Civil War

• 
• 9/19/2021
  

  Richmond's Lee Statue Has Come Down. What About Confederate Memorials in Cemeteries?

  by Jeffrey Smith

  The statue of Robert E. Lee on Richmond’s Monument Avenue finally came down, to both fanfare and controversy. But some Confederate monuments are even more politically loaded—the ones where we bury the dead.

• 
• SOURCE: Black Perspectives
  9/1/2021
  

  Black Women and Civil War Pensions

  by Holly A. Pinheiro, Jr.

  Widows and surviving children of Black veterans of the Civil War used their status as pensioners to claim belonging in the nation, but authorities frequently allowed notions of respectability rooted in white supremacy to undermine them. 

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  7/14/2021
  

  Conservatives are Once Again Trying to Erase Black History

  by Tyler D. Parry

  There are, in fact, millions of southerners from the antebellum,Civil War and Reconstruction eras that deserve to be memorialized. Their stories have been suppressed not out of political correctness but because they were Black southerners fighting for freedom and interracial democracy.

• 
• SOURCE: MSNBC
  6/12/2021
  

  North Carolina Plantation's Juneteenth Event Underscores South's Historical Whitewashing

  by Keisha N. Blain

  "The plan to center a Juneteenth event around so-called “displaced white refugees” is deeply racist. But it’s also part of a much larger public effort to distort historical narratives and, in this case, miseducate the public about slavery in the United States."

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  6/13/2021
  

  Plantation Planned Juneteenth Event that would Tell the Stories of Displaced ‘White Refugees’

  Was the planned event unduly sympathetic to slave owners, or a reflection of the historical intertwining of the lives of Black and White southerners? 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  6/7/2021
  

  Plantations Aren’t Paying Reparations, But Have Started Programs To Give Back To Descendants

  Joy Banner, descended from people enslaved at the Whitney Plantation in Louisiana, is pursuing reparations in the form of input into the use of land owned by the Whitney, saying “there are as many different forms of reparations as you can think of, because healing looks different in every community.”

• 
• SOURCE: Black Perspectives
  4/8/2021
  

  Black Soldiers and the Civil War

  by Aston Gonzalez

  Deborah Willis's book "The Black Civil War Soldier" utilizes visual imagery other historians have often passed over to describe how Black soldiers understood military service in relation to their hopes for future economic, political, and familial security. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/30/2021
  

  Maryland’s State Song, a Nod to the Confederacy, Nears Repeal

  "Maryland, My Maryland" was written by a Confederate sympathizer in 1861 and has come under scrutiny in recent years for its characterization of the Union army as a force of tyranny and call for listerners to fight for the Confederacy. 

• 
• SOURCE: Civil War Memory
  3/10/2021
  

  When It Comes To a Bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest, ‘The Cruelty Was the Point.’

  by Kevin M. Levin

  The Nathan Bedford Forrest bust placed in the Tennessee State Capitol in 1978 was not the work of people who could reasonably be said to have the values of another era. Its placement forces us to consider head-on the values of the Confederacy and people who celebrate it. 

• 
• SOURCE: Civil War Memory
  3/8/2021
  

  The Problem With CNN’s Lincoln Documentary

  by Kevin M. Levin

  In a brief review, history educator and civil war scholar Kevin M. Levin says CNN's latest Lincoln documentary doesn't use the knowledge of a great roster of historians to full advantage. 

• 
• SOURCE: National Parks Traveler
  2/25/2021
  

  Op-Ed | Confederate Memorials Serve A Role In National Parks

  by Harry Butowski

  "The removal of existing statues in our Civil War parks will not change our history, but make it more difficult to confront and examine our history. National parks are the great American classroom where American history is taught."

• 
• SOURCE: National Parks Traveler
  2/22/2021
  

  The Future Of Confederate Monuments

  by Kim O'Connell

  “The Park Service needs to ask, ‘Who’s coming to your site and who’s not coming to your site?’” says Denise Meringolo, a professor of public history at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. “Those monuments are a barrier to significant portions of the audience, for whom they are not simply inaccurate or annoying. They are traumatizing.”

• 
• SOURCE: Tropics of Meta
  2/19/2021
  

  The Current Republic of Suffering

  by Murray Browne

  Drew Gilpin Faust's "This Republic of Suffering" inspires reflection on how the collective experiences of COVID and the loss of a half million Americans may shape the society that emerges. 

• 
• SOURCE: Muster
  2/23/2021
  

  The Necessity of National Unity: Defeated Confederates’ International Appeals to Unity

  by Ann Tucker

  Defeated Confederate partisans found justification and support for national reunification without accountability by pointing selectively to the contentious politics of the European nationalist movement. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/18/2021
  

  The Real Story of the ‘Draft Riots’

  by Elizabeth Mitchell

  "The story of the merchants’ response to the so-called Draft Riots is a reminder that we can all do more if we don’t want the lives of more Black people to be marred by cruelty."

• 
• 1/24/2021
  

  "Hands Off Until He Was Safe Over": David Reynolds Urges Biden to Look to Lincoln

  by James Thornton Harris

  Historian David S. Reynolds recently published Abe: Abraham Lincoln and his Times, a cultural biography that shows how the 16th president was shaped by the many social currents swirling in the young United States.

• 
• SOURCE: Civil War Memory
  1/3/2021
  

  Do We Really Need Another Biography of Robert E. Lee?

  by Kevin M. Levin

  Recent discussion of the forthcoming biography of Robert E. Lee by Allen Guelzo shouldn't foreclose the possibility that the book will offer insight because many historians object to Guelzo's participation in Donald Trump's conference on teaching history. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  1/5/2020
  

  The Senators Who Were Expelled After Refusing To Accept Lincoln’s Election

  by Gillian Brockell

  Not since the crisis of secession and the Civil War has the U.S. Senate expelled a member. 

• 
• SOURCE: ArcDigital
  12/20/2020
  

  The Americans Who Long for Civil War: Should We Take these Big Talkers Seriously?

  by L.D. Burnett

  The chances that Trumpist die-hards will secede are nil. But the spirit animating this talk is still toxic and can't be ignored. 

• 
• SOURCE: Paste
  12/15/2020
  

  Paste Magazine's Best Documentaries of 2020

  Documentaries on the memory of the Civil War and the beginnings of the disability movement are among Paste's best of the year.