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Race

Arts in Society, Politics

The Sounds of Struggle

Sixty years ago, a pathbreaking jazz album from Max Roach, Abbey Lincoln, and Oscar Brown, Jr., fused politics and art in the fight for Black liberation. Black artists are taking similar strides today.

Michael Reagan

Race

Looking for Nat Turner

Frightened slaveowners cast the rebel leader as a monster. Scholars have misunderstood his religiosity. A new creative history comes closer than ever to giving us access to Turner’s visionary life.

Alberto Toscano

Race

Blackness and the Bomb

Seventy years after the civil preparedness film Duck and Cover, it is long past time to reckon with the way white supremacy shaped U.S. nuclear defense efforts during the Cold War.

Erica X Eisen

Gender & Sexuality

Keep Pride Nude

Arguments that kink has no place in a post-#MeToo Pride may appear reasonable, but celebrating public sexuality is an important step toward a future free of racism and homophobia.

Joseph J. Fischel

Race, Reading Lists

Archival Essays for Juneteenth

“It is a commonplace to say that slavery ‘dehumanized’ enslaved people, but to do so is misleading, harmful, and worth resisting.” 

Boston Review

Arts in Society

Bringing Abolition to the Museum

Artist-activist Shellyne Rodriguez speaks with Billy Anania about museum labor practices and how Strike MoMA imagines a future of art for the people.

Shellyne Rodriguez, Billy Anania

Race, Reading Lists

Five Years without Cedric Robinson

A collection of our best essays on the distinguished political theorist, racial capitalism, and the Black radical tradition. 

Boston Review

Race

Reclaiming the Power of Rebellion

Activist Derecka Purnell interviews historian Elizabeth Hinton about her new book, ‘America on Fire,’ and how the label “riot” discredits Black political demands.

Elizabeth Hinton, Derecka Purnell

Politics, Race

The War on Critical Race Theory

Turning a blind eye to the realities of racial injustice, the highly orchestrated right-wing attacks cast a body of scholarship about race in the law as a great threat to American society.

David Theo Goldberg

Politics

How the Modern NRA Was Born at the Border

Watch our release of documentary short ‘The Rifleman,’ which examines how NRA head Harlon Carter fused gun rights, immigration enforcement, and white supremacy. Then read an interview with filmmaker Sierra Pettengill and historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz.

Sierra Pettengill, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Race, Science & Nature

Race, Policing, and the Limits of Social Science

Studying the social world requires more than deference to data. In some cases, it may even require that we reject findings—no matter the prestige or sophistication of the technical apparatus on which they are built.

Lily Hu

Race

Police and the License to Kill

Detroit police killed hundreds of unarmed Blacks in response to the civil rights movement. Their ability to get away with it reveals why most of today’s proposals to make police more accountable are bound to fail, and how we can do better.

Matthew D. Lassiter

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