Historians in the News

The Logic of Eugenics Still Haunts Virginia

Ellen Wayland-Smith reviews Elizabeth Catte's book Pure America: Eugenics and the Making of Modern Virginia. 

Website Documents Over 700 Lynchings in Texas

Jeff Littlejohn of Sam Houston State University has launched a website to make accessible information about more than 700 documented lynchings in the state of Texas. 

This Professor Protested a School’s Racism. Then He Lost His Job

"The sudden termination of Felber sends a very strong and disturbing message. Felber was doing antiracist work and initiated programs that benefited the marginalized and disenfranchised."

After the Capitol Was Stormed, Teachers Try Explaining History in Real Time

The eruption of political violence at the US Capitol has challenged teachers of history and civics at all grade levels and pushed teachers of other subjects to respond to their students' experience of confusion, anger, or sadness. 

Race on Campus: The Mental Burden of Minority Professors

Fernanda Zamudio-Suaréz writes about mental health challenges facing minority faculty at predominantly white institutions, quoting historians Marcia Chatelain and Katrina Phillips. 

Against the Consensus Approach to History

by William Hogeland

Current debates about the historiography of slavery and the founding mistake the authority claimed by past generations of historians for scholarly integrity instead of recognizing that writing history has always been a political act (that often works to conceal its politics).

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.”

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."

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

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

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. 

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.