Editor's note and introduction / !r Jake Silverstein

!t The idea of America / !r Nikole Hannah-Jones

!t Chained migration: how slavery made its way west / !r Tiya Miles

!t Middle Passage / !r Clint Smith

!t Crispus Attucks / !r Yusef Komunyakaa

!t Capitalism / !r Matthew Desmond

!t Mortgaging the future: the North-South rift led to a piecemeal system of bank regulation - with dangerous consequences / !r Mehrsa Baradaran

!t Good as gold: in Lincoln's wartime "greenbacks," a preview of the 20th century rise of fiat currency / !r Mehrsa Baradaran

!t Fabric of modernity: how Southern cotton became the cornerstone of a new global commodities trade / !r Mehrsan Baradaran

!t Municipal bonds: how slavery built Wall Street / !r Tiya Miles

!t Phillis Wheatley / !r Eve L. Ewing

!t Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 / !r Reginald Dwayne Betts

!t A broken health care system / !r Jeneen Interlandi

!t Gabriel's Rebellion / !r Barry Jenkins

!t Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves / !r Jesmyn Ward

!t Traffic / !r Kevin M. Kruse

!t Undemocratic democracy / !r Jamelle Bouie

!t Medical inequality / !r Linda Villarosa

!t Black Seminoles / !r Tyehimba Jess

!t Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 / !r Darryl Pinckney

!t New Orleans massacre of 1866 / !r ZZ Packer

!t American popular music / !r Wesley Morris

!t Tuskegee syphilis experiment / !r Yaa Gyasi

!t Sgt. Isaac Woodard / !r Jacqueline Woodson

!t Sugar / !r Khalil Gibran Muhammad

!t Pecan pioneer: the enslaved man who cultivated the South's favorite nut / !r Tiya Miles

!t 16th Street Baptist Church bombing / !r Rita Dove and Camille T. Dungy

!t Black Panther Party / !r Joshua Bennett

!t Mass incarceration / !r Bryan Stevenson

!t The wealth gap / !r Trymaine Lee

!t The birth of hip-hop / !r Lynn Nottage

!t Rev. Jesse Jackson's "rainbow coalition" speech / !r Kiese Laymon

!t Superdome after Hurricane Katrina / !r Clint Smith

!t Hope : a photo essay / !r Djeneba Aduayom

!t Shadow of the past / !r Anne C. Bailey

!t Why can't we teach this / !r Nikita Stewart

!t No. 1. Slavery, power and the human cost, 1455-1775

!t No. 2. The limits of freedom, 1776-1808

!t No. 3. A slave nation fights for freedom, 1809-1865.