has a history of racial segregation that has erased its Black roots and gatekept it from Black artists.
Unlike some GOP politicians, a college professor who teaches Black history to mostly white students was excited that the Black national anthem was being played at the Super Bowl.
Though progressive politics at the turn of the 20th century called for the protection of America’s national parks, it did so for the enjoyment of white people.
Without much scrutiny or fanfare, Edward Blum has led the attack against federal minority voter protection laws and the use of race in college admissions.
The drive to remove Confederate monuments links those monuments to modern racism. An economic historian shows that the intent and effect of those monuments from inception was to perpetuate racism.
Tactics used to censor the teaching of American history in Florida schools bear much in common with those seen in the illiberal democracies of Israel, Turkey, Russia and Poland.
For the formerly enslaved Black people in Texas, Juneteenth meant more than freedom. It meant reuniting families and building schools and developing political power.
Voter demographics and policy priorities are two recurrent, big issues on Election Day – but shifts in election administration and voting laws are new challenges influencing the midterms.
The son of a formerly enslaved mother, Charles Henry Turner was the first to discover that bees and other insects have the ability to modify their behavior based on experience.
When Rosa Parks was arrested for sitting in the front of a bus in Montgomery, Fred Gray was her lawyer. Now he’s being honored for a lifetime of civil rights advocacy.
Managing Director of the McCourtney Institute of Democracy, Associate Research Professor, Political Science, Co-host of Democracy Works Podcast, Penn State