memorials 
-
SOURCE: UVA Today
4/7/2021
A Closer Look at the Design and Details of the New Memorial to Enslaved Laborers
"We know so much about Jefferson – we even know what he ate on July 3, 1803 – but he and all those at UVA were surrounded for over 65 years by a community of more than 4,000 people that we know little about."
-
SOURCE: Smithsonian
4/12/2021
Black Protesters Have Been Rallying Against Confederate Statues for Generations
by Karen L. Cox
The movement to remove monuments and memorials to the Confederacy and historical figures with ties to racism or slavery is not new; it should be recognized as part of a longstanding effort by African Americans to challenge the public veneration of white supremacy.
-
SOURCE: WWLTV
4/9/2021
Jefferson Davis Memorial Chair Stolen from Alabama Cemetery Found in New Orleans, 2 Arrested
The chair was recovered in New Orleans, and two suspects have been arrested with a third at large.
-
SOURCE: Washington Post
4/8/2021
Who are 'White Lies Matter’? Meet the Group that Says it Turned a Stolen Confederate Memorial into a Toilet
"We are leaderless in a sense. There is no head honcho, and we keep it that way for a very good reason."
-
SOURCE: New York Times
4/8/2021
San Francisco Schools Will Keep Jefferson, Lincoln and Washington Names
"In this case, officials said the reckoning had gone too far, with parents calling the decision to rename 44 schools embarrassing and 'a caricature of what people think liberals in San Francisco do'.”
-
SOURCE: Washington Post
4/6/2021
Stolen Confederate Monument will Become a 'Toilet' Unless ‘White Lies Matter’ Demands are Met, Group Vows
The group claiming responsibility has issued a ransom demand: the United Daughters of the Confederacy can secure the return of the chair by flying a banner quoting Black radical Assata Shakur over its Richmond, Virginia headquarters.
-
SOURCE: NewsChannel 5 (Nashville)
3/17/2021
Bill Would Remove all Members of Tennessee Historical Commission
Some conservative legislators are upset with the state Historical Commission's recent decision to remove a memorial to slave trader and Ku Klux Klan founder Nathan Bedford Forrest from the Tennessee capitol.
-
3/14/2021
The San Francisco School Board vs. Abraham Lincoln (High School)
by Sheldon M. Stern
One might, not unreasonably, expect the school board of a major city like San Francisco to be somewhat more historically literate.
-
SOURCE: Washington Post
3/11/2021
The Lynching That Black Chattanooga Never Forgot Takes Center Stage Downtown
"Even as the bridge became a central gathering place of the city, some Black Chattanoogans who know its history have refused to cross it."
-
SOURCE: WIS-TV
3/9/2021
SC Lawmakers Announce Legislation to Protect Monuments Statewide
"Democratic Representative Seth Rose says the controversial monuments like Ben Tillman, who was the former governor and known racist, need to come down."
-
SOURCE: Governing
3/8/2021
History Matters: Debates About Monuments Reflect Current Divisions
How should local governments approach the question of memorials? Historians can advise about the significance or meaning of historical figures, but community values and state laws are subject to partisan politics.
-
SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
3/5/2021
A Monumental Error in the Making
by Harold Holzer
Daniel Chester French's statue "The Republic" is on a list of public monuments to be reviewed by the city of Chicago. Removing it would be destroying an important link to the city's past.
-
SOURCE: TIME
3/2/2021
Senator Tammy Duckworth Wants FDR Memorial to Be Accessible for People with All Disabilities
While disability activists won a battle to have FDR portrayed in a wheelchair in his memorial, there have been ongoing problems with the site's design and layout including braille markers that are decorative rather than legible.
-
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: WABE
3/1/2021
Ga. Lawmaker Authors Bills To Abolish Confederate Monuments In Peach State
Georgia state representative Shelly Hutchinson argues that while Confederate monuments stand,"there’s no healing that takes place there, and that means you are OK with where we are at as a country.”
-
SOURCE: New York Times
2/23/2021
SPLC: Over 160 Confederate Symbols Were Removed in 2020
"The nonprofit organization, based in Montgomery, Ala., started tracking symbols of the Confederacy after a white supremacist killed nine Black worshipers at a storied African-American church in Charleston, S.C., in 2015."
-
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune
2/22/2021
Take Down Chicago’s Lincoln Statues? It’s Iconoclasm Gone Mad
by Sidney Blumenthal and Harold Holzer
Two biographers of Lincoln question the Chicago Monuments Project, which has placed famous statues of the 16th president on a list of public memorials subject to possible removal.
-
SOURCE: New York Times
2/15/2021
The Sinking of a Bust Surfaces a Debate Over Denmark’s Past
"An anonymous group of artists had unscrewed it from its plinth, popped a black garbage bag over its head and ferried it to the edge of the canal, before tipping it in."
-
SOURCE: AL.com
2/7/2021
UA Trustees vote to remove George Wallace’s name from UAB building
“This is simply the right thing to do,” Trustee Judge John England Jr.
-
SOURCE: Washington Post
2/2/2021
Trump’s 1776 Commission and the San Francisco Board of Education Have a Lot in Common
by Max Boot
"It is no surprise that the 1776 Commission did not include a single expert on U.S. history and that the San Francisco school board also refused to consult historians."
News
- Head of Planned Parenthood: We’re Done Making Excuses for Our Founder
- By Bearing Witness — And Hitting ‘Record’ — 17-Year-Old Darnella Frazier May Have Changed The World
- Sanders, Jayapal Introduce Bill to Make College Tuition-Free for Many Americans
- The Radical Politics of Nina Simone
- The Fruit of Power
- The Twists and Turns of Black History (Review)
- The Ever-Changing Past: Why All History is Revisionist History – James Banner at the Washington History Seminar (May 3)
- Honoring Excellence, Electing New Members: New Members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- The Girl in the Kent State Photo
- The Historian Annette Gordon-Reed Gets Personal in ‘On Juneteenth’