In Atlanta, Every Day Was MLK Day

If You Grow Up Black in King’s Hometown, You Can’t Help But See His Story Intertwine with Your Own

To grow up in Atlanta is to be always aware of the story of Martin Luther King, Jr., and to see it intertwine with your own fate.

I was born there in 1978, less than a mile from the house where King grew up. As a schoolchild, I like others, visited Atlanta’s Auburn Avenue—the street where King was born, worked, died, and is honored. To see King’s neighborhood, and the home he was born in, humanized him for us children, letting us know that he was once young like us, …

The Freeway Is the Perfect Place to Protest Ferguson

Blocking Traffic Is an Inconvenience to Commuters. It's Also a Reminder of How Highway Construction Has Segregated Our Cities.

After grand juries in New York and Missouri failed to indict police officers who killed unarmed black men, protestors across the nation vented their outrage by shutting down roads. In …

What Color Should a Quarterback Be?

How James Harris Changed the NFL’s Marquee Role

An hour or two before kickoff on the night of August 15, 1969, a rookie quarterback named James Harris noticed a well-dressed man about a foot shorter than him approaching …

Can We Be Optimistic with Millions Behind Bars?

The Way Americans Talk About Prisons Has Shifted. The Nation’s Policies Have Yet to Catch Up.

Should we be optimistic about the criminal justice and prison systems in America? This was the question Tim Golden, The Marshall Project’s managing editor for investigations and news, posed to …

Is the Atlanta Hawks’ Racial Quandary America’s Future?

The Central Question of the Coming Decades Is How Whites Will React to Becoming Minorities

It’s not surprising that the release of Atlanta Hawks co-owner Bruce Levenson’s racially provocative e-mail about his team’s fan base didn’t inspire the same level of public outrage as the …

The Civil Rights Act Is Broken

A Law Written to Protect Blacks in the Deep South Has Become a Source of Discrimination in a Diversifying Nation

Californians, like other Americans, like to think that race should never be a qualification for a job, that everyone deserves an equal opportunity and a fair shake. This principle undergirds …