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Civil rights

Going Beyond the Politics of Institutional Racism

Going Beyond the Politics of Institutional Racism

“Institutional racism” was a flawed framework for understanding inequality when it was first introduced by Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton in 1967. Today, as a synonym for “racial disparities,” it is even more obfuscating.

“Civil Rights” as Mythical Origin

“Civil Rights” as Mythical Origin

Christopher Caldwell’s origin story in The Age of Entitlement is frustrating and unconvincing, and nowhere more so than in its lack of attentiveness to the dramatic shifts in black politics in the mid-60s.

A. Philip Randolph on Labor Day and Racial Justice

A. Philip Randolph on Labor Day and Racial Justice

A. Philip Randolph was one of the most prominent civil rights and labor leaders of the twentieth century. Here his Labor Day address at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh in 1967 is reprinted in full.

Class Politics and Status Politics

Class Politics and Status Politics

An excerpt from a classic text on the rise of Prohibition distinguishing class politics from the symbolic, expressive movements of status politics.