Vann R. Newkirk II
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Zora J. Murff The Great Land Robbery
The shameful story of how 1 million black families have been ripped from their farms
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Associated Press Balancing the Ledger on Juneteenth
The debate over reparations highlights the dual purpose of the holiday: celebrating emancipation but also demanding accountability for historical and present wrongs.
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Universal Us and Jordan Peele’s New Horror
In his latest film, the comedian turned director continues to reinvent how the genre uses fear to comment on humanity’s evil.
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Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP Senate Democrats’ Push to Expand Voting Rights
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is unveiling a proposal to combat disenfranchisement, which he says is one of the “three biggest issues” the country faces going into 2020.
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Marvin Gentry / Reuters The Democrats’ New Voting-Rights Moment
The party hopes to restore and extend key provisions of the Voting Rights Act.
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Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP Will Cohen’s Remarks on Trump’s Racism Change Anything?
The president has somehow proved resilient to accusations that he is a racist.
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John Minchillo / AP The Racial Divide Is the Political Divide
White, black, and Hispanic people hold distinctly different views of American identity and values.
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Kevin Morley / Associated Press The Virginia Democrats’ Warring Factions
Scandals reveal a party beset by infighting and whispers of conspiracies.
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Associated Press Stacey Abrams’s New Strategy for Democrats
In her response to the president’s State of the Union address, the former Georgia legislator pushed voting rights to the heart of her party’s agenda.
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Steve Helber / AP Ralph Northam’s Mistake
The Virginia governor’s main problem is not the particulars of his dalliances with racism, but the fact that they exist—and that they caught black voters unawares.
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Eric Gay / AP Texas Voter-Fraud Claims Don’t Have to Be True to Achieve Their Goal
So far there’s no evidence that anyone on a faulty list of registered voters cast an illegal ballot. That didn’t stop President Trump from decrying “voter fraud.”
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John Bazemore / AP Why Democrats Picked Stacey Abrams to Deliver Their Trump Counterpunch
The decision to tap Abrams for their State of the Union response reflects the importance of this year’s address to the party.
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Rick Bowmer / Associated Press How a Ballot Initiative to Expand Medicaid in Utah May Be Denied
Republican lawmakers don’t want to fully implement a ballot initiative passed in November. One health-care advocate called it “trampling on … representative democracy.”
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Patrick Semansky / AP The Shutdown Showed How Precarious Americans’ Finances Really Are
What began as an impasse over the border wall became a warning sign of creeping instability.
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Evan Vucci / AP The Consequences of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Canonization
The civil-rights leader is now celebrated as a modern founding father, a celebration that gives those who oppose his policy agenda a claim to his legacy.
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Mary Altaffer / AP The Citizenship Question Isn’t Quite Dead Yet
A federal judge held that the Trump administration’s desired change to the census violates the law, but the Supreme Court could review the decision.
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Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP The Racial Wealth Gap Could Become a 2020 Litmus Test
With black votes in the balance in the Democratic primary, would-be candidates are already developing aggressive policies to target inequality.
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Jonathan Ernst / Reuters That Time Trump Threw Paper Towels at Puerto Ricans
In the history of Puerto Rico, the president’s name will be tied closely to the story of Hurricane Maria.
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Evan Vucci / AP Trump Is Using the Opioid Crisis to Build His Wall
The epidemic is an integral part of the president’s anti-immigration rhetoric, but it otherwise hasn’t become an urgent part of his policy agenda.
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Cliff Owen / Associated Press Trump Proposes Food-Stamp Work Requirements That He Couldn’t Get Through Congress
Opponents fear that the end of state waivers won’t increase employment among low-income people—but will send deep poverty soaring.
