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Black Southerners are Wielding Political Power that was Denied their Parents and Grandparents

While the voter mobilization efforts that tipped Georgia's senate races to the Democrats have been much-discussed, they capitalized on a long-term shift in the Black population to the urban and suburban south, a "reverse great migration" that will be politically consequential for years to come. 

Israeli Rights Group: Nation Isn't a Democracy but an "Apartheid Regime"

B'Tselem declared that "the traditional view of Israel as a democracy operating side-by-side with a temporary Israeli occupation in the territories 'imposed on some five million Palestinian subjects ... has grown divorced from reality'." The Israeli embassy in London dismissed the finding.

Capitol Riot: The 48 Hours that Echoed Generations of Southern Conflict

Hours after Mississippi legislators took the final step of removing a Confederate emblem from their state banner, a violent white mob waved the Stars and Bars as it ransacked the U.S. Capitol. 

Yes, It Was a Coup. Here’s Why

Former Trump National Security Council staffer Fiona Hill says the events of January 6, in the context of Trump's refusal to accept the election results, meet the practical standard of a coup. 

Are We Entering a New Era of Political Violence?

Political scientist Nathan Kalmoe is interviewed about parallels to the political climate of the Civil War era.

South Korean Court Orders Japan to Pay Compensation for Wartime Sexual Slavery

A South Korean court ordered the Japanese government to pay direct restitution to 12 women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military. Japan has rejected the court's authority.

We Need a Second Great Migration

by Charles M. Blow

Times Columnist Charles Blow relocated from New York to Atlanta and says that American democracy would be healthier if younger African Americans migrated en masse to the South. 

A Fraught Balancing Act

Questions of free speech and incitement, plus the demonstrable falsity of many claims made by pro-Trump student activist groups, makes for complicated choices for university administrators who may decide on disciplinary actions against students believed to incite violence. 

The Respectables

by Adam Serwer

The history of racist political violence in the United States means no one should be surprised by the presence of the economically comfortable and professionally accomplished among the Capitol rioters, who believe their right to rule, rather than their subsistence, is threatened. 

The Smithsonian Is Collecting Objects From the Capitol Siege

Smithsonian Director Lonnie Bunch III discusses the necessity of preserving evidence of the riot at the Capitol. 

Invasion of the Hippos: Colombia is Running Out of Time to Tackle Pablo Escobar’s Wildest Legacy

Colombian officials failed to castrate the large and potentially dangerous animals when their numbers were small. Now the country faces a potential invasive species calamity. 

Now It Can Be Told: How Neil Sheehan Got the Pentagon Papers

Award-winning journalist Neil Sheehan told an interviewer the story of how he got the Pentagon Papers, on the condition that the story could not be published while he was alive. His passing this week opens up new knowledge in the history of press freedom and the Vietnam war.

The Far Right Told Us What It Had Planned. We Didn’t Listen

The author of a book on white nationalist women argues that grievances voiced by Wednesday's Capitol building mob have long been clearly delineated in white supremacist literature. 

You Think This Is Chaos? The Election of 1876 Was Worse

“I don’t really imagine Ted Cruz knows that much about the election of 1876,” said Eric Foner, an emeritus history professor at Columbia University and a leading Reconstruction scholar.

The Complicated Racial History of the High School D.C. is Renaming

Renaming Woodrow Wilson High after Edna Burke Jackson, who taught history as one of two Black faculty members in the years after desegregation, is an obvious choice. 

Pence Under Pressure To Follow Vote Certification Procedure But Also Please Trump

Princeton University historian Julian Zelizer joins Here & Now's Peter O'Dowd to discuss the difficult position that Vice President Mike Pence is in ahead of the formal Electoral College vote certification in Congress.

Josh Hawley Dodges Question During Fox News Grilling on Election Challenge

Senator Josh Hawley's demands that Congress intervene in the electoral vote certification depends on ignoring that A: Congress formed such a commission in 1877 after three states failed to certify their vote and B: the resulting compromise forfeited the politial and civil rights of Black Americans. 

The Senators Who Were Expelled After Refusing To Accept Lincoln’s Election

by Gillian Brockell

Not since the crisis of secession and the Civil War has the U.S. Senate expelled a member. 

Ebenezer Baptist: MLK’s Church Makes New History In Georgia’s Senate Runoff

Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church was an incubator of the fight for voting rights; its current pastor seeks election as Georgia's U.S. Senator.

Irreplaceable: Illinois Supreme Court Says Community Colleges Can't Lay Off Faculty and Replace with Adjuncts

“To say that someone isn’t capable of earning seniority and therefore they don’t fall within the definition of someone who has less seniority doesn’t really make sense.”