How the Past Echoes in the Protests: A Historian’s Recommended Reads

There is something so wounded in American society that basic commitment to justice is not part of the operating code.

The nationwide protests against police killings have been called un-American by critics, but rebellion has always been used to defend liberty.

Police violence against African Americans has persisted for centuries.

In a country reeling from being involuntary witnesses to the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, Breonna Taylor’s death does not fit the spectacular forms of police killing that we have come to associate with America’s nefarious lynching past.

In the Red Summer of 1919, racist violence hit America as the Spanish flu ravaged the country. With mass protests against police murders sweeping the pandemic-plagued United States, it appears we might be now living in a Red Spring.

A proper understanding of urban rebellion depends on our ability to interpret it not as a wave of criminality, but as political violence.

To be Black and conscious of anti-Black racism is to stare into the mirror of your own extinction.

Cities spend tens of millions of dollars on lawsuits over police violence and killings. But municipalities are effectively using residents to mortgage the cost.

The rage on display in Minneapolis is not only about police violence. It is also about the country’s utter disregard for the pain of Black Americans.

The collapse of politics and governance leaves no other option.