public history

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/25/2021
  

  How do I Tell the Story of Robert E. Lee?

  by Allen C. Guelzo

  Lee is a study in contradictions, argues his most recent biographer. Can the public today engage with them? 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/20/2021
  

  Park Rangers Bring Black History to Life in the Great Outdoors

  As Americans consider the racist views of John Muir and the legacy of exclusion from national parks spaces, the Times highlights the work of African American workers in the national parks service and the Black history they help preserve "for the benefit and enjoyment of people." 

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• 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.

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• SOURCE: Click on Detroit
  9/14/2021
  

  Detroit Historical Society Launches Interactive Walking tour of Historic Black Bottom District

  Black Bottom was a predominately Black neighborhood in Detroit that was demolished for redevelopment in the late 1950s, and was replaced with the Lafayette Park district and I-375.

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• SOURCE: NBC News
  9/13/2021
  

  Tuskegee, Alabama Confederate Memorial at Center of Lawsuit in Majority-Black City

  The presence of the statue in the city, home of the historic Tuskegee University and training place of the famed World War II aviation heroes, has angered locals for decades. 

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• SOURCE: Wired
  9/7/2021
  

  Ksenia Coffman's Struggle to Root out Nazi Sympathy on Wikipedia

  A downside of Wikipedia's culture of consensus and openness means that articles on Nazism often conceal, soft-peddle, or otherwise diminish the scope of Nazi crimes, frequently relying on dubious sources, deceptive quotations, or falsification. 

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• 9/12/2021
  

  9/11's Memorials and the Politics of Historical Memory

  by Marita Sturken

  Major 9/11 memorials try to fix the public memory on a moment of national unity that, 20 years later, seems illusory. Other memorials point the way to using the force of memory to encourage critical reflection on nationalism.

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• SOURCE: New York Magazine
  8/26/2021
  

  New Documentary Examines the Politics that Have Undermined the 9/11 Museum

  by David Klion

  A new documentary chronicles the personal conflicts behind the scenes of the 9/11 museum, but asks pointed questions about whether the museum supports deeper public understanding of the attacks and their aftermath. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/6/2021
  

  Too Few Today Remember the Bloody Uprising of Miners at Blair Mountain

  In a region still marked by rampant inequality, the public forgetting of the Battle of Blair Mountain seems like a concerted effort to suppress working people's history. 

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• SOURCE: Santa Fe New Mexican
  9/6/2021
  

  Santa Fe's Historian Looks Ahead from Controversial Past

  City Historian Valerie Rangel hopes to engage residents of Santa Fe with the complex and difficult histories of colonialism and racism that still shape the city and region. 

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• SOURCE: Tropics of Meta
  8/27/2021
  

  A Historic Seaside Community: Recovering Santa Monica's "Inkwell" Beach

  by Brian Dunlap

  "Memorial Day 1920. A young African American chauffeur, Arthur Valentine, settled on “Whites Only” Topanga Beach. With friends and family, he stepped from his truck. Three sheriff’s deputies demanded that they leave."

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  8/30/2021
  

  Uncovering and Protecting the Black History of Nantucket

  by Tiya Miles

  "Although the Black community of New Guinea has passed into history, its mark on the landscape remains, a reminder that Nantucket was once a place of working-class ingenuity and Black daring."

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  8/16/2021
  

  Britain’s Idyllic Country Houses Reveal a Darker History

  About a third of the historic homes managed by Britain's National Trust have been linked to fortunes made through slavery and colonialism. The agency's efforts to present this history has been controversial. 

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• SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
  8/10/2021
  

  Greenwood, Mississippi Asks What Comes After Confederate Monuments

  As political pressure brings down Confederate statues, the question of what replaces them becomes more urgent but remains unanswered. 

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  8/9/2021
  

  History Was Never Subject to Democratic Control

  by Helen Lewis

  Neither the local economic elite who put up Edward Colston's statue in Bristol, England nor the activists who tore it down operated with a public mandate. What are the prospects for democratic and consensual public history? 

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• SOURCE: NPR
  7/29/2021
  

  95% of Capitol Sculptures Depict Men. Will That Change Soon?

  Sen. Amy Klobuchar is a leader of a group of Senators who hope to increase the representation of women in the Capitol statuary. 

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• SOURCE: Public Books
  

  Under Columbus, Georgia: What Folklore Erases

  by Bryan Banks

  Subterranean tunnels under Columbus, Georgia have been repurposed as part of dramatic stories of crime, emancipation, and war, tales which obscure the more prosaic and violent aspects of the town's history. 

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• 8/1/2021
  

  Charlottesville's Lee Statue Belongs in a Museum

  by John Troast

  "Charlottesville’s recently removed statue of Robert E. Lee is not a statue of a man, it is a statue of a myth," and the history of that dangerous myth needs to be preserved.

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• SOURCE: Indyweek
  7/28/2021
  

  Where They Stood: A Photojournalist Documents the Nation's Fallen Confederate Monuments

  "Last fall, I began to document the Confederate monuments that have been taken down since George Floyd’s death. In April, I started a five-week, 7,300-mile road trip throughout the South to continue this work."

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• SOURCE: Tropics of Meta
  7/26/2021
  

  The People’s Bicentennial Commission and the Spirit of (19)76

  by Jason Tebbe

  As the national bicentennial approached, a group of New Left activists formed the People's Bicentennial Commission and adopted the symbols of the nation's founding to challenge the domination of the rich.