What It Was Like to Be a Black Patient in a Jim Crow Asylum
Mother Jones; Mark Clennon Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.In March 1911, the segregated Crownsville asylum opened outside Baltimore, Maryland, admitting only Black patients. It was the first to house Black people in the state, but when they arrived, their main role wasn’t to…
The Crackdown on Pro-Palestinian Students Is a Disaster for Free Speech
A protester holds a Palestinian flag during demonstration at Penn State on October 12, 2023.Paul Weaver/Sipa via AP Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.Last month, the head of Florida’s public university system issued a directive. After consulting with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), Chancellor Ray…
How the 47-Percent Video Drove Mitt Romney to Depression and Nearly Out of the 2012 Race
J. Scott Applewhite/AP Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.During the 2012 presidential campaign, when I obtained and posted a secretly recorded video of GOP nominee Mitt Romney deriding 47 percent of Americans as shiftless freeloaders who don’t “take personal responsibility and care for their…
Moms for Liberty Is Taking Over Banned Books Week
Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.It’s the American Library Association’s annual Banned Books Week, a tradition that started in 1982. This year, the theme is “Let Freedom Read!” in honor of record-breaking efforts to censor books now sweeping the nation’s libraries and schools. Yesterday, I…
What Does It Mean to Protect Children?
Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.The Campbell County Public Library is a handsome, low-slung building in the center of the small city of Gillette, Wyoming. Steps lead up to two sturdy stone columns that support an overhang, where patrons can sit on benches protected…
This Book Will Change How You Think About Protest Forever
Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.On June 13, 2013, the Brazilian military police attacked the journalist Vincent Bevins. A foreign correspondent in São Paulo working for the Los Angeles Times and the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, Bevins was covering a protest by Movimento Passe…