slavery

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  5/29/2020
  

  The Conspiracy Theories That Fueled the Civil War

  The most powerful people and institutions in the South spread paranoia and fear to protect slavery, leading the country to war, as historians Matthew J. Clavin and Manisha Sinha explain. 

• 
• SOURCE: American Civil Liberties Union
  5/26/2020
  

  Reparations – Has the Time Finally Come?

  ACLU Senior Policy Analyst Nkechi Taifa discusses the history of the movement for African American reparations and how it has moved from the radical fringe to mainstream debate.

• 
• SOURCE: Creators Syndicate
  5/27/2020
  

  Baltimore Was a Key Place For Trump, If He Only Knew

  by Jamie Stiehm

  It's odd that Trump could give a speech about Francis Scott Key with nearly all the facts wrong; the slaveowner was a key adviser to Andrew Jackson, the model for Trump's brand of white reactionary populism.

• 
• SOURCE: Paris Review
  5/21/2020
  

  America’s First Connoisseur

  James Hemings, one of Thomas Jefferson's slaves, taught his fellow slaves at Monticello everything he knew about food, transmitting his influence down the generations, onto the tables of Virginia’s social elite.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  5/26/2020
  

  We’ve Forgotten the Worst President in American History

  by Ted Widmer

  What is the legacy of bad presidents today? Do we need them to remind us of the perils of the job? If so, Americans should be grateful to James Buchanan.

• 
• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  5/18/2020
  

  Is Capitalism Racist?

  Nicholas Lemann considers Walter Johnson's new book The Broken Heart of America in light of recent debates among historians about the relationship of slavery, capitalism and racism.

• 
• SOURCE: Charleston Post and Courier
  5/13/2020
  

  On this Day in 1862: Robert Smalls's Daring Escape from Charleston

  Today marks the anniversary of one of the most dramatic episodes in the Civil War--Robert Smalls's escape from slavery in a stolen Confederate naval ship.

• 
• SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
  5/8/2020
  

  ‘The 1619 Project’ Tells a False Story About Capitalism, Too

  by Allen C. Guelzo

  Allen Guelzo argues that pro-slavery southerners portrayed their society as opposed to growing industrial capitalism, not the integral part of it that some recent historians have claimed. 

• 
• SOURCE: Daily Tar Heel
  5/10/2020
  

  Commission on History, Race and a Way Forward Hears from UVA Leaders, Looks Ahead

  A commission at the University of North Carolina looked to the University of Virginia for guidance on reckoning with the institution's historical involvement with slavery and the Confederacy.  

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  5/4/2020
  

  We’re Still Living and Dying in the Slaveholders’ Republic

  by Ibram X. Kendi

  The kind of freedom southern secessionists demanded in 1860--freedom to enslave and exploit--are echoed by the individualist idea of freedom proclaimed by anti-shutdown protesters today. Both ignore equally important communal definitions of freedom.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  5/6/2020
  

  The ‘1619 Project’ is Filled with Slovenliness and Ideological Ax-Grinding

  Conservative columnist George Will contends that the 1619 Project undermines trust in journalism by taking on a political project.

• 
• SOURCE: Architectural Digest
  5/5/2020
  

  A New Public Art Installation in Alexandria Confronts the City’s Ties to the Slave Trade

  Brooklyn-based artist Olalekan Jeyifous examines an oft-overlooked aspect of the Virginia port community’s history.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Examiner
  5/5/2020
  

  'Not the Way to do History': Princeton University Historian Blasts 1619 Project as 'Historical Sloppiness' Unworthy of Pulitzer

  Allen Guelzo has been a major critic of the New York Times's "1619 Project" and objects to the projects central essay winning the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Way of Improvement Leads Home
  5/4/2020
  

  W. Caleb McDaniel Wins the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in History

  The Pulitzer committee described McDaniel’s work as “A masterfully researched meditation on reparations based on the remarkable story of a 19th century woman who survived kidnapping and re-enslavement to sue her captor.”

• 
• 5/5/2020
  

  The Pulitzer Prizes Spark Discussion of "Revisionism"

  by HNN Staff

  Nikole Hannah-Jones's Pulitzer Prize has pushed some critics to complain about historical revisionism. Historians discuss how the field works.

• 
• SOURCE: National Parks Conservation Association
  5/1/2020
  

  "An Honest Reckoning"

  Hundreds of people were once enslaved at the opulent  Hampton estate, but for decades after the site became part of the National Park System, their stories remained hidden.  That is changing. 

• 
• SOURCE: iBerkshires.com
  4/28/2020
  

  MCLA History Professor Receives National Endowment for the Humanities Grant

  Amanda Kleintop, an assistant professor of history at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, has been awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for her continuing research.

• 
• SOURCE: The Dispatch
  4/26/2020
  

  There’s a Question My Confederate Ancestors Taught Me To Ask

  by David French

  Tribalism affected both abolitionists and Confederates during the Civil War. How does it impact modern politics?

• 
• SOURCE: The Metropole
  4/23/2020
  

  Neglected Gems: Richard Wade And Lisa Tolbert

  by Richard Harris

  For Americanists, the slave experience and its legacy has always been a major concern, but even here the specific impact of the urban environment, and urban size, has not always been well-appreciated.

• 
• SOURCE: Black Perspectives
  4/13/2020
  

  ‘A White Man Took Her’: Trauma, Loss, and Grief among the Enslaved

  by Tyler Parry

  In leaving a record of their trauma, the formerly enslaved invite their readers to approach the emotional histories of those trapped in antebellum slavery.