Civil Rights

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The Crime That Fueled an Asian American Civil Rights Movement

The 1982 attack against Vincent Chin redefined hate crimes and energized a push for today’s stronger legal protections. (Mural by Anthony Lee.)

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Whites-Only Suburbs: How the New Deal Shut Out Black Homebuyers

Race-based federal lending rules from New Deal programs in the 1930s kept Black families locked out of suburban neighborhoods, a policy that continues to slow their economic mobility.

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American Reckoning Trailer

An untold story of the civil rights movement. American Reckoning is produced in collaboration with PBS Frontline.

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American Reckoning

An untold story of the civil rights movement.

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American Reckoning: The Bombing (Excerpt)

After civil rights leader George Metcalfe was severely injured in a car bombing, the Black community in Natchez, Miss., organized their response.

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American Reckoning: Black Resistance (Excerpt)

In the face of threats from the Ku Klux Klan, a group known as the Deacons for Defense helped to protect the Black community.

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American Reckoning: The Boycott (Excerpt)

The N.A.A.C.P. of Natchez, Miss., issued 12 demands for racial justice and organized a boycott of area businesses.

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American Reckoning: The Legacy (Excerpt)

In 1967, N.A.A.C.P. official Wharlest Jackson was killed in a car bombing. Nearly 60 years later, his family is still looking for answers.

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Gerrymandering Tilts Political Power. Here’s How Redistricting Affects Democracy.

Both parties play the redistricting game, redrawing electoral boundaries to lock down power.

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Black Swimmers Overcome Racism and Fear, Reclaiming a Tradition

Today, drowning rates are disproportionately high among Black children. What’s being done?

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Bringing Midwifery Back to Black Mothers

For care in pregnancy and childbirth, Black parents are turning to a traditional practice.

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Racial Health Disparities Didn’t Start With Covid: The Overlooked History of Polio

The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted racial disparities with roots in the past.

Image from Racial Inequality Was Tearing the U.S. Apart, a 1968 Report Warned. It Was Ignored.
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Racial Inequality Was Tearing the U.S. Apart, a 1968 Report Warned. It Was Ignored.

Anger over policing and inequality boiled over in 1967 in protests and violence across the United States. A landmark report warned that without major changes, it would happen again.

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Combating the Myth of the Superpredator

In the 1990s, a handful of researchers inspired panic with a dire but flawed prediction: the imminent arrival of a new breed of “superpredators.”

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The Birth of Free Agency

The drama of modern free agency has become as much a part of professional sports as the games themselves. But it wasn’t always that way. Today’s free agents owe a big debt of gratitude to Curt Flood.

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Athletes vs. Injustice: Protests in Sports

When N.F.L. players, starting with Colin Kaepernick, took a knee during the National Anthem to protest they ignited an uproar over injecting politics onto the playing field.

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How an Underground Abortion Network Got Started

It started with one request. A friend’s sister was pregnant and suicidal. Before long a clandestine group called Jane was created to help women in Chicago with illegal abortions.

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Operation Ceasefire: Inside a Community's Radical Approach to Gang Violence

This is the story of cops, African-American pastors, gang members, and academics coming together to create positive change for Boston, while upending notions of traditional policing in a way that is especially pertinent today.

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Trump Administration Sued for Torpedoing Enforcement of Landmark Housing Law

Ben Carson, Secretary of HUD, is being sued for not enforcing the Fair Housing Act – landmark legislation that was passed 50 years ago during the Civil Rights era.

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Louis Armstrong And The Black Celebrity's Dilemma

As America’s jazz icon, Louis Armstrong was seen as a smiling, easygoing entertainer. But in 1957, he invited controversy by speaking forcefully on behalf of his fellow African Americans, putting him in a position familiar to many Black athletes today.

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What Jesse Owens's Story Tells Us About Sports and Politics

NFL players have been derided for injecting politics into the country’s favorite sport. But, when convenient, America has also celebrated black athletes for acting as political emissaries.

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How Zero Tolerance Blurred the Lines Between Schools and Criminal Justice

Over the last 30 years, schools across the country have enacted tough new discipline policies. Some of those schools say they went too far.

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Fair Housing

Has the government done enough to stop housing discrimination?

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Welfare and the Politics of Poverty

Bill Clinton’s 1996 welfare reform was supposed to move needy families off government handouts and onto a path out of poverty. Twenty years later, how has it turned out?

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How Geography Drove MLK's Fight for a Ferry in Alabama

Weeks before Selma’s Bloody Sunday in 1965, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. urged residents of Gee’s Bend, Ala., to vote, and fed a continuing fight over a small ferry that would last for decades.

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The Battle For Busing

A story of America’s school integration and what happened when the buses stopped rolling.