Blurred Bylines

After surviving an attack in 1986, Ellen Halbert worked with survivors of violent crime and became an advocate for restorative justice in Texas.

Prison gerrymandering uses the disproportionate incarceration of Blacks and Latinos to bolster political power of mostly rural, Republican-controlled voting districts.

Martha Mitchell quickly became a household name during Richard Nixon’s presidency due to her inflammatory public statements and ability to produce an electrifying story for the press. As the wife of John Mitchell, U.S. attorney general and eventual head of CREEP, Martha relished her close ties with some of the Republican party’s biggest stars in Washington. However, in the immediate aftermath of the Watergate break-in, Mitchell’s insider knowledge threatened Nixon to his core. In an effort to cover-up the White House’s involvement in Watergate, the Nixon administration waged an all-out war against her credibility – and it worked.

“Baby Esther” Jones was an international star known for captivating audiences with her signature “boop-oop-a-doop” singing style. But as a Black child in Jim Crow-era America, Jones’ legacy was forced into obscurity, lost to a white singer who copied her style and claimed it as her own. This is the story of Betty Boop’s original influence, and star in her own right, the incredible Esther Jones.

During the Watsonville Riots of 1930, hundreds of white men attacked Filipino farmworkers in a series of nightly assaults that ended when a young Filipino man was killed. Nativist and xenophobic attitudes against Asians, and Filipinos in particular, hit a fever pitch in California as working class whites felt threatened by an influx of immigration.

During the Revolutionary War in 1775, a smallpox epidemic ravaged Boston and thousands of soldiers serving in the Continental Army. George Washington understood first-hand the dangers of smallpox, and formulated a plan to protect his troops from the virus. He strongly advocated for smallpox inoculations, or vaccinations, for his men.

After facing anonymous threats in the mail in 1914, Constance Kopp worked to uncover the man responsible. Soon, she began to solve crimes.