Links to Recent Articles of Interest
By Kevin A. Young, Yes! magazine, posted July 8
Uses examples from abolitionism, the civil rights movement, and the Vietnam antiwar movement. The author teaches history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
By Peter Rachleff, The Progressive, posted July 7
Argues that the giant Robert E. Lee statue was a response to an interracial workers' movement that won control of the city government in 1986 elections. The author is a professor emeritus of history at Macalester College and author of Black Labor in Richmond, Virginia, 1865-1890 (U. of Illinois Press, 1989).
By Doug Bandow, AntiWar.com, posted July 6
Puts the dubious claim of Russian bounties paid to Taliban soldiers for killing Americans in historical perspective, including US support for Islamic fundamentalists fighting Soviet troops in Afghanistan. The author is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.
By Jim Loewen, History News Network, posted July 6
An enjoyably tongue-in-cheek proposal to give the name Mount Reagan to the highest point in Delaware. Among the author's books is Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong (New Press, 1999).
By Stetson Kastengren, Washington Post, posted July 5
On the history of the Black Hills and the monument. The author is a PhD student in history at the University of Illinois studying federal Indian policy. He is an enrolled member of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe.
By Elizabeth Kolsky, Washington Post, posted July 3
“American independence helped further colonialism and white supremacy.” The author teaches history at Villanova University and is the author of Colonial Justice in British India: White Violence and the Rule of Law (Cambridge U. Press, 2011).
By David W. Blight, The New Yorker, posted July 1
Compares the toppling or removal of Confederate monuments to the fall of the Berlin Wall. The summer of 2020, like the autumn of 1989, could mark the death of a specific vision of history.
The author teaches US history at Yale University.
By Daniel Domingues da Silva, Tropics of Meta, posted July 1
The author teaches African history at Rice University and is co-manager of Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database.
By Scott Sandage and Jonathan W. White, Smithsonian Magazine, posted June 30
“In a newly discovered letter, the famed abolitionist wrote that 'no one monument could be made to tell the whole truth .'”The authors teach history and American Studies, respectively, at Carnegie Mellon University and Christopher Newport University.
By Chrystal Sanders, Washington Post, posted June 26
Relates the recent firing of three Wilmington, N.C. police officers caught making racist and threatening remarks to the violent 1898 white supremacist overthrow of the city's municipal government. The author teaches history at Penn State.
Thanks to an anonymous reader for flagging several of the above articles. Suggestions can be sent to jimobrien48@gmail.com.