3/1/2023
Quintard Taylor's Black Past Project Fights Erasure of History
Historians in the Newstags: African American history, Black History
History is political, written by the winners and taught according to their wishes. That’s why the website BlackPast is not only fascinating, but important.
The brainchild of retired University of Washington professor Quintard Taylor was launched 16 years ago to help with his own teaching. It has since evolved into a crusade to safeguard the history of Black Americans and people of African descent around the globe.
Judging from traffic on BlackPast.org, there is substantial interest. At last count, the website, which functions as a free library, was attracting more than 6 million visits annually.
Loaded with primary documents, photographs, interactive timelines and more than 8,000 entries detailing Black contributions to world history, BlackPast offers information that may surprise students of the Black American experience.
For instance: The novelist Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, considered the founder of modern Russian literature, descends from a Black general who served in the Russian army decades before the United States even existed.
....
Political context was not a driver when Taylor launched BlackPast as a labor of love in 2007, and the website remains almost entirely volunteer-driven, its $300,000 budget funded primarily through donations, he said. But today, Taylor knows that its import reaches beyond the ivory towers of academia to confront what he calls an attempt “to erase Black history.” BlackPast is scholarly. But make no mistake, it’s a strong, much-needed move to push back and worthy of support.
comments powered by Disqus
News
- The Debt Ceiling Law is now a Tool of Partisan Political Power; Abolish It
- Amitai Etzioni, Theorist of Communitarianism, Dies at 94
- Kagan, Sotomayor Join SCOTUS Cons in Sticking it to Unions
- New Evidence: Rehnquist Pretty Much OK with Plessy v. Ferguson
- Ohio Unions Link Academic Freedom and the Freedom to Strike
- First Round of Obama Administration Oral Histories Focus on Political Fault Lines and Policy Tradeoffs
- The Tulsa Race Massacre was an Attack on Black People; Rebuilding Policies were an Attack on Black Wealth
- British Universities are Researching Ties to Slavery. Conservative Alumni Say "Enough"
- Martha Hodes Reconstructs Her Memory of a 1970 Hijacking
- Jeremi Suri: Texas Higher Ed Conflict "Doesn't Have to Be This Way"
Trending Now
- New transcript of Ayn Rand at West Point in 1974 shows she claimed “savage" Indians had no right to live here just because they were born here
- The Mexican War Suggests Ukraine May End Up Conceding Crimea. World War I Suggests the Price May Be Tragic if it Doesn't
- The Vietnam War Crimes You Never Heard Of