When the New York City banker James Brown tallied his wealth in 1842, he had to look far below Wall Street to trace its origins. His investments in the American South exceeded $1.5 million, a quarter of which was directly bound up in the ownership of slave plantations.
The acquittal of George Zimmerman, the half-white/half-Peruvian neighborhood watchman who shot and killed unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin…
Late last week, I opened my email to find a message with a sad, guilt-trip-laden subject line: “It’s Been Awhile.” I opened it up to a blaring announcement – “WE MISS YOU!” – accompanied by a photo of a woman smiling encouragingly. No, this wasn’t a tender note from a group of sweet long-lost cousins or old high school chums.
Last August, New Orleans resident Julio Gallego was driving his friends Karen Sandoval and Enrique Morales Sosa to pick up school supplies for the couple’s young daughters when an unmarked car flashed its lights at him.
Schools across the country are adorned with posters of the 44 U.S. presidents and the years they served in office.
The failure to convict Michael Dunn for shooting Jordan Davis to death in the course of an argument over whether the 17-year-old and his friends were playing their car stereo too loudly illustrates that, as a practical matter, hot-blooded murder is often perfectly legal under Florida law – and that of many other states as well.
Due to a spate of bizarre rants from members of the 1 percent over the past two weeks, it would be easy to conclude that America’s super-rich have gone off the rails.
“I found myself standing in front of railroad tracks in South Florida. I was waiting on the train to come so I could jump in front of it and end my life.”
Christopher Williams believes that one little box changed the trajectory of his life.
In George Orwell’s 1984, the world is divided into three totalitarian superstates, but in the world of broadband and cable television only a single company may soon reign supreme.
In the past year there has been an explosion of films that dare to intelligently explore the U.S. drug war. Spurred by the rapid reform of cannabis policy, pot is increasingly becoming a centerpiece of American culture.
In a New Deal project of the late 1930s, federally funded writers and photographers asked thousands of former slaves to share their personal stories. (Slave Narratives/Library of Congress)