public history

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• SOURCE: University of Virginia Batten School
  10/11/2021
  

  New Research: More Lynchings in Places with More Confederate Monuments

  Empirical research supports what activists have been saying for decades: Confederate memorials encourage violence in the name of white supremacy.

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• SOURCE: NPR
  10/11/2021
  

  Native Americans Explain the Significance of Indigenous Peoples' Day

  "It is difficult to grapple with the complete accomplishments of individuals and also the costs of what those accomplishments came at," said Mandy Van Heuvelen, the cultural interpreter coordinator at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  10/10/2021
  

  Virginia Community Colleges to Drop John Tyler's Name

  “We enroll lots of people whose ancestors were enslaved, were marginalized, were clearly taken advantage of,” said Glenn DuBois, the system’s chancellor. “And what do you say to those students when they’re looking at some of these names?”

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  10/11/2021
  

  Columbus Day was a Battle in the 90's History Wars, Too

  by Cynthia C. Prescott

  "The History Wars of the 1990s can show us that compromise and accommodation can temporarily defuse controversy — but tempt us to postpone the harder work of seeking justice and truth."

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• SOURCE: nj.com
  10/11/2021
  

  How Our Hero Columbus Has Fallen

  by Brian Regal

  "Humans seem to need to have heroes, but we’re often not sure what to do with them. We want them to embody high ideals, but they rarely do."

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/5/2021
  

  A Tech-Savvy Holocaust Memorial in Ukraine Draws Critics and Crowds

  “I grew up with war stories from my grandparents’ generation,” said Andrej Umansky, a German historian with Ukrainian ancestry working for the private initiative, the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center. “But students today don’t have the same connection.... To talk about the Holocaust is the same as talking about ancient Rome.”

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• SOURCE: NPR
  10/3/2021
  

  The National Monument Audit Asks: Who Do American Honor Most?

  A study of 50,000 monuments by Monument Lab shows Lincoln, Washington and Columbus are still broadly honored in public places, but mermaids have more monuments than congresswomen do. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/29/2021
  

  White, Male, and, for Now, Still on Pedestals

  Paul Farber, director of Monument Lab, said, “We must see monuments as way stations that reflect our values. This is a generational process.”

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• SOURCE: NPR
  10/3/2021
  

  Bryan Stevenson's Legacy Museum in Montgomery Aims for Truth Telling

  "I do think there's something powerful when you're standing in these spaces learning about this history, knowing that the soil you're standing on is the same soil where enslaved people sweated."

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/1/2021
  

  Army Base Names Are Changing. But to What?

  “There is a lesson here,” said Wade Fowler, who was born and raised here and now runs a small barbecue joint. “Don’t name things after people.”

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• SOURCE: Texas Monthly
  9/30/2021
  

  Monica Muñoz Martinez Is Setting the Record Straight on Texas’s History of Border Violence

  "As a historian, when I’m researching these events of racist violence that have not been documented, I don’t know what is going to happen or what the outcome will be. It is really hard to read newspaper articles that celebrate violence."

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  10/4/2021
  

  Alabama Spends More than a Half Million Annually on a Confederate Memorial; Black Historical Sites Struggle

  "It is the only museum in the state that has a dedicated revenue stream codified in the state’s constitution. So while other museums struggle to keep their doors open, search for grants for funding and depend on volunteer staff, the Confederate Memorial Park is flush with cash."

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• SOURCE: New York Almanack
  10/3/2021
  

  An A-Z List of NYC Streets Named for Slaveowners

  by Alan Singer

  As Mayoral candidate Eric Adams has vowed to change the names of city streets associated with slavery, here's a list of those streets throughout the city. 

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• SOURCE: WBUR
  9/27/2021
  

  Katharine Graham Grew into Boldness as Washington Post Publisher

  Curator Jeanne Guttierez of the New York Historical Society joins Here and Now to discuss a new exhibit on the life of the legendary publisher and Washington social fixture once considered the most powerful woman in America.

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  9/28/2021
  

  When Black History Gets Unearthed, Who Speaks for the Dead?

  by Jill Lepore

  Locating and unearthing African American burial grounds is only the beginning of a process involving difficult questions of justice and inheritance. Should federal legislation make up for the legacy of dispossession that leaves cemeteries in legal limbo and without means for upkeep? 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/25/2021
  

  How do I Tell the Story of Robert E. Lee?

  by Allen C. Guelzo

  Lee is a study in contradictions, argues his most recent biographer. Can the public today engage with them? 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/20/2021
  

  Park Rangers Bring Black History to Life in the Great Outdoors

  As Americans consider the racist views of John Muir and the legacy of exclusion from national parks spaces, the Times highlights the work of African American workers in the national parks service and the Black history they help preserve "for the benefit and enjoyment of people." 

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• 9/19/2021
  

  Richmond's Lee Statue Has Come Down. What About Confederate Memorials in Cemeteries?

  by Jeffrey Smith

  The statue of Robert E. Lee on Richmond’s Monument Avenue finally came down, to both fanfare and controversy. But some Confederate monuments are even more politically loaded—the ones where we bury the dead.

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• SOURCE: Click on Detroit
  9/14/2021
  

  Detroit Historical Society Launches Interactive Walking tour of Historic Black Bottom District

  Black Bottom was a predominately Black neighborhood in Detroit that was demolished for redevelopment in the late 1950s, and was replaced with the Lafayette Park district and I-375.

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• SOURCE: NBC News
  9/13/2021
  

  Tuskegee, Alabama Confederate Memorial at Center of Lawsuit in Majority-Black City

  The presence of the statue in the city, home of the historic Tuskegee University and training place of the famed World War II aviation heroes, has angered locals for decades.