Ideas

Woodcut print depicts yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia, 1793. Carriages rumbled through the streets to pick up the dying and the dead.

How Free Black People Helped Fight America's First Epidemic and Transformed the Nation's Capital

Americans never saw it coming. Hardly anyone in Philadelphia, the nation’s ...

Americans never saw it coming. Hardly anyone in Philadelphia, the nation’s temporary capital, noticed the first to die in the summer of 1793, a few weeks after the celebration of Independence Day: a few foreigners,...

Men gather outside the charred remains of The Daily Record after the 1898 race riots in Wilmington, North Carolina.

The 1898 Wilmington Massacre Is an Essential Lesson in How State Violence Has Targeted Black Americans

In the summer of 1865, just after the Civil War, Union commanders in the ba...

In the summer of 1865, just after the Civil War, Union commanders in the battered port city of Wilmington, N.C., appointed a former Confederate general as police chief and former Confederate soldiers as policemen. The...

The tent of a coronavirus drive through testing site sits in the car park of Hopwood Hall College during the coronavirus pandemic on April 27, 2020 in Rochdale, United Kingdom.

The U.S. and U.K. Were the Two Best Prepared Nations to Tackle a Pandemic—What Went Wrong?

On Oct. 24, 2019—45 days before the world’s first suspected case of COVID-1...

On Oct. 24, 2019—45 days before the world’s first suspected case of COVID-19 was announced—a new “scorecard” was published called the Global Health Security Index. The scorecard ranked countries on how prepared they were to...

People gather to stage a protest against Israel's annexation plan of Jordan Valley, located in the occupied West Bank, outside the Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO) in Gaza City, Gaza on June 29, 2020

How Palestinians Can Reunite Under a New Agenda to Counter Israel's Annexation

The Palestinian leadership must rethink past commitments in order to build ...

The Palestinian leadership must rethink past commitments in order to build a new future together, writes former prime minister Salam Fayyad

Sylvia Rivera at her Hudson riverfront home encampment in New York in 1996

Why We Owe Gay Marriage to an Early Trans Activist

History is written by the victors, but what does it mean if we achieved vic...

History is written by the victors, but what does it mean if we achieved victory only because of someone else’s battle? As a historian of LGBTQ+ politics and culture, it’s my obligation to look at...

The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on June 29, 2020.

The Supreme Court Delivered a Surprise Win on Abortion Rights. Here's Why It's Not Enough

This month the Supreme Court has been full of surprises, handing a complete...

This month the Supreme Court has been full of surprises, handing a completely unexpected win to supporters of abortion rights today. The ruling follows two surprising rulings issued last week, one protecting LGBTQ Americans from...

We Have a Cheap, Effective Way to Keep Ourselves Safer From COVID-19. Why Are We Fighting About It?

At long last, we have made a truly game-changing scientific breakthrough in...

At long last, we have made a truly game-changing scientific breakthrough in preventing the spread of COVID-19. The impact of this breakthrough seems almost too good to be true. We have found a disease control...