Chicago Reporter (https://www.chicagoreporter.com/tag/american-history/)
Rap songs from Public Enemy and Ludacris have been heard at marches over the killing of George Floyd. But the history of Black American music as a form of protest dates back to the 19th century.
In many national crises, black Americans have been essential workers – but serving in crucial roles has not resulted in economic equality.
Black farmers own far less land than they did in 1910 and the racial gap in homeownership is at the highest level for 50 years.
The Chicago Black Panther Party, Rainbow Coalition, the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement and other historical organizing projects point to the possibilities for harnessing the vast mobilization of outrage we’re seeing today.
The subjugation of black people, enforced by violence and embedded in capitalism, has been the through line of American history.
It took decades for scientists to recognize HIV/AIDS as a new disease, and years longer to mobilize an effective response with broad public support. Will the US do better against novel coronavirus?
Emphasizing foreign origins of a disease can have racist connotations and implications for how people understand their own risk of disease.
In retweeting a doctored image of Nancy Pelosi standing in a hijab in front of an Iranian flag, Trump is playing into fears that Iran and Islam are evil and anti-American.
During the Nazi era, roughly 300,000 additional Jewish refugees could have gained entry to the US. But the immigration law’s ‘likely to become a public charge’ clause kept them out.
A minority politics scholar assesses black progress 52 years after MLK’s death based on poverty, jobs and wealth. ‘In some ways,’ she concludes, ‘we’ve barely budged as a people.’