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Can Colleges and Tribes Build Relationships by Retiring Native Mascots?

Miami University's negotiations with the Miami tribe over the university's mascot develped into a partnership for the preservation of the tribe's language and culture. 

Blue Collar Is a Dark Masterpiece of Working-Class Cinema

The 1978 film "Blue Collar" is an important but overlooked document of a moment of crisis for the American working class. 

Is Kamala Harris Really the Least Popular VP in a Half-Century?

The right has seized on the argument, which is based on shoddy interpretation of polls and ignores the fact that net favorability ratings for current officials are much more affected by partisan polarization than for their predecessors decades ago. 

Ken Burns Argues He's not "Taking Up Too Much Space"

The documentarian joins Kara Swisher's "Sway" podcast, focusing on how digital technology is changing the practice of reconstructing the past and whether Burns's films are taking too much airtime as PBS seeks to diversify its stable of producers. 

Elephant Statues Commemorating D.W. Griffith Removed from Hollywood and Highland Plaza

The statues were an homage to Griffith's film "Intolerance," widely seen as a rebuke of the NAACP and other critics who denounced the racism of his prior pro-KKK film "Birth of a Nation." 

Proto-Geometry Found in Babylonian Tablet, a Thousand Years Older than Pythagoras

"It’s generally thought that trigonometry — a subset of geometry and what’s displayed on the tablet in a crude sense — was developed by ancient Greeks like the philosopher Pythagoras. However, analysis of the tablet suggests it was created 1,000 years before Pythagoras was born."

Sen. Hawley: Public Schools Must Make Kids Love America and the Founding

by Josh Hawley

Senator Josh Hawley argues that public schools are obligated to teach "the truth about our history and our purpose that unites us as a nation."

Texas Teachers: Law Will Put Entire Generation in the Dark

“They have thrown social studies teachers out on the front lines of a cultural war,” said Kerry Green, a U.S. history teacher at suburban Sunnyvale High School east of Dallas.

The Hiawatha Asylum: The Threat Behind Indian Boarding Schools

“People vanished out of boarding schools; people went to jail and didn’t come back. People didn’t know where their relatives were, so it’s still a shock. It’s like finding out you had somebody in your family who was in a concentration camp."

Iraq Reclaims 17,000 Looted Artifacts, Its Biggest-Ever Repatriation

"The institution that held about 12,000 of the items was the Museum of the Bible, a four-year-old Washington museum founded and funded by the Christian evangelical family that owns the Hobby Lobby craft store chain."

How to Make Jim Jordan Talk about January 6? Ask Jefferson Davis

by Sidney Blumenthal

Jefferson Davis compelled the testimony of his Senate colleague William Seward about whether he had prior knowledge of John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry. Rep. There's no reason why Jim Jordan shouldn't be likewise made to answer questions. 

The Void That Critical Race Theory Was Created to Fill

by Lauren Michelle Jackson

Legal Scholar Lauren Michelle Jackson argues that liberal defenders of Critical Race Theory have sanded the edges off a body of scholarship that does aim to radically change the way that power is constituted through law. 

95% of Capitol Sculptures Depict Men. Will That Change Soon?

Sen. Amy Klobuchar is a leader of a group of Senators who hope to increase the representation of women in the Capitol statuary. 

Southern Children Need to Hear the Truth about History

Opinion writer Margaret Renkl examines the controversy over an elementary school social studies reading list as an exercise in denial. 

Is a Group of New Deal Descendants Influencing the Biden Administration?

A group of "descendants" – relatives of New Deal officials – is working to keep discussion of FDR's social and economic policy alive in the hopes that it will shift the Biden administration in a more activist direction. 

The Photographers Who Captured the Great Depression

Intended as a promotional program for New Deal agricultural programs, the Farm Security Adminstration's sponsorship of Gordon Parks, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange and other photographers sparked an aesthetic revolution. 

The Big Money Behind the Big Lie

by Jane Mayer

The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, based in Wisconsin, is a key connection between past reactionary movements and contemporary efforts to sow doubt about the integrity of elections and potentially place partisan Republicans in charge of counting future votes. 

Army to Memorialize Black Soldier Lynched on Georgia Base 80 Years Ago

“To be lynched as you’re in service to the United States Army?” said Richard Liebert, a retired Army officer who trained at Fort Benning in the 1970s and ’80s. Liebert, who is White, has for the past five years pressed the Army to recognize this young soldier.

What It Looks Like to Reconnect Black Communities Torn Apart by Highways

An interactive feature shows the impact of highway building on Black communities throughout the urban United States, and prospects for reconnecting neighborhoods previously divided by asphalt. 

Where They Stood: A Photojournalist Documents the Nation's Fallen Confederate Monuments

"Last fall, I began to document the Confederate monuments that have been taken down since George Floyd’s death. In April, I started a five-week, 7,300-mile road trip throughout the South to continue this work."