Reconstruction

A new initiative by the National Park Service seeks to designate sites for their historic significance in the Reconstruction era. It's a bold and vital move for an agency that has only recently begun to seriously address the racial complexities of the Civil War.

• By Maura Ewing

In her new book, Elaine Frantz Parsons re-traces the origins of the 19th-century KKK, which began as a social club before swiftly moving to murder.

• By Malcolm Harris

The racial empathy gap, then and now.

• By Lisa Wade

And a four-figure temperature control device for $220,000.

• By Marc Herman