Civil rights
Murder of Black suffrage leader Octavius Catto reveals why Election Day 1871 was one of the most violent in Philadelphia history
Philadelphia has given the intersection of 8th and South streets a new name: Octavius Catto Way.
What to do if your vote is challenged: Practical advice for midterm elections
On Election Day, you go to vote – and you’re told you’re not registered or you’re not eligible to vote. A civil rights lawyer provides a guide so voters can know their rights to cast a ballot.
Indictments against a top extremism researcher and the SPLC force a reckoning on research ethics – an extremism scholar reflects on the field’s challenges
Indictments of a longtime extremism researcher and her former organization raise a crucial question for researchers in the field: What are the ethical limits on research about often-dangerous groups?
The United States’ human rights practices are taking a nosedive
New data from a global rights-tracking project shows the country had large declines in 2025 on 8 of the 9 civil and political rights it measures.
Juneteenth, Jim Crow and how the fight of one Black Texas family to make freedom real offers lessons for Texas lawmakers trying to erase history from the classroom
For the formerly enslaved Black people in Texas, Juneteenth meant more than freedom. It meant reuniting families and building schools and developing political power.
Conspiracy theories that emerged from a civil rights shooting 60 years ago resonate today
The modern rhetorical and political resistance to racial equality finds its roots in the conspiratorial segregationists of the civil rights era.
The forgotten story of abolition in revolutionary France – the first emancipation
Decades before the United States, France outlawed slavery during the French Revolution – only to see it reimposed by Napoleon within a decade.
US refugee policy for white South Africans is part of a century‑long effort to keep some English‑speaking nations white
Australia, Canada and the US identified themselves as ‘white men’s countries’ in the early 20th century and coordinated immigration restrictions to keep them that way.
Philadelphia continues long history of Black‑led protest meetings aimed at fighting racial inequity and prejudice
A packed public meeting at a senior center in January 2025 continues a Philly tradition that dates back to a meeting at Mother Bethel AME Church in January 1817.
75 years after she led a student strike that helped end school segregation, Barbara Rose Johns now stands in the US Capitol where Robert E. Lee once did
In December 2025, the statue of Barbara Rose Johns replaced that of Robert E. Lee as one of the two Virginians displayed in the U.S. Capitol. Here’s why.