Thomas Grillot— The mobilization against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) in the winter of 2016-2017 has made headlines throughout the world. In the first days of September 2016, the challenge raised by members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to the unbridled exploitation of natural resources in their region and
Gary Dorrien— Martin Luther King Jr., at the end of his life, fixed on three reform objectives, a movement ambition, and something bigger. The policy objectives were to terminate racial discrimination in housing, establish a minimum guaranteed income, and end America’s global militarism. Sometimes he put it in ethical terms,
On this day in 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. gave what is widely hailed as the best political speech of the twentieth century. King famously departed from his prepared text to expound upon his dream, a vision of a nation living in racial harmony. Folk history has it that Mahalia
Katherine A. Bussard’s superb new book Unfamiliar Streets: The Photographs of Richard Avedon, Charles Moore, Martha Rosler, and Philip-Lorca diCorcia was recently featured at one of the New York Public Library’s “An Art Book” evenings. If you weren’t able to be there, you can listen to the proceedings: Today, we’re
In the newly published Civil Disobedience: An American Tradition, Lewis Perry traces the history of civil disobedience in the United States from its pre-revolutionary backgrounds to the present. Amidst the controversy that ebbs and flows over civil disobedience, and the studies of individuals and events, there seems to be one
In September 1955, shortly after Emmett Till was murdered by white supremacists in Money, Mississippi, his grieving mother, Mamie Till Bradley, distributed to newspapers and magazines a gruesome black-and-white photograph of his mutilated corpse. Asked why she would do this, Mrs. Bradley explained that by witnessing, with their own eyes,
Boxing is arguably the most intense of individual sports—high stakes, blood, sweat, and (involuntary) tears, all eyes on you in the ring. It’s no mean feat to hold the title of world heavyweight boxing champion for nearly twelve years. In fact, it’s a record still held today, over sixty years
Not all slave owners were white. On the eve of the American Revolutionary War, South Carolina’s slave population was nearly double that of white Europeans, and while there were a still a handful of free blacks, “free” took a marginalized status in the face of color discrimination. Perhaps the richest
This afternoon at 4:30pm, Molly Rogers, author of Delia’s Tears: Race, Science, and Photography in 19th-Century America, will be interviewed by eminent historian David Blight about her book here on Yale’s campus. The book retells the story of seven South Carolina slaves who were photographed at the request of Swiss
Michelle Stein George Gershwin’s music is a near inimitable part of American culture. Though he lived a short life, dying at the age of thirty-eight, the work he composed during his life offered a long-lasting heritage and contribution to American musicals and concert pieces. In 1935, Gershwin’s American folk opera