public history

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  7/12/2021
  

  9/11 Museum’s 20th-Anniversary Exhibitions Become Victims of Cuts

  The budget crunch has also forced furloughs and layoffs of staff as the museum pulls back to focus on its core exhibit. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  7/9/2021
  

  Charlottesville Removes Robert E. Lee Statue at Center of White Nationalist Rally

  “I’m really happy it’s a boring morning, and boring means that no bad things happened,” says UVA historian John Edwin Mason.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  7/5/2021
  

  Texas Republicans Rush to Guard the Alamo from the Facts

  by Jason Stanford

  "The Alamo myth leaves much out, most notably that Texians opposed Mexican laws that would free the enslaved workers they needed to farm cotton."

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  7/1/2021
  

  The Statue of Chief Justice Taney Never Belonged in the Capitol

  by Corey M. Brooks

  “If a man,” famed Massachusetts radical Charles Sumner asserted, “has done evil during his life he must not be complimented in marble.” Instead Sumner demanded “the name of Taney … be hooted down the page of history.”

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  6/29/2021
  

  House Will Vote on Bill to Remove Confederate Statues from Capitol

  The bill would remove from public view monuments to figures associated with the Confederacy or the causes of slavery and white supremacy that motivated it, including a bust of Chief Justice Roger Taney, author of the notorious Dred Scott decision. 

• 
• SOURCE: MSNBC
  6/12/2021
  

  North Carolina Plantation's Juneteenth Event Underscores South's Historical Whitewashing

  by Keisha N. Blain

  "The plan to center a Juneteenth event around so-called “displaced white refugees” is deeply racist. But it’s also part of a much larger public effort to distort historical narratives and, in this case, miseducate the public about slavery in the United States."

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• SOURCE: TIME
  6/9/2021
  

  We've Been Telling the Alamo Story Wrong for Nearly 200 Years. Now It's Time to Correct the Record

  by Bryan Burrough and Jason Stanford

  "Imagine if the U.S. were to open interior Alaska for colonization and, for whatever reason, thousands of Canadian settlers poured in, establishing their own towns, hockey rinks and Tim Hortons stores."

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  6/13/2021
  

  Plantation Planned Juneteenth Event that would Tell the Stories of Displaced ‘White Refugees’

  Was the planned event unduly sympathetic to slave owners, or a reflection of the historical intertwining of the lives of Black and White southerners? 

• 
• SOURCE: Buzzfeed
  6/7/2021
  

  I Visited A Former Plantation To Understand Why People Get Married There. All I Saw Was Pain

  by Clint Smith

  The popularity of celebrating weddings at the sites of enslavement and forced labor illustrates the huge gaps in White America's understanding of history. 

• 
• SOURCE: Bloomberg CityLab
  6/8/2021
  

  When Monuments Go Bad

  Chicago is engaging in a broad and unprecedented study of the city's monuments and the political and cultural implications of memorialization in public space. Will this help avoid the bitter controversies and protests that have erupted in other cities? 

• 
• SOURCE: Nashville Scene
  6/7/2021
  

  Forrest's Remains, the National Confederate Museum and Racist Hate

  The Sons of Confederate Veterans' effort to move Nathan Bedford Forrest's remains from Memphis to its National Confederate Museum only makes sense if the SCV intends to valorize Confederates who were active in the KKK after the Civil War. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  6/7/2021
  

  Plantations Aren’t Paying Reparations, But Have Started Programs To Give Back To Descendants

  Joy Banner, descended from people enslaved at the Whitney Plantation in Louisiana, is pursuing reparations in the form of input into the use of land owned by the Whitney, saying “there are as many different forms of reparations as you can think of, because healing looks different in every community.”

• 
• SOURCE: Black Perspectives
  6/2/2021
  

  On Public Art, Historical Memory, and Racial Violence

  by Melanie Chambliss

  "Anniversaries are useful for focusing the public’s attention on historically significant events, including the Tulsa Race Massacre, but we must ask ourselves what happens next?"

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  5/21/2021
  

  Some Representations of Native Americans Erase their History

  by Hayley Negrin

  "Visibly racist and inaccurate representations of Indigenous people in public spaces send a message to Indigenous people everywhere that they are not in control of their own destiny, that they are not permitted to define themselves. The process of conquest continues."

• 
• SOURCE: Texas Monthly
  5/19/2021
  

  The Next Battle of the Alamo! (Excerpt)

  A new book takes on Texans' embrace of the Alamo myth and the politics of preserving the site, with an odd detour through the Alamo memorabilia collection of British pop star Phil Collins. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  5/14/2021
  

  Tulsa Race Massacre Commission Ousts Oklahoma Governor

  The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission removed Gov. Kevin Stitt from the panel just days after he had signed a bill that banned the teaching of certain concepts about race.

• 
• SOURCE: The Guardian
  5/7/2021
  

  Decolonising Museums isn’t Part of a ‘Culture War’. It’s about Keeping them Relevant

  by Dan Hicks

  "Britain’s museums sorely need such cultural revitalisation right now, and the question of human remains and artefacts offers a position from which to see debates around museums in a clearer light."

• 
• 5/16/2021
  

  The Rebuilt Berlin Palace Embodies the Tensions of the City's History and Future

  by Barney White-Spunner

  While Berliners have incorporated the city's notorious wall into museums and public art, restoring the site of the Berliner Schloss of the Hohenzollerns and then the Palast der Republic of the East German government has been much more contentious. The Humboldt Forum has been criticized, but its design and reception exemplify the tensions inherent in democracy.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  5/7/2021
  

  The Stealth Sticker Campaign to Expose New York’s History of Slavery

  Slavers of New York is a guerilla public history project that seeks to remind New Yorkers of the ties to slavery of the families whose names are commemorated in the city's streets, parks, and other place names. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  5/10/2021
  

  Why Confederate Lies Live On

  by Clint Smith

  Throughout the south, and in the minds of Americans, aesthetics and idealized depictions of valor continue to obscure the fact that the Confederacy fought to maintain a social order based on the ownership of human beings and white supremacy.