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.

---

• 
• SOURCE: Mother Jones
  

  We’ve Had a White Supremacist Coup Before. History Buried It

  LeRae Sikes Umfleet's 2009 book explored the 1898 Wilmington insurrection and showed “how people could get murdered in the streets and no one held accountable for it.”

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  1/24/2021
  

  Historian Discusses The Politics That Shape U.S. History In Schools

  Hasan Kwame Jeffries: "Nobody's placing that blame on children. No child in school today is even responsible for the mess that we have right now. But they are responsible for the problems of tomorrow and of the future."

• 
• SOURCE: The Zero Hour with RJ Eskow
  1/22/2021
  

  Keri Leigh Merritt on White Myths, Lost Causes & True History

  A discussion of the continued relevance of Confederate Lost Cause mythology in the January 6 Capitol riots. 

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  1/15/2021
  

  When White Extremism Seeps Into The Mainstream

  Historian Kathleen Belew discusses the history of the far right and the work of separating the hard core of the movement from its fringes and those who might be persuaded to join it. 

• 
• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  1/14/2021
  

  A TV Documentary Shows the Deep Roots of Right-Wing Conspiracy

  New Yorker critic Richard Brody discusses the 1964 broadcast of "Danger on the Right" on the John Birch Society. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  1/23/2021
  

  The Trump Presidency Is Now History. So How Will It Rank?

  Historians disagree whether Trump surpasses the awfulness of Buchanan or Andrew Johnson, but a roster of them consulted by the Times agrees he was terrible. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Intercept
  1/23/2021
  

  Capitol Attack was Culmination of Generations of Far-Right Extremism

  Historians Robin D.G. Kelley and Greg Grandin discuss the historical relationship between white supremacy and political violence in the US. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  1/23/2021
  

  Biden Seeks to Define His Presidency by an Early Emphasis on Equity

  Nicole Hemmer argues that Joe Biden appears more willing to pledge action on racial equity than Barack Obama was; it remains to be seen if Biden can avoid a backlash from conservatives. 

• 
• SOURCE: Vox
  1/13/2021
  

  Can the Republican Party be Saved?

  Geoffrey Kabaservice is the author of "Rule and Ruin," a history of the Republican Party since 1950. He discusses the party's turn toward right-wing radicalism with Vox's Sean Illing. 

• 
• SOURCE: Public Books
  1/25/2021
  

  How Versailles Still Haunts the World

  by Joanne Randa Nucho

  Anthropologist Joanne Randa Nucho and Public Books present a virtual forum on the ongoing legacies and impacts of the Treaty of Versailles. 

• 
• SOURCE: National History Center
  1/25/2021
  

  Virtual Event: Sarah Miller-Davenport: Gateway State: Hawai’i and Cultural Transformation of American Empire, FEB. 1

  Please join the National History Center of the American Historical Association for a Washington History Seminar roundtable on Gateway State: Hawai’i and Cultural Transformation of American Empire with author Sarah Miller-Davenport, MONDAY FEB. 1, 4:00 PM EST.

• 
• SOURCE: National History Center
  1/25/2021
  

  Virtual Event: Joan Wallach Scott's "On the Judgment of History" FRIDAY JAN. 29

  Please join the National History Center of the American Historical Association for a Washington History Seminar roundtable on On the Judgment of History with author Joan Wallach Scott. Friday, January 29, 4:30 PM EST

• 
• SOURCE: History
  1/20/2021
  

  How Tuskegee Airmen Fought Military Segregation With Nonviolent Action

  Alan Osur and Todd Moye help tell the story of the efforts of the Tuskegee Airmen to integrate military recreational facilities in 1944. 

• 
• SOURCE: Vox
  1/14/2021
  

  What the History of the Ku Klux Klan Can Teach Us about the Capitol Riot

  Historian Linda Gordon urges readers to recognize that the Klan has always drawn from "respectable" members of white society, giving it a dangerous ability to claim to represent real American values.

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  1/15/2021
  

  Reconstruction Era Expert On Why Politicians Use Terms Unity And Healing

  "Reconciliation needs accountability. You can't just wash your hands and say, let's forget about the past and move forward with healing."

• 
• SOURCE: Fortune
  1/17/2021
  

  The COVID-19 Vaccination Drive May be Slow—But it’s Already Faster than Any in History

  Public Health historian Jason Schwartz suggests that discontent about the pace of vaccination is due to the Trump administration's politically motivated and unrealistic promises. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Baffler
  1/18/2021
  

  Operation Desert Shirt

  Writer Matt Stieb examines the cultural reaction to the first Gulf War by studying the topical t-shirts of the day. Blithely invoked violence and casual bigotry silkscreened on cheap fabric should be a reminder of the cruelty inherent in war. 

• 
• SOURCE: Public Books
  1/20/2021
  

  Solidarity is a Process: Talking with Kelly Lytle Hernandez, Josh Kun, and Destin Jenkins

  A panel of scholars discusses the concept of cross-racial solidarity and the prospects of creating powerful coalitions of the disempowered. 

• 
• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  1/15/2021
  

  The Lessons of the Nixon Pardon

  Isaac Chotiner interviews Rick Perlstein on the nature of presidential misconduct and accountability. 

• 
• SOURCE: American Historical Association
  1/20/2021
  

  AHA Condemns Report of Advisory 1776 Commission

  “Written hastily in one month after two desultory and tendentious ‘hearings,’” the AHA writes, “without any consultation with professional historians of the United States, the report fails to engage a rich and vibrant body of scholarship that has evolved over the last seven decades."