Civil Rights

Eleanor Roosevelt’s Second Act

After the death of her husband in 1945, Eleanor Roosevelt left the White House and embarked upon a new career as ‘First Lady of the World’.

The Man behind the Leader

Bayard Rustin, African American civil rights leader, was also a pacifist, a socialist and a gay rights activist.

Policing Abortion

Recent restrictions on the right to abortion in the United States imitate policies enacted 150 years ago.

Out on Good Behaviour

Mississippi’s governors have had a unique approach to prison labour and prisoner rehabilitation. 

The Man who Haunts America

John Brown, the abolitionist firebrand, remains a potent figure in the United States’ febrile politics of race.

A Stand on the Streetcar

How an individual act of resistance in 1850s’ New York led to the desegregation of the city’s transit system.

On the Wrong Side of History

A celebrated novelist and tireless social reformer, Mary Ward has been all but forgotten because of her support for the anti-suffrage movement.

Birth of a Freedom Fighter

Nat Turner, leader of one of the most significant rebellions in the antebellum South, was born on 2 October 1800.