Articles & Essays on History, Policy, and Power

Infant Mortality: A History Written Through Inequality, Not Biology

Infant mortality in America has deep historical roots. This article explores how inequality in housing, labor, healthcare, and policy shaped early infant survival — and why the legacy still impacts families today.

Health & Reproduction

Wealth & Economy

Racial Identity vs. National Identity: How Two Ideas Became Tangled in American History

Race and nationality weren’t always linked — they became intertwined through law and policy. This article explores how identity, citizenship, and belonging were shaped across communities by the merging of racial and national identity in American history.

Identity & Belonging

Law & Courts

The History of “No-Knock” Policies

No-knock raids weren’t designed as routine—but over time, they became normalized. Their history helps explain why forced entry so often turns deadly.

Policing & Military

Law & Courts

The Cultural Genealogy of Black Music in America

Black music shaped American culture through systems that often separated influence from ownership. This article traces how sound formed, moved, and endured across generations.

Identity & Belonging

Wealth & Economy

Community Repair

How Voting Rights Have Been Restricted Across Generations

Voting rights have expanded over time—but restriction has adapted with each generation. This article explores how barriers persist without explicit exclusion.

Voting & Democracy

Law & Courts

Identity & Belonging

The Roots of Labor Organizing in Black Communities

An exploration of how Black communities organized labor long before formal unions—through mutual aid, community networks, and collective resistance—and how these traditions shaped American labor movements.

Work & Labor

Identity & Belonging

Land, Opportunity, and the Struggle for Black Farmers

For generations, owning land meant freedom. For formerly enslaved people, farmland represented independence, stability, and the chance to pass something on to their children. But just as African Americans fought for fair housing in cities, they also faced barriers, exploitation, and discrimination in farming. This is the story of land as opportunity — and how much was lost when that opportunity was denied.

Housing & Land

Work & Labor

Wealth & Economy

Highways, Railroads, and Rivers and the Segregation of American Cities

Look closely at almost any American city, and you’ll notice something: a set of railroad tracks, a highway, or a river dividing one neighborhood from another. On one side, tree-lined streets and investment. On the other, underfunded schools, fewer businesses, and neglected infrastructure. Those dividing lines weren’t accidents. They were choices — choices that reinforced segregation and shaped opportunity.

Housing & Land

Wealth & Economy

The Origins of Obstetric Medicine: How Power, Knowledge, and Inequality Shaped Early Care

Obstetric medicine didn’t develop in a vacuum. This article explores how childbirth care in early America was shaped by gender, race, power, exclusion, and the dismissal of community-based knowledge.

Health & Reproduction

Identity & Belonging

Why Wage Gaps Persist Across Race — Even in “Neutral” Systems

An exploration of why wage gaps persist across race and gender—even in workplaces that rely on neutral, standardized pay systems—and how history, access, and structure shape outcomes.

Work & Labor

Wealth & Economy

Forced Reproduction: The Hidden Engine of Early American Slavery

Forced reproduction wasn’t an accident of slavery — it was a system that shaped family life, labor, wealth, and identity across early America. This article explores how it worked and why its legacy still matters.

Health & Reproduction

Identity & Belonging

Spirituals as America's First Folk Music

Spirituals functioned as one of America’s earliest folk traditions—shared orally, shaped collectively, and rooted in survival under constraint.

Community Repair

Identity & Belonging

Why Protest Movements Are Often Labeled as Riots

Protest movements are often labeled riots when they disrupt power, not when they lack purpose. This article explores how language shapes response and legitimacy.

Policing & Military

Identity & Belonging

Law & Courts

Why Some Industries Still Resist Unions

An exploration of why some industries still resist unions, how employer strategies evolved over time, and what workers risk when they try to organize today.

Work & Labor

Wealth & Economy

The Great Migration as an Economic Survival Strategy

An explanation of the Great Migration as a strategic economic response to debt, violence, and blocked opportunity—and how migration reshaped American labor and cities.

Migration & Mobility

Work & Labor

Voting & Democracy

Why Reparations Has Been Debated for Over 150 Years

An overview of why reparations has been debated since emancipation—and why the question persists as inequality remains visible.

Community Repair

Wealth & Economy

How Sharecropping Replaced Slavery in Everything but Name

An explanation of how sharecropping replaced slavery as a system of labor control—using debt, land access, and credit to preserve inequality long after emancipation.

Wealth & Economy

Work & Labor

Steering and Subtle Lines: Housing Discrimination After Redlining

“In the 1980s, a family in Iowa made an offer on a home. Years later, they learned their realtor had secretly raised their bid — not to help them, but to make sure a Black family wouldn’t get the property. They still live in that house, carrying the weight of what happened.” The Fair Housing Act had been law for over a decade. Redlining was officially banned. But the story shows us something important: discrimination didn’t end when the maps disappeared. It adapted.

Housing & Land

Law & Courts

How Black Music Documents the Struggle for Freedom

Across generations, Black music preserved lived experience and documented the struggle for freedom when formal records were absent or exclusionary.

Identity & Belonging

Community Repair

Why Stereotypes Persist Even When the Data Contradicts Them

Why do stereotypes survive even when the data disproves them? This article explores the cognitive, social, and media systems that keep false group beliefs alive—and why evidence alone often fails to change minds.

Identity & Belonging

Law & Courts

Wealth & Economy

Barriers by Design: The First Era of Voter Suppression

After the Civil War, the 15th Amendment declared that no one could be denied the right to vote because of race. On paper, freedom at the ballot box was guaranteed. But by the late 1800s, states across the South found ways around that promise. They didn’t outlaw Black voting outright — instead, they created barriers like poll taxes and literacy tests that made voting practically impossible for millions of Black citizens and poor whites.

Law & Courts

Voting & Democracy

The Voting Rights Act: A Hard-Won Victory

By 1965, the fight for the vote had already stretched across generations. Poll taxes, literacy tests, intimidation, and gerrymandering had silenced millions of voices — especially Black voters in the South. But the marches in Selma, the sacrifices in Mississippi, and the voices rising across the nation finally pushed America to act. The result was the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — one of the most significant civil rights laws in U.S. history.

Law & Courts

Voting & Democracy

Stereotypes Born in Violence: How Harmful Narratives Were Built and Weaponized

Many racial stereotypes didn’t appear by accident — they were created to justify violence, exclusion, and inequality. This article explores how these narratives formed and why they still matter.

Identity & Belonging

White Flight: Leaving the City Behind

In the mid-20th century, cities across America saw a dramatic shift. White families packed up, left their urban neighborhoods, and moved to newly built suburbs. This movement — called white flight — wasn’t just a personal choice. It was fueled by fear, profit, and public policy, and it reshaped the American landscape in ways we still feel today.

Housing & Land

Migration & Mobility

Wealth & Economy

How Pseudoscience Became Policy: Early America’s Racial Theories

Early America embraced racial “science” that wasn’t science at all — it was a tool to justify laws, labor systems, and social hierarchies. This article explores how those theories spread, who they impacted, and why their legacy still shapes policy and perception today.

Identity & Belonging

Law & Courts

Gerrymandering: Drawing Lines, Picking Winners

Voters are supposed to choose their leaders. But in many cases, it works the other way around: leaders choose their voters. That’s the power of gerrymandering — the manipulation of political district boundaries to give one party or group an advantage. It’s not new, but its impact today is as strong as ever.

Law & Courts

Voting & Democracy

Restrictive Covenants: Rules Written Into the Deed

What if your ability to buy a house wasn’t decided by your savings, your credit, or your hard work — but by a single line written into the deed? For much of the 20th century, that’s exactly what happened. They were called restrictive covenants, and they turned property law into a tool of segregation.

Law & Courts

Housing & Land

The Psychology of National Mythmaking: What We Remember, What We Forget

Nations remember selectively. This article explores how psychology shapes national myths—and why forgetting matters as much as remembering.

Identity & Belonging

Law & Courts

Community Repair

Funk & Disco: The Soundtracks of Assertion and Liberation

Funk and disco emerged during the 1970s as genres of assertion and collective presence. Rooted in Black, Latino, and LGBTQ+ communities, they created spaces of visibility, joy, and autonomy amid ongoing inequality and backlash.

Identity & Belonging

Community Repair

Wealth & Economy

The American Workplace: How Inequality Built the Foundations of Work

America’s workplace was shaped by systems that divided labor, opportunity, and protection by race, class, gender, and immigration status. This article explores how those foundations still affect the jobs people do today.

Work & Labor

Wealth & Economy

Motown as a Cultural Bridge Between Segregated Worlds

Motown created shared cultural experiences across racial divides during segregation, functioning as a bridge between separate worlds while operating within enduring structural limits.

Identity & Belonging

Wealth & Economy

Community Repair

Black Maternal Mortality: A Crisis Rooted in History, Not Biology

Black maternal mortality is not a medical mystery — it’s the result of historical inequality, medical bias, and systems shaped long before modern hospitals existed. This article traces the roots and the path forward.

Health & Reproduction

Identity & Belonging

Slave Patrols: The Blueprint for American Policing

An exploration of how slave patrols shaped early American law enforcement—and why their legacy still influences policing today.

Policing & Military

Identity & Belonging

The Cycle: Black Progress → Backlash → Restrictive Laws

A look at how Black progress has repeatedly been followed by backlash and restrictive laws—and why the cycle continues across generations.

Law & Courts

Voting & Democracy

Urban Renewal: When “Renewal” Meant Removal

In the mid-20th century, American cities promised “progress.” Leaders called it urban renewal — a way to modernize neighborhoods, clear “blight,” and build new infrastructure. But for many communities, especially Black neighborhoods, renewal meant something else: removal. Homes were bulldozed, businesses destroyed, and entire cultural districts erased in the name of development.

Housing & Land

Wealth & Economy

Case Studies in Community Restoration: What Has Worked?

Examples of community restoration efforts that have measurably improved stability, wealth retention, and long-term outcomes in historically harmed neighborhoods.

Community Repair

Housing & Land

Identity & Belonging

How Local Organizers Protect Voter Access

Local organizers play a critical role in protecting voter access by reducing barriers and responding to challenges where elections actually occur.

Voting & Democracy

Community Repair

Identity & Belonging

Why Lineage Was Redefined: The 1662 Law That Changed Everything

In 1662, a short Virginia law rewrote centuries of tradition and reshaped American family life. This article explores how tying a child’s status to the mother transformed identity, opportunity, and belonging across many communities — and why its impact is still felt today.

Identity & Belonging

Law & Courts

Convict Leasing: The System That Rebuilt Labor After Slavery

A clear overview of how convict leasing replaced slavery with a new labor system shaped by race, economics, and state power, and how this model influenced modern incarceration and labor practices.

Work & Labor

Policing & Military

Wealth & Economy

Black Music That Defies Genre — And What It Says About Identity

Black genre-defying music reveals how artists have resisted fixed categories, using sound to express complex identities beyond industry labels.

Wealth & Economy

Identity & Belonging

Community Repair

Minstrelsy, Appropriation & the Long Fight for Artistic Ownership

Minstrelsy appropriated Black expressive forms and shaped entertainment industry structures, contributing to long-lasting debates over artistic ownership, credit, and cultural influence.

Law & Courts

Wealth & Economy

How America Invented Race: The Legal Origins of Racial Categories

Race in America didn’t appear on its own — it was constructed through laws, forms, and policies that shaped who belonged where. This article explores how those early decisions still shape opportunity and identity today.

Identity & Belonging

Law & Courts

Why Police Encounters Turn Deadly for Black Americans Disproportionately

Police encounters don’t turn deadly at random. History, exposure, and enforcement patterns shape who faces risk—and why disparities persist.

Policing & Military

Identity & Belonging

How Reproductive Control Shaped Early America

Reproduction shaped far more than family life in early America — it shaped labor, citizenship, identity, and belonging. This article explores how reproductive control influenced communities across generations.

Health & Reproduction

Law & Courts

Surveillance of Black Communities: From Slave Codes to Social Media Monitoring

Surveillance in the U.S. didn’t begin with technology. From slave patrols to digital monitoring, systems of oversight evolved unevenly—and their effects still shape daily life.

Identity & Belonging

Policing & Military

Miscegenation Laws and the Long Battle Over Interracial Marriage

Anti-miscegenation laws shaped family life for centuries. This article explores how interracial marriage was criminalized, who these laws targeted, and how the fight for the right to marry reshaped identity and belonging in America.

Identity & Belonging

Law & Courts

Covid-19 and What It Revealed About Working-Class America

Covid-19 didn’t just disrupt work—it revealed how working-class America carries economic risk through low protections, high exposure jobs, and fragile community systems, shaped by race, gender, and class.

Health & Reproduction

Work & Labor

Wealth & Economy

How Race Shapes Access: The Long History of Unequal Opportunity in America

Access to land, housing, education, work, and opportunity has never been distributed evenly in America. This article explores how race shaped access across communities — and why the effects still matter today.

Identity & Belonging

Wealth & Economy

Why the Voting Rights Act Was Needed, and What Happened When It Was Weakened

The Voting Rights Act enforced access where rights alone fell short. This article explains why it was needed—and what changed when protections weakened.

Law & Courts

Voting & Democracy

Identity & Belonging

How Tax Incentives for Corporations Affect Community Wealth

An explanation of how corporate tax incentives affect local budgets, public services, and community wealth — and why the costs often fall on residents rather than corporations.

Wealth & Economy

Law & Courts

Profiting from Panic: The Story of Blockbusting

Imagine a knock at your door. A real estate agent warns you: “Black families are moving in. If you don’t sell now, your property value will plummet.” This wasn’t just rumor. It was a calculated business practice called blockbusting — and it turned fear into profit while reshaping America’s cities.

Housing & Land

Wealth & Economy

How Communities Rally Around Victims of State Violence

When state violence occurs, communities often step in where institutions do not—providing care, memory, and meaning in the absence of accountability.

Community Repair

Policing & Military

Identity & Belonging

How Fear Shaped Policing Policy for Centuries

An exploration of how fear — not just crime — shaped policing policy, enforcement priorities, and surveillance across American history.

Law & Courts

Policing & Military

Land Loss Stories: Communities Removed by Eminent Domain

A look at how eminent domain has removed working-class and marginalized communities in the name of progress—and how land loss reshaped wealth, trust, and opportunity.

Housing & Land

Wealth & Economy

Law & Courts

Hip-Hop as Historical Record and Public Testimony

Hip-hop emerged as a form of public testimony, documenting urban life, policy impact, and lived experience long before many of those realities were formally acknowledged.

Identity & Belonging

Community Repair

Law & Courts

Modern Voter Suppression: New Barriers, Old Tactics

Poll taxes and literacy tests are gone. The Voting Rights Act outlawed the worst barriers. But in the 21st century, voter suppression didn’t disappear — it just changed form. Instead of explicit bans, today’s tactics raise barriers that look neutral on the surface but still make it harder for certain groups to vote.

Law & Courts

Voting & Democracy

The One-Drop Rule: How a Single Idea Redefined Identity in America

The One-Drop Rule shaped how identity, belonging, and opportunity worked in America. This article explores how a single idea — rooted in power, not science — redefined families across many communities and left a legacy that still echoes today.

Identity & Belonging

Law & Courts

Redlining: How Maps Drew Boundaries That Still Shape Our Communities

Imagine if the neighborhood you lived in determined whether you could buy a home, get a loan, or even build wealth for your children — not because of what you did, but because of the color of your skin. This isn’t just a “what if” story. It’s the reality millions of Americans lived through, and its ripple effects are still with us today.

Housing & Land

Wealth & Economy

How Redlining Designed Modern Cities

An explanation of how redlining shaped housing, wealth, infrastructure, and opportunity—and why modern cities still reflect those designs.

Housing & Land

Wealth & Economy

Felony Disenfranchisement: Punishment Beyond Prison

When someone finishes a prison sentence, the expectation is that they’ve “paid their debt to society.” But for millions of Americans, that debt never ends. Long after their release, they remain barred from one of the most fundamental rights in a democracy: the right to vote. This practice is called felony disenfranchisement, and it affects far more people — and communities — than many realize.

Law & Courts

Policing & Military

The Two Kinds of Fear Driving American Policy

American policy has often been shaped by two fears: fear of losing power and fear of disorder. Understanding the difference explains why rules endure long after crises pass.

Identity & Belonging

Law & Courts

Militarization of Police: When Did It Start and Why?

Police weren’t always armed like soldiers. Militarization grew through policy choices, funding incentives, and fear—and it reshaped everyday policing.

Law & Courts

Policing & Military

What “Qualified Immunity” Means for Accountability

Qualified immunity can block civil lawsuits even when misconduct is plausible, by requiring plaintiffs to show the violated right was “clearly established.” That standard shapes what accountability is possible—and who gets it.

Law & Courts

Policing & Military

Black Americans and the Fight to Expand Democracy

American democracy expanded through struggle, not consensus. Black Americans have been central to widening participation and redefining who democracy is for.

Voting & Democracy

Identity & Belonging

Law & Courts

The Long Shadow of the Haitian Revolution on American Policy

The Haitian Revolution succeeded—and its success reshaped American policy through fear, silence, and containment. This article explores how Black sovereignty abroad influenced law, identity, and governance at home.

Law & Courts

Migration & Mobility

Identity & Belonging

Why Sampling Matters: Cultural Memory in Sound

Sampling functions as cultural memory in sound, preserving lineage, context, and history through reuse, reference, and reinterpretation across musical generations.

Identity & Belonging

Wealth & Economy

Law & Courts

How Racial Categories Shifted Over Time — And Why That Matters Today

Racial categories in America were never fixed — they shifted constantly with politics, census rules, and economic needs. This article explores how those changes reshaped identity, belonging, and opportunity across many communities.

Identity & Belonging

Law & Courts

How Historical Myths About Black Women Shaped Modern Healthcare

Many harmful medical assumptions about Black women didn’t come from science — they came from centuries-old myths created to justify exploitation and inequality. This article explores how these narratives shaped modern healthcare.

Health & Reproduction

Identity & Belonging

The Nadir of Race Relations: When Democracy Regressed

After Reconstruction, American democracy narrowed by design. The Nadir of race relations shows how rights can exist without enforcement.

Law & Courts

Voting & Democracy

Identity & Belonging

Productivity Metrics: The Surprising History Behind Today’s Workplace Tracking

Productivity metrics aren’t new — they began in systems of unequal labor, grew through industrialization, and evolved into today’s digital tracking tools. This article traces how measurement shaped the American workplace.

Work & Labor

Resistance and Resilience: Grassroots Power at the Ballot Box

Barriers to the ballot have never gone uncontested. From Reconstruction through Jim Crow, from poll taxes to voter ID laws, people have always found ways to push back. The story of voting in America isn’t just about suppression. It’s about resilience — communities organizing, neighbors helping neighbors, and citizens insisting that democracy belongs to all of us.

Voting & Democracy

How the Homestead Act Built Wealth for Others While Excluding Black Families

An explanation of how the Homestead Act helped build wealth for millions while Black families were largely excluded—shaping land ownership and inequality across generations.

Housing & Land

Wealth & Economy

Why the Racial Wealth Gap Exists

An explanation of how policy, access, and historical exclusion created the racial wealth gap—and why individual choices alone can’t explain generational inequality.

Wealth & Economy

Identity & Belonging

Modern Voter Restrictions: What’s New, What’s Old, What’s Repackaged

Modern voting restrictions combine old mechanisms with new tools. This article explains what has changed, what hasn’t, and why it matters.

Voting & Democracy

Law & Courts

Identity & Belonging

The Economics of “40 Acres and a Mule”: What It Would Have Meant

An economic explanation of what “40 acres and a mule” would have meant—and how land access could have reshaped wealth after emancipation.

Housing & Land

Wealth & Economy

Community Repair

Low Road Capitalism: How Shortcuts Shaped the American Workplace

A concise history of “low road capitalism,” showing how cost-cutting labor models shaped by race, class, and gender evolved from slavery and industrial mills to today’s gig economy—and why these patterns still define many workplaces.

Work & Labor

Wealth & Economy

Literacy Tests, Poll Taxes, and “Race-Neutral” Suppression

Literacy tests and poll taxes restricted voting without naming race. This article explains how “neutral” rules produced unequal participation.

Law & Courts

Voting & Democracy

Identity & Belonging

How Blues Led to Jazz, and Jazz to Everything Else

This article traces how the blues led to jazz by combining expressive traditions in African-American communities, and how jazz’s improvisational and rhythmic innovations laid the groundwork for most forms of modern American music.

Identity & Belonging

Community Repair

Wealth & Economy

Learning together shapes tomorrow.

Foundations

How America Invented Race: The Legal Origins of Racial Categories

The Psychology of National Mythmaking: What We Remember, What We Forget

Redlining: How Maps Drew Boundaries That Still Shape Our Communities

The Cycle: Black Progress → Backlash → Restrictive Laws

Explore the Learning Paths

How does fear become policy?

How do laws shape everyday life?

How is power built and maintained?

How do systems reproduce inequality over time?

How do people adapt, resist, and create change?

Infant Mortality: A History Written Through Inequality, Not Biology

Racial Identity vs. National Identity: How Two Ideas Became Tangled in American History

The History of “No-Knock” Policies

The Cultural Genealogy of Black Music in America

How Voting Rights Have Been Restricted Across Generations

The Roots of Labor Organizing in Black Communities

Land, Opportunity, and the Struggle for Black Farmers

Highways, Railroads, and Rivers and the Segregation of American Cities

The Origins of Obstetric Medicine: How Power, Knowledge, and Inequality Shaped Early Care

Why Wage Gaps Persist Across Race — Even in “Neutral” Systems

Forced Reproduction: The Hidden Engine of Early American Slavery

Spirituals as America's First Folk Music

Why Protest Movements Are Often Labeled as Riots

Why Some Industries Still Resist Unions

The Great Migration as an Economic Survival Strategy

Why Reparations Has Been Debated for Over 150 Years

How Sharecropping Replaced Slavery in Everything but Name

Steering and Subtle Lines: Housing Discrimination After Redlining

How Black Music Documents the Struggle for Freedom

Why Stereotypes Persist Even When the Data Contradicts Them

Barriers by Design: The First Era of Voter Suppression

The Voting Rights Act: A Hard-Won Victory

Stereotypes Born in Violence: How Harmful Narratives Were Built and Weaponized

White Flight: Leaving the City Behind

How Pseudoscience Became Policy: Early America’s Racial Theories

Gerrymandering: Drawing Lines, Picking Winners

Restrictive Covenants: Rules Written Into the Deed

The Psychology of National Mythmaking: What We Remember, What We Forget

Funk & Disco: The Soundtracks of Assertion and Liberation

The American Workplace: How Inequality Built the Foundations of Work

Motown as a Cultural Bridge Between Segregated Worlds

Black Maternal Mortality: A Crisis Rooted in History, Not Biology

Slave Patrols: The Blueprint for American Policing

The Cycle: Black Progress → Backlash → Restrictive Laws

Urban Renewal: When “Renewal” Meant Removal

Case Studies in Community Restoration: What Has Worked?

How Local Organizers Protect Voter Access

Why Lineage Was Redefined: The 1662 Law That Changed Everything

Convict Leasing: The System That Rebuilt Labor After Slavery

Black Music That Defies Genre — And What It Says About Identity

Minstrelsy, Appropriation & the Long Fight for Artistic Ownership

How America Invented Race: The Legal Origins of Racial Categories

Why Police Encounters Turn Deadly for Black Americans Disproportionately

How Reproductive Control Shaped Early America

Surveillance of Black Communities: From Slave Codes to Social Media Monitoring

Miscegenation Laws and the Long Battle Over Interracial Marriage

Covid-19 and What It Revealed About Working-Class America

How Race Shapes Access: The Long History of Unequal Opportunity in America

Why the Voting Rights Act Was Needed, and What Happened When It Was Weakened

How Tax Incentives for Corporations Affect Community Wealth

Profiting from Panic: The Story of Blockbusting

How Communities Rally Around Victims of State Violence

How Fear Shaped Policing Policy for Centuries

Land Loss Stories: Communities Removed by Eminent Domain

Hip-Hop as Historical Record and Public Testimony

Modern Voter Suppression: New Barriers, Old Tactics

The One-Drop Rule: How a Single Idea Redefined Identity in America

Redlining: How Maps Drew Boundaries That Still Shape Our Communities

How Redlining Designed Modern Cities

Felony Disenfranchisement: Punishment Beyond Prison

The Two Kinds of Fear Driving American Policy

Militarization of Police: When Did It Start and Why?

What “Qualified Immunity” Means for Accountability

Black Americans and the Fight to Expand Democracy

The Long Shadow of the Haitian Revolution on American Policy

Why Sampling Matters: Cultural Memory in Sound

How Racial Categories Shifted Over Time — And Why That Matters Today

How Historical Myths About Black Women Shaped Modern Healthcare