slavery

July 3, 2014 - Political psychologists distinguish between "blind patriotism" that's intolerant and unquestioning and "constructive patriotism," which welcomes questioning with the hope of creating positive change. On this most patriotic of holidays, we share some of our favorite writings and songs in the spirit of the latter, and we invite you to do the same.

June 19, 2014 - Today marks the holiday that commemorates the day in 1865 that slaves in Texas were finally set free. We celebrate with a song to honor the occasion by jazz great Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five, "Juneteenth Jamboree."

March 25, 2014 - The film about the experience of a free black man kidnapped and sold into slavery in Louisiana downplayed revolt -- despite its prominent place in Solomon Northup's autobiography.

March 13, 2014 - This week Glenn Ford, a black man wrongfully convicted of murder by an all-white jury in Louisiana, was freed after spending 30 years on death row at the state's notorious Angola penitentiary. What did he endure in a place where a federal judge has ruled conditions amount to "cruel and unusual punishment"?

December 17, 2013 - The private prison industry is fueling high incarceration rates in Mississippi and elsewhere in the United States. It's a way to keep an indentured class in a state and nation built on slavery.

September 23, 2013 - Whites who live in parts of the South once dominated by the slave economy are much more likely than other Southerners to express resentment toward blacks, to oppose affirmative action, and to vote Republican, according to a new study by political scientists at the University of Rochester.

July 4, 2013 - This Independence Day, we revisit one of our favorite holiday-themed readings: the brilliant speech by abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass reminding us of the unfinished work of guaranteeing liberty and justice for all. So what's your favorite reading for the 4th?

July 4, 2012 - The War of Independence was waged by American colonists seeking liberty from British rule, but freedom remained elusive for African Americans -- even for the thousands who fought on both sides.

June 18, 2012 - As a Senate panel prepares to hold a hearing on prolonged solitary confinement in U.S. prisons on June 19, a law professor at Southern University in Baton Rouge discusses the troubling case of Louisiana's Angola 3 and its human rights implications.