The Magazine
Voices of American Dissent: An Archival Issue
July 27, 2020
Reporting
- Letter from Jackson
The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi
From 1964: An encounter with Martin Luther King, Jr., during a summer of pressure.
- The Political Scene
The Matter of Black Lives
From 2016: A new kind of movement found its moment. What will its future be?
- Profiles
The Climate Expert Who Delivered News No One Wanted to Hear
From 2009: How a scientist known as the “father of global warming” watched his dire predictions for the planet come true.
- Profiles
Toni Morrison and the Ghosts in the House
From 2003: As an editor, author, and professor, Morrison has fostered a generation of black writers.
- Profiles
Larry Kramer, Public Nuisance
From 2002: The man who warned America about AIDS can’t stop fighting hard—and loudly.
The Critics
- Books
The Desires of Margaret Fuller
From 2013: The writer had a dazzling intelligence and was once the best-read woman in America, but a public hungry for transgressive heroines has failed to embrace her.
- A Critic at Large
The Rise and Fall of Cesar Chavez
From 2014: How the labor leader disserved his dream.
The Talk of the Town
David Remnick on the legacy of John Lewis’s bravery; Langston Hughes remembered; N.Y.C. abortion battles; COVID takes the mother of a trans Latinx community.
- Comment
John Lewis’s Legacy and America’s Redemption
The civil-rights leader, who died Friday, acknowledged the darkest chapters of the country’s history, yet insisted that change was always possible.
- Dept. of Memorials
Columbia’s Overdue Apology to Langston Hughes
From 1967: Seven months after the death of the Black writer, Professor James P. Shenton acknowledged at a memorial, “For a while, there lived a poet down the street from Columbia, and Columbia never took the time to find out what he was about.”
- Dept. of Public Health
Feminist Agitation for the Repeal of a New York State Abortion Law
From 1969: Newspapers that mention the Cook bill at all tend to treat it as a quixotic oddity. Most people do not know that it exists, and some legislators have professed not to have heard of it.
- Postscript
Remembering Lorena Borjas, the Mother of a Trans Latinx Community
From 2020: Borjas, who died in March, of complications from COVID-19, left behind a community of transgender women and countless L.G.B.T.-rights activists who looked to her for guidance, inspiration, and love.
Cartoons
Fiction
- Fiction
“The Lottery”
From 1948: “The people had done it so many times that they only half listened to the directions; most of them were quiet, wetting their lips, not looking around.”
Poems
- Poems
“Still-Life with Potatoes, Pearls, Raw Meat, Rhinestones, Lard, and Horse Hooves”
“Death is natural, at least in Spanish, I think. / Life? I’m not so sure.”
Goings On About Town
- Art
Eye-Catching Art for an Unprecedented Summer, in “Monuments Now”
The outdoor exhibition at Socrates Sculpture Park includes Jeffrey Gibson’s kaleidoscopic ziggurat “Because Once You Enter My House, It Becomes Our House,” performances by indigenous American artists, and more.
- Tables for Two
Ethiopian Tradition for the Vegan-Curious, at Ras Plant Based
At Romeo and Milka Regalli’s Crown Heights restaurant, vegan proteins stand in for meats, and tangy, fermented injera soaks up sauces spiked with traditional berbere spice or puckery lime.
