reconstruction
February 23, 2023 -
Goat in the Road Productions of New Orleans recently presented an immersive play about a family of Sicilian grocers deciding whether to make common cause with Black/Creole grocers during the city's 1892 general strike. They were joined by community partners Step Up Louisiana and the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice to help raise awareness about the history behind the drama.
February 17, 2022 -
A recent report from the Zinn Education Project comprehensively assesses educational standards for the teaching of Reconstruction history in all 50 states and finds vast room for improvement. The study urges policymakers, teachers, parents, and students to press for more attention to this history in grades K–12 as the era has assumed greater relevance amid ongoing fights for racial justice and historical accuracy.
January 27, 2022 -
As the N.C. Supreme Court prepares to hear a lawsuit challenging gerrymandered election districts, a prominent Republican leader has brought up the possibility of the legislature impeaching judges. It hasn't happened in well over a century, when white supremacist Democrats impeached two justices, as well as a Klan-fighting governor.
April 22, 2021 -
A Mississippi city challenged a medical marijuana amendment that was overwhelmingly approved by the state's voters last year because of how the signatures to put it on the ballot were counted. A ruling in its favor would also end a new campaign to restore voting rights to people with felony convictions, along with any future amendment efforts.
March 24, 2021 -
U.S. senators are currently considering whether to eliminate, reform, or protect the filibuster. The parliamentary procedure that gives the minority outsized power has a long history of being used to undermine civil rights legislation — and it now threatens to derail a bold Democratic agenda that includes voting rights and other pro-democracy reforms.
October 30, 2020 -
The South is where most Black Americans live, but the region has sent just one Black senator to Congress since Reconstruction. That could change in 2020.
April 10, 2019 -
Though better known these days for erecting statues to Confederate veterans during the Jim Crow era, the United Daughters of the Confederacy also promoted white supremacist Lost Cause propaganda through their campaigns to control history textbooks used in the South's public schools. That miseducation continues to haunt our politics today.