Jeffrey Goldberg: A Matter of Black Lives (The Atlantic)
Since 1980, more than 260,000 black men have been killed in America. Mitch Landrieu, the mayor of New Orleans, is on a crusade to stop the killing.
Ta-Nehisi Coates: On the Killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman (The Atlantic)
An intelligent, self-interested observer of this case, who happens to live in Florida, would not be wrong to do as George Zimmerman did—buy a gun, master the finer points of Florida self-defense law, and then wait.
Daniel Stashower: The Unsuccessful Plot to Kill Abraham Lincoln (Smithsonian Magazine)
On the eve of his first inauguration, President Lincoln snuck into Washington in the middle of the night, evading the would-be assassins who waited for him in Baltimore.