Feature – When Southern Newspapers Justified Lynching. Newspapers even bragged about the roles they had played in arranging particularly spectacular lynchings. But the real damage was done in terse, workaday stories that justified lynching by casting its victims as “fiends,” “brutes,” “born criminals” or, that catchall favorite, “troublesome Negroes.” The narrative that tied blackness inextricably to criminality — and to the death penalty — survived the lynching era and lives on to this day. Read more 

America is more diverse than ever — but still segregated. The United States is on track to be a majority-minority nation by 2044. But census data show most of our neighbors are the same race. Read more 

How African-Americans disappeared from the Kentucky Derby. When horse racing was America’s most popular sport – former slaves populated the ranks of jockeys and trainers, and black men won more than half of the first 25 runnings of the Kentucky Derby. But in the 1890s – as Jim Crow laws destroyed gains black people had made since emancipation – they ended up losing their jobs.  Read more  

As Israel turns 70, many young American Jews turn away. Public criticism of Israel and acts of protest by American Jews have gradually become much more common, though they remain highly contentious. These protests have become much more frequent in recent years during Netanyahu’s second term in office. Read more 
Parents Do What the Mayor Hasn’t — Integrate Schools. On the Upper West Side last week, a middle school principal stood before a crowd of angry white parents — furious about a plan to help the poorest students gain access to some of the city’s most desirable schools — and told them they were wrong. Read more 

The racial redlining in Michigan’s Medicaid work requirements. Here’s how Medicaid work requirements could entrench existing racial disparities in health care. Read more 

Ranks of Notorious Hate Group Include Active-Duty Military. The involvement of current or former service members — often with sophisticated weapons training — in white supremacist groups has long been a concern. Read more 

The Windrush Crisis and Britain’s Memory Problem. The “Windrush generation”—people who came to the country from its Caribbean colonies between 1948 and 1971. Unable to provide documentary evidence of rightful residence—most came on their parents’ passports and were never provided it—they have lost access to employment, housing, and medical treatment  from the National Health Service. Deportation proceedings have been initiated against some. Read more 

Prisoners Reclaim Their Heritage Through Asian-American Studies Program. Restoring Our Original True Selves (ROOTS), run by the nonprofit Asian Prisoner Support Committee, is an Asian-American studies program. But its participants aren’t your typical college kids: They’re inmates at California’s San Quentin State Prison. Read more 

The Historian Behind Slavery Apologists Like Kanye West. In the spring of 1918, the historian Ulrich Bonnell Phillips published his seminal study, “American Negro Slavery,” which framed the institution as a benevolent labor agreement between indulgent masters and happy slaves. No other book, no monument, no movie — save, perhaps, for “Gone With the Wind,” itself beholden to Phillips’s work — has been more influential in shaping how many Americans have viewed slavery. Read more 

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