Look to California to Understand Jim Crow

The Violence Black Americans Face Today Is Rooted Everywhere—Including the Nation’s Most Progressive State

This essay was published alongside the Zócalo public program “How Does the Inland Empire Strike Back Against Hate?,” presented in partnership with California Humanities, National Endowment for the Humanities, United We Stand, UCR ARTS, and UCR College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Watch the event here.

For over 25 years I have asked my students in U.S. history courses the same questions about Jim Crow:

“Where does Jim Crow ‘live’?”

“When did it begin?”

“How does it work?”

Their answers almost always focus on Southern states. I have taught …

by Lynn M. Hudson | July 15, 2024

How Two Chicana Nerds Wrote Their Way Back to Oxnard

Michele Serros and I Did Everything We Could to Escape Our SoCal Hometown—Only to Find It Lived Within Us

by Cristina Herrera | June 4, 2024

Growing up as a Chicana nerd, I never thought I’d write a book about myself, much less about Oxnard, where I grew up. This humble city on the Southern California …

No Sleep for Those Under the ‘Jet Superhighway’

A Stealth Change in Flight Patterns to Hollywood Burbank Airport Has Impacted a Huge Stretch of L.A.

by Julia Bricklin | December 20, 2023

It starts around 6:45 a.m.—a faint, faraway boom, followed by a low growl that makes my stomach tighten and hands clench. Within seconds, the growl turns into a low rumbling, …

Which California Baseball Team Has the Worst Owner in Pro Sports?

The Oakland A’s and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim Are in a Race to the Bottom

by Joe Mathews | October 3, 2023

In California, a land blessed with more than its fair share of winners, we learn our most important lessons by dwelling among the losers.

So, in this final week of the …

A Mid-Century Playbook for Saving Progressive American Education

Fifty Years Ago, Parents United to Get the Far-Right John Birch Society Out of Their Schools

by Matthew Dallek | September 19, 2023

This May, an email landed in my inbox. The correspondent, who’d come across my new book on the John Birch Society, wanted to share how members of this far-right anticommunist …

Will SoCal’s Barbie Doll or NorCal’s Bobby Oppenheimer Destroy the World First?

Forget the Big Box Office War of Summer 2023. Barbenheimer Is a Tale of Two Competing California Apocalypses

by Joe Mathews | August 15, 2023

Which region is the greater threat to humanity: Northern California or Southern California?

That’s the most urgent question raised by 2023’s great cinematic contest between Oppenheimer and Barbie.

Sure, these are entertaining …

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