public history

• 
• SOURCE: artdaily
  8/12/2020
  

  A Black Nurse Saved Lives. Today She May Save Art

  Graduate student Laura Voisin George discovered an image of Biddy Mason, a Black woman born in slavery who became a founding figure in Los Angeles's African American history, in a set of WPA murals in an auditorium at the University of California-San Francisco. The discovery may help preserve the murals. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  8/5/2020
  

  Taking My Children to See Frederick Douglass

  by Clint Smith

  “It is always a fact of some importance to know where a man is born, if, indeed, it be important to know anything about him.” So wrote Frederick Douglass in his 1855 autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom. It was with these reflections and Douglass’s words in mind that, on Juneteenth, I got in the car with my family and drove from our home, outside Washington, D.C., to Talbot County, Maryland, where Frederick Douglass was born.

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Globe
  8/8/2020
  

  What Should We Do With Plantations?

  by Tiya Miles

  The lavish estates where Black people were enslaved usually whitewash their history. Here's how these places might begin to redeem themselves.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Post
  8/8/2020
  

  Queens Powhatan and Pocahontas Democratic Club Considers Name Change

  Columbia professor Mae Ngai, co-director for the school’s Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race, called the use of Pocahontas’ name “clueless.”

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  8/7/2020
  

  A New Statue Of Lincoln Will Adequately Honor Him Alongside Black Americans

  by Frank Smith

  The African American Civil War Memorial plans a different commemoration of Lincoln's role in emancipation. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/5/2020
  

  Lincoln Library Cancels Exhibition Over Racial Sensitivity Concerns

  The library, in Springfield, Ill., said Black community leaders who previewed it feared parts of the traveling exhibition, created 15 years ago, were outdated and lacked context.

• 
• SOURCE: CommonWealth
  8/4/2020
  

  Faneuil Hall Name Change Needed

  by Marty Blatt and David J. Harris

  We might well ask whether Peter Faneuil actually paid for the building or whether it was purchased by the lives and freedom of those he transported and sold.

• 
• SOURCE: Perspectives on History
  8/6/2020
  

  Setting the Lost Cause on Fire

  by Karen L. Cox

  Once revered by their communities, the United Daughters of the Confederacy today are simply out of step with change sweeping the South and the nation.

• 
• SOURCE: Hyperallergic
  8/5/2020
  

  Portraits that Honor the Men Who Participated in the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike

  Carl Juste’s double portrait of father and son presents an extraordinarily intimate experience on the usually busy public plaza surrounding the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in North Miami.

• 
• 8/9/2020
  

  History, Memory and Reconciliation with the (Whole) Past

  by Ralph Young

  When we reflect on the monuments we need to ask: does the statue memorialize a person or event that was a force for creating a more perfect union or a force that sought to demolish the United States?

• 
• SOURCE: AL.com
  8/5/2020
  

  Confederate Monument Defaced in Downtown Huntsville

  Both the Madison County Commission, which has jurisdiction over the statue, and the Huntsville City Council have passed resolutions calling for the statue to be moved to the city-owned Maple Hill Cemetery.

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  8/3/2020
  

  'We Always Knew What It Stood For': Small Texas Town Torn Over Its Confederate Statue

  "We're not asking them to destroy the statue," McFarland said. "We're asking them to remove it. I no longer want to have my taxpayer dollars keeping this symbol of hate and racism erected here on the courthouse square."

• 
• SOURCE: ProPublica
  7/31/2020
  

  4 Perspectives on the Christopher Columbus Statues

  Several stakeholders are interviewed about Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot's decision to temporarily remove two statues of Christopher Columbus from public space.

• 
• SOURCE: MassLive
  7/28/2020
  

  Massachusetts Senators Form Panel To Suggest New State Seal, Which Would Replace Version Native Americans Call Racist

  The current seal depicts a Native man standing beneath a disembodied arm and sword, implying violent subjugation of the Indigenous people. 

• 
• SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
  7/29/2020
  

  Dropping ‘Pettus’ Is a Bridge Too Far

  by Jonathan Zimmerman

  Advocates of renaming the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma for John Lewis are disregarding Lewis's published thoughts on the subject. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  7/26/2020
  

  A Liberal Town Built Around Confederate Generals Rethinks Its Identity

  The town finds itself reassessing its identity, divided between the growing imperative to eradicate symbols of slavery and decades of cultural and economic ties to the Confederates who fought to preserve it.

• 
• SOURCE: The Sentinel (Carlisle, PA)
  7/26/2020
  

  Monument Movement: Historians Ask Who is Missing from Community Memorials

  Dickinson College's House Divided Project researched the complex role of the school in slavery. The result? A dormitory and a gateway to the campus will be renamed to acknowledge prominent African-Americans in the college's history.

• 
• SOURCE: Ricochet
  7/24/2020
  

  Sean Wilentz: On the Importance of Studying and Debating American History (Podcast)

  Wilentz argues that understanding America’s past—from the inspiring to the shameful—is vital for what he calls informed citizenship.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  7/25/2020
  

  As Confederate Monuments Tumble, Die-Hards Are Erecting Replacements

  Groups such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy are organizing the pushback.

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Globe
  7/26/2020
  

  Benny White, Who Brought Black History to Life Leading Civil War Reenactors, Dies at 75

  “He dedicated his life to it,” said his brother Marco White of Hyde Park. “Everything in his life was the 54th.”