In chapter 17 of his seminal work Black Reconstruction in America, titled “The Propaganda of History,” W.E.B. DuBois details the lessons American school children and college students are learning about the Reconstruction Era in the 1930s, according to the textbooks and “historians” of the...

Public conversations about inequality in the United States often return to a familiar explanation. When communities experience persistent poverty, struggling schools, or unstable housing, the discussion quickly turns to...