Historians in the News

This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in each source note. Quotation marks are not used.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/26/2021
  

  The Deep South Has a Rich History of Resistance, as Amazon Is Learning

  Columnist Jamelle Bouie draws on the work of historians Michael W. Fitzgerald, Paul Horton, Robin D.G. Kelley, and Robert Widell, Jr. which shows that Alabamians, and Black Alabamians in particular, have organized to fight both racial oppression and labor exploitation.

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  2/26/2021
  

  America’s Political Roots Are in Eutaw, Alabama

  "The terror campaign of 1870 ended the promise of Alabama’s brief Reconstruction era, allowing the so-called Redeemers to pry Alabama from the hands of reform. This was the critical juncture that led to the way things are."

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/26/2021
  

  University Finds 18th-Century Schoolhouse Where Black Children Learned to Read

  The discovery of a 260-year-old structure with such a deep connection to a little-known chapter of the history of Colonial Williamsburg, when the population was more than 50 percent Black and teaching slaves to read was legal, is especially significant, said history professor Jody Lynn Allen. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/25/2021
  

  Searching for Our Urban Future in the Ruins of the Past

  Annalee Newitz's book on lost cities debunks the idea of sudden, catastrophic collapse. But the death of cities does show that humanity is vulnerable to change that makes centuries-old ways of life untenable. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  2/28/2021
  

  Denied a Teaching Job for Being ‘Too Black,’ She Started Her Own School — And a Movement

  Scholars Sharon Harley and Jenifer Barclay discuss the obstacles of colorism that Nannie Helen Burroughs overcame to launch an influential school for young Black women and lead the civil rights struggles of the early twentieth century.

• 
• SOURCE: Mass for Shut-ins: The Gin and Tacos Podcast
  3/2/2021
  

  The 1976 Swine Flu Fiasco

  David Parsons of the "Nostalgia Trap" history podcast joins Mass For Shut-Ins to discuss the Swine Flue vaccine fiasco and how its history has been abused by today's anti-vax movement.

• 
• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  2/25/2021
  

  Fired for Tweeting?

  "In a written statement to The Chronicle, Burnett said, “Collin College is a government organization that has unconstitutionally sought to punish me for my speech as a private citizen." 

• 
• SOURCE: TedEd
  3/1/2021
  

  Debunking the Myth of the Lost Cause: A Lie Embedded in American History

  by Karen L. Cox

  Karen L. Cox examines the cultural myth of the Lost Cause.

• 
• SOURCE: Virginian-Pilot
  3/1/2021
  

  How a Wave of Segregationist Tributes, from Streets to Schools, Entrenched the Idea of White Supremacy

  Understanding the stakes of renaming public buildings, streets, or schools requires understanding the purposeful politics that attached the names of Confederates to public spaces a century ago, say Virginia historians Dan Margolies and Calvin Pearson.

• 
• SOURCE: The Metropole
  3/2/2021
  

  The Mega-Ode

  The Urban History Association accentuates the positive in academic culture as urbanists salute the people who made a difference for them. 

• 
• SOURCE: Talking Points Memo
  2/1/2021
  

  Why Biden’s Forceful Endorsement Of Labor Is The Strongest From A POTUS In Decades

  Labor historians Karen Sawislak and Erik Loomis discuss how Joe Biden's endorsement of freedom of workers to form a union (without mentioning Amazon in particular) goes against decades-long trends in the political power and cultural esteem of labor unions. 

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  2/28/2021
  

  A Chapter In U.S. History Often Ignored: The Flight Of Runaway Slaves To Mexico

  USC Historian Alice Baumgartner's book examines the stream of enslaved people who fled to Mexico between the 1830s and Emancipation, and the role of Mexico in international debates about abolition. Roseann Bacha-Garza of UT-Rio Grande Valley is an expert on the local networks of abolitionists and allies on the route.

• 
• SOURCE: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
  2/23/2021
  

  For Many, an Afro isn’t Just a Hairstyle

  Journalist Ernie Suggs reflects on how hairstyles reflected his own family's history, with backing from historians Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham and Noliwe Rooks. 

• 
• SOURCE: TIME
  2/25/2021
  

  With Free Medical Clinics and Patient Advocacy, the Black Panthers Created a Legacy in Community Health That Still Exists Amid COVID-19

  by Olivia B. Waxman and Arpita Aneja

  Sociologist and social movement historian Alondra Nelson explains that Black Panther Party community action to provide health services grew out of a mistrust of mainstream health institutions' willingness to direct resources to the needs of poor Black communities, a mistrust that remains today. 

• 
• SOURCE: Journal of the History of Ideas
  10/7/2020
  

  With a Touch of Wisdom: Human Rights, Memory, and Forgetting

  by Antoon de Baets

  A historian concerned with memory, censorship and human rights considers whether there is an affirmative duty for historians to promote the memory of crimes and atrocities.

• 
• SOURCE: NBC Los Angeles
  2/22/21
  

  New Exhibit Reckons With Glendale's Racist Past as ‘Sundown Town'

  The suburban city of Glendale, CA has initiated a series of public programs confronting its legacy as a "sundown town" where minorities, particulary African Americans, were able to work but barred from living or socializing. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  2/23/2021
  

  The Broken System: What Comes After Meritocracy?

  by Elizabeth Anderson

  Philosopher Elizabeth Anderson reviews Michael Sandel's critique of meritocracy, a book that locates an explanation for the Trumpian moment in the rise of competitive individualism in the platforms of both major parties. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Bulwark
  2/22/2021
  

  How George Washington Didn’t Lead

  Historians Lindsay Chervinsky, Noemie Emery, David Head and Craig Bruce Smith offer reflections in a virtual forum on the first president's leadership.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/24/2021
  

  After the Riot, What’s the Future of Art in the Capitol?

  Art Historian Sarah Lewis suggests that damage to the artworks in the Capitol during the rioting presents an opportunity to rethink what subjects are included in a collection that signals inclusion in the national narrative. 

• 
• SOURCE: WTVY
  2/24/2021
  

  Auburn Professors Working to Preserve History of Selma’s ‘Bloody Sunday’

  Richard Burt and Keith Hébert are leading a team of researchers to preserve the site of the historic attack on voting rights marchers by Alabama State Troopers on March 7, 1965, hoping that a better-preserved public monument will clear up misperceptions of the day's events.