Langston Hughes, born this day in 1902

Today is the birthday of Langston Hughes, the great African-American poet and playwright. Hughes was named after his maternal grandfather, Charles Langston, who had been one of the defendants in…
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Documenting Ted Cruz’s Citizenship

In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court  held in Arizona v. ITCA that a state could not demand “documentary evidence” of United States citizenship as a condition of registering to vote…
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The Goffman Saga Continues

The New York Times Magazine will have an article on "The Trials of Alice Goffman" on Sunday, January 17.  It is already posted on line here, although it may be…
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CJ Roberts’s Year End Report

At the always interesting PrawfsBlawg, Howard Wasserman has posted an astute observation about Chief Justice Roberts’s Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary. As others have noted, the Chief’s report extolls…
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My Abolitionist Bias

In an otherwise very favorable review of my book, The Colored Hero of Harper’s Ferry, Wayne Wolf concludes that it “displays an obvious bias toward Northern abolitionist thinking.”  Well, yes,…
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