The new case for reparations

Plus: Queen Elizabeth I and Elvis |

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By Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer As governments and companies marked Juneteenth on June 19 as a national holiday for the second time this year, the holiday offered a time to reflect on the promises of full racial equality still yet to be fulfilled since the Civil War. TIME’s Senior Correspondent on Race and Identities Janell Ross used the occasion to look more broadly at the state of the movement to provide reparations to Black Americans for the unpaid labor of slavery. “The drumbeat for reparations for Black Americans—an idea floated during the final stages of the Civil War and again during doomed resurgences in both the 1890s and 1980s—is sounding again, perhaps louder than ever before,” Ross writes. Click here to read the full story. Here’s more history to know:

HISTORY ON TIME.COM Column: Juneteenth's Vision of Freedom Expresses American Values Better Than the Fourth of July's By Kermit Roosevelt If we already had one Independence Day, why did we need another? This works as a question about the holidays, but also about the history Read More » The Surprisingly Progressive Promises of General Order No. 3, Which Ended Slavery in Texas By Simmone Shah The language of Order No. 3 also promised a lot that couldn't be delivered, advising freedmen to "remain quietly at their present homes" and "work for wages" without any way to guarantee either Read More » What People Get Wrong About the History of Bisexuality By Julia Shaw Bisexuality introduces nuance, which has always made it easier to discard than accommodate it Read More » The True Story Behind Starz’s Becoming Elizabeth By Shannon Carlin 'Becoming Elizabeth', airing Sundays, delves into the real-life royal drama that played out following the death of Elizabeth's absentee father, King Henry VIII, and his decision to name his first surviving and only legitimate son, nine-year-old Edward VI, heir to the throne Read More » Elvis Still Has Not Left the Building By Stephanie Zacharek Baz Luhrmann's new movie, with its frenetic, prismatic quality, may be the best way to deal with the messy whole of Elvis and the complexity of his legacy Read More »

FROM THE TIME VAULT This week in 1968: Guns “Americans have turned their country into an arsenal. Today they own somewhere between 50 million and 200 million pistols and revolvers, shotguns and rifles, as well as uncounted machine guns, hand grenades, bazookas, mortars, even anti tank guns. At least 3,000,000 more are bought each year, some two thirds through the mails—'as easily,' in Lyndon Johnson's words, 'as baskets of fruit or cartons of cigarettes.' Said Maryland's Democratic Senator Joseph Tydings last week in an appeal for more effective legislation to curb this traffic: ‘It is just tragic that in all of Western civilization the U.S. is the one country with an insane gun policy.’” (June 21, 1968) Read More » This week in 1991: Thelma and Louise “So few movies place women at their center that when one does it is held up to the light and turned every which way for clues about the state of the gender. This may be more freight than Thelma & Louise can carry. But not since Fatal Attraction has a movie provoked such table-pounding discussions between men and women…As a bulletin from the front in the battle of the sexes, Thelma & Louise sends the message that little ground has been won. For these two women, feminism never happened. Thelma and Louise are so trapped that the only way for them to get away for more than two days is to go on the lam.” (June 24, 1991) Read More » This week in 2003: Harry Potter "’I admire bravery above almost every other characteristic,’ Rowling told TIME a few months later, when she sat down to talk about the  characters she had created…for an entire generation of children, the most powerful entertainment experience of their lives comes not on a screen or  a monitor or a disc but on a page. So many of those children will be tired come Saturday morning, June 21, because on the shortest night of the year, the night when whatever you dream is said to come true, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix goes on sale at one minute past midnight.” (June 23, 2003) Read More »

HIGHLIGHTS FROM AROUND THE WEB Sports: Historian Claude Johnson talks to CBS News’ James Brown about how African American basketball teams helped popularize the sport. Pride Month: NBC News’ Matt Lavietes profiled writer Eric Cervini, a Pulitzer finalist for his book on astronomer and gay rights activist Frank Kameny. World: NPR's Sacha Pfeiffer talks to the archivist “racing” to preserve the history of human rights abuses in the Philippines following the election of Bongbong Marcos, the son of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. Music: For the BBC, journalist Holly Williams writes about how musicians are digging into the 16th century work of Vicente Lusitano—the first known published Black composer. Museums:  CNN’s Catherine E. Shoichet interviews the founding director of the National Museum of the American Latino, Jorge Zamanillo, about how he plans to document Latino history in the Smithsonian’s newest museum.

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