With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Roundup Top 10!


Charleston Shooting Exposes America’s Pro-Apartheid Cold War Past

by R. Joseph Parrott

To win friends during the Cold War Rhodesia and South Africa, playing up its anti-communism, courted the white south.


How Jackson Made a Killing in Real Estate

by Steve Inskeep

We all know the warrior president kicked Indians off their land. What's less known is why.


The Supreme Court's Challenge to Housing Segregation

by Richard Rothstein

Justice Kennedy’s surprise support for the Fair Housing Act is breathtaking — and saved the law from the demolition intended by Roberts, Alito, Scalia and Thomas.


America is unworthy of black forgiveness

by Mark Santow

White frustration with the unwillingness of blacks to recognize that claim to racial innocence constitutes a search for cheap grace.


How a long-dead white supremacist still threatens the future of Virginia’s Indian tribes

by Joe Heim

Walter A. Plecker’s goal as Virginia’s registrar of vital statistics was to ban race-mixing.


What Does Marriage Equality Have to Do with Dred Scott?

by Amy Davidson

In part, Dred Scott is simply being used to give Obergefell a bad name—as pure invective, another way to call the decision rotten and the Supreme Court deluded.


What Did Lincoln Really Think of Jefferson?

by Allen C. Guelzo

“Lincoln hated Thomas Jefferson.”


The political work of the Confederate flag

by Joseph Crespino

Public opinion on the flag has seemed to shift with lightning speed, and yet it is a wonder how, in our modern multiracial democracy, a symbol of a rebellious slave-holding regime from the 19th century has held on as long as it has.


The Uses and Misuses of History: On Jefferson Davis, Thomas More, Martin Luther, and Other Villains

by Ronald A. Lindsay

An interest in history can become an unhealthy preoccupation with historical grievances. It is not necessarily a good thing to be obsessed with the ghosts of the past.


Whining White Southerners

by Robert Parry

It is also not an affront to history to recognize the evil realities of history.