The Strange Ritual of Commencement Speeches
Where everything and nothing is at stake
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Illustration by Tyler Comrie The Men Who Started the War
John Brown and the Secret Six—the abolitionists who funded the raid on Harpers Ferry—confronted a question as old as America: When is violence justified?
Illustration by Matt Williams What Life Magazine Taught Me About Life
As a child, I saw the country in its photos, stories, and advertisements—and learned some hard truths about America.
Photo-illustration by Joanne Imperio / The Atlantic. Sources: LIFE / District of Columbia Public Library The Blindness of ‘Color-Blindness’
When the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the future of affirmative action, I knew I had to be there.
Erik Carter / The Atlantic; Getty The Grimke Sisters and the Indelible Stain of Slavery
The abolitionists have long been portrayed as heroes. A new book views them, and their family, in a different light.
Tejumola Butler Adenuga Gen Z Never Learned to Read Cursive
How will they interpret the past?
Illustration by Katie Martin. Source: Library of Congress. What to Do About William Faulkner
A white man of the Jim Crow South, he couldn’t escape the burden of race, yet derived creative force from it.
Bettmann / Getty Race, History, and Memories of a Virginia Girlhood
A historian looks back at the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow in her home state.
Illustration: Najeebah Al-Ghadban; Steve Helber / AP; Library of Congress; Library of Virginia
