The nearest moral substitute for righting a wrong is exposing it-blowing the whistle. Much of the exposed wrongdoing that makes the evening news nowadays is of a magnitude beyond the ability of most individuals to rectify, and... Read More

“Black women are the beached whales of the sexual universe, unvoiced, misseen, not doing, awaiting their verb,” states black feminist scholar Hortense Spillers. The editor of this much-needed collection of scholarly essays tackles... Read More

Draper wanted to do to American blacks what Hitler did to the Jews. As a blue-blooded Harvard man and grandson of Kentucky’s largest slave owner, Draper had the wealth and connections to think he could make this happen. The author, a... Read More

A small, rural town in north-central lower Michigan, Idlewild is barely a wide spot on U.S. Highway 10, with very little to separate it from the blur of other near-ghost towns on the upland of the Manistee National Forest: a shuttered... Read More

In 1879, “an octagon turret or gun-room, nine feet in diameter and ten feet high—holed for rifles” was built as part of an office fortress at Yellowstone National Park. Previous events, such as the Nez Perce War in 1877, had... Read More

Wait just a minute! If someone who is being attacked pulls a gun and kills the attacker, is this evidence that guns save lives or that guns take lives? Or is it a statistical toss-up? The author tells some truly gripping stories of armed... Read More

Black folk died in mournful collectives and in disconcerting circumstances. We died in riots and rebellions, as victims of lynching, from executions, murders, police violence, suicides, and untreated or undertreated diseases…the story... Read More

In ancient times, Jews counted up days from Passover to Shavuot by measuring out an “omer” of grain. When they had forty-nine omers, they knew Shavuot had arrived. The seven weeks between the holidays is still referred to as counting... Read More