Brad Snyder

Agree, though I think what we really, desperately need is a movie that runs from Appomattox to the Compromise of 1877. America needs an anti-Birth of a Nation to understand how the heroes of Reconstruction got
sidelined.

the voting rights act is, in its entirety, obviously constitutional under the 15th amendment, which gives congress broad and proactive authority to stop racial discrimination in voting. and you know it is obviously constitutional because roberts has had to invent entire new doctrines to gut it.

This Is the Presidency John Roberts Has Built The country is witnessing the creation of an all-powerful institution, and one man is responsible.

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

The Radical Fund: How a Band of Visionaries and a Million Dollars Upended America by John Fabian Witt Pulitzer finalist Witt (American Contagions) unearths the nearly forgotten history of the American Fund for Public Service, an e...

Starred review from @publisherswkly.bsky.social says The Radical Fund is “an immense and essential achievement” with an “exhilarating range of figures” and “stark parallels with the present.” www.publishersweekly.com/9781476765877

A Brief Guide to “Supreme Court Beach,” a Painting That Portrays More of Sam Alito’s Nude Torso Than I’d Cared to Contemplate Answers to all your burning questions, like: Why does this exist? What is Shakespeare doing there? And which real-life Supreme Court justice bought the original to hang in his chambers?

You asked, @jaywillis.net answers, all the hard-hitting questions about Supreme Court Beach. You'll never guess which supreme court justice owns the original

A painting of lots of white people in swimsuits at the beach. A closer look reveals that they are mostly supreme court justices. Clarence Thomas is in the foreground apparently buried in the sand. Obama is walking in the back

UT Law is hanging new art. And, yes, that is Justice Alito in a swimsuit right outside my office

121/141 2025 Official Submission #MAAHStoneAtoZ

For example, Reconstruction. A generation of historians, from Eric Foner to Manisha Sinha, have built a rich portrait of the profound "unfinished revolution" of Reconstruction. I don't claim academic mastery, but it raised questions for me about Custer, though we associate him with the West.
3/12

I write serious history—via biography—for a non-academic audience. So I'd like to say something about Ken Burns's remark, something that also explains why AI can't write history.

Pardon me for citing the example of one of my books, "Custer's Trials," on one of history's best-known figures.
1/12

I'm now obsessed with this image of sailors on the deck of a U.S. Navy gunboat during the Civil War. The guy with the banjo. The guy with the pipe. The guy reading the newspaper. The guy holding a dog.
catalog.archives.gov/id/526207

Wonderful evening talking about the Declaration of Independence over the years with David Blight, Akhil Reed Amar, and Jeff Rosen at the National Convention Center.

Centre College to honor Justice John Marshall Harlan with sculpture by artist Ed Hamilton U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan will be honored by his alma mater, Centre College, with a sculpture, lecture series and more

www.centre.edu/news/centre-...

The Posse Comitatus Act was a symbolic gesture to mark the death of Reconstruction but it was also a practical measure that ensured that white supremacist state governments enjoyed a monopoly of force. In effect, the federal government could no longer intervene.

Historian here good to see the caning of Charles Sumner get this attention. I published an article on it a long time ago in the Journal of the Early Republic which was one of their most downloaded articles for some time. jstor.org/stable/3125037

David H. Souter, Republican Justice Who Allied With Court’s Liberal Wing, Dies at 85

Justice Marshall jokingly called him "Junior" when he was elevated the year I clerked for Marshall at the Court. A very kind, decent and thoughtful man who was non-ideological, just and humane in his reasoning. May he rest in peace! www.nytimes.com/2025/05/09/u...

Hidden legacies! Our new American pope was born in Chicago, but his maternal ancestors were Creoles of color from New Orleans, according to Jari Honora, a genealogist and family historian at the Historic New Orleans Collection. #PopeLeoXIV

Brad Snyder with Brian Jones: You Can’t Kill a Man Because of the Books He Reads: Angelo Herndon’s Fight for Free Speech Join Author and Professor Brad Snyder as he discusses his new book "You Can’t Kill a Man Because of the Books He Reads: Angelo Herndon’s Fight for Free Speech" with the Director of the Center for Educ...

NY friends: My book talk at the @nypl.bsky.social is tomorrow at 6:30 pm. Register here - especially if you are looking for something to do besides grade exams. www.nypl.org/events/progr...

#OTD The Supreme Court rules in 1937 that Angelo Herndon's conviction for attempting to incite insurrection violated his rights to free speech & peaceable assembly: "The power of a state to abridge freedom of speech and of assembly is the exception, rather than the rule. . . ."

Valuable new paper from Wisconsin's David Schwartz about Dred Scott, due process, and enumerated powers:

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

In New Book, Professor Brad Snyder Illuminates Overlooked History of Landmark Civil Liberties Case Once among the most famous Black men in 1930s America, Angelo Herndon — a Communist Party organizer wrongly convicted of attempting to incite insurrection and sentenced to a chain gang by an all-white...

Q&A | "It’s important to remember that the rights to free speech and peaceable assembly are no accident: They were hard-won and fought for."

@bradsnyderprof.bsky.social discusses his new book on Angelo Herndon and the landmark SCOTUS decision that upheld the right to protest. 🔗 bit.ly/4czqVgc

The Supreme Court Precedent That Should Free Mahmoud Khalil Khalil's best hope going forward is to rely on a Supreme Court decision won by radical New York lawyer Carol Weiss King.

Thanks to @slate.com for allowing me to tell the story of radical lawyer Carol Weiss King and how her victory in Bridges v. Wixon protects the due process and free speech rights of noncitizens such as Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk. slate.com/news-and-pol...

A book titled, "Beyond the Shadow of the Senators by Brad Snyder" sits on a wooden table next to a dark blue baseball cap with a white G (a Homestead Grays cap)

Been having a great time reading @bradsnyderprof.bsky.social's history of the Homestead Grays. Surprised there isn't more written about the Grays(the book is over 20 years old), but enjoying the mix of social and sport analysis in the era before integration.

So honored to have joined the scores of writers and scholars who gathered in Montgomery this weekend for an incredible conference: Telling the Stories of Black Lives through Biography! It was sponsored by @biographersintl.bsky.social, which creates a wonderful community for all of us. Such a balm!

Gerard Magliocca on Jackson's Steel Seizure concurrence. As is typical, we learn something new from Magliocca--for instance, that Jackson adopted language nearly verbatim from a memo by Assistant SG Bell!

muse.jhu.edu/article/9532...

@bradsnyderprof.bsky.social I just finished Brad Snyder’s wonderfully crafted book on Curt Flood, A Well-Paid Slave. This is one of the most compelling non-fiction reads I’ve ever come across!

John Feinstein, sports commentator and best-selling author, dies at 69 He had a long affiliation with The Washington Post and wrote books including “A Season on the Brink,” about Indiana University men’s basketball coach Bob Knight.

John Feinstein has been a great mentor and friend since I interviewed him in high school. The Season on the Brink blew my mind as a basketball-obsessed teenager. I would not be writing books today if it were not for John. May his memory be a blessing. www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2...

Should tag the author since he is on Blue Sky.

@bradsnyderprof.bsky.social

But having the second (Dylan Harper), third (VJ Edgecombe), or fourth pick (Ace Bailey) is better than having the fifth -- the problem with having the second-worst record if the lottery fails the Wiz entirely -- which is indeed the likeliest outcome.

Love the reference. Worried the Wiz are going to win they're out of the #1 spot in the lottery.

Brad Snyder — You Can't Kill a Man Because of the Books He Reads: Angelo Herndon's Fight for Free Speech - with Stephen I. Vladeck — at Conn Ave

D.C. Friends: Join me and my superstar colleague @stevevladeck.bsky.social for a conversation about my new book, You Can't Kill a Man Because of the Books He Reads @wwnorton.bsky.social, tonight at 7pm at Politics and Prose on Conn. Ave. politics-prose.com/brad-snyder