Boston

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• SOURCE: CNN
  8/1/2022
  

  What Bill Russell's Troubled Relationship with Boston Tells Us about Racism

  by Peniel E. Joseph

  Russell always insisted on exposing the extent of prejudice and discrimination, and refused to settle for acclaim as an athlete as a substitute for respect as a person. 

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• 2/27/2022
  

  Bridget the Grocer and the First American Kennedys

  by Neal Thompson

  The history of the Irish immigrant Kennedys has long focused on its prominent men. A new book looks to JFK's grandmother Bridget Murphy Kennedy as the foundation of the family and a neglected figure for understanding immigration, urban life, and the changing of American politics.

• 
• SOURCE: WBUR
  2/2/2022
  

  Two Boston Council Members Propose Reparations Study Commission

  The group would examine the history of racism in Boston and its effects on the city’s Black residents.

• 
• SOURCE: The Metropole
  6/9/2021
  

  Education Failed To Be An Equalizer In Boston — A Review Of “The Education Trap”

  by Erika M. Kitzmiller

  A new book looks at the long history of education reform in Boston and concludes that, as in the 19th century, expecting education to fix the problems of an unequal society is wishful thinking. 

• 
• 6/13/2021
  

  The Night Vietnam Veterans Stormed Bunker Hill

  by Elise Lemire

  The Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775 was a military defeat for the Continental Army but a coup for morale. In 1971, Vietnam Veterans Against the War won a nonviolent battle at the site for the allegiance of the working class residents of Charlestown. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  2/10/2021
  

  A Forgotten Black Founding Father

  by Danielle Allen

  The figure of Black abolitionist Prince Hall has been discussed for his advocacy for abolition in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, but there remains a deeper work of historical reconstruction to understand his connections to family, community and civil society in the founding era. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  2/10/2021
  

  Black Women have Shaped Politics in Boston for Centuries

  by Kabria Baumgartner

  From free speech to educational equity to fair housing, Black women in Boston have been at the front lines of challenging the city's political establishment to live up to ideals of democracy associated with the city. The presumptive mayor-elect Kim Janey will carry on that tradition. 

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• SOURCE: The Metropole
  2/8/2021
  

  “A New Jerusalem”–A Review Of The City-State Of Boston

  Kristian Price reveiws Mark Peterson's study of Boston from its founding through the mid-19th century, which focuses on the contradiction of the Puritan ideal of a city of moral rectitude and the economic necessity of local merchants' enthusiastic participation in the slave trade. 

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• SOURCE: WGBH
  11/27/2020
  

  The Legacy Of Tunney Lee: Preserving The History Of Boston's Chinatown

  An interdisciplinary panel of scholars discusses the contributions of the late MIT urban studies professor Tunney Lee to historic preservation and the relationship of immigrant communities to urban environments.

• 
• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  9/1/2020
  

  “Nice White Parents,” “Fiasco,” and America’s Public-School Problem

  Two podcasts address controversial aspects of racial integration in schooling, looking at contemporary New York and Boston in the late 1960s and 1970s. 

• 
• SOURCE: CommonWealth
  8/4/2020
  

  Faneuil Hall Name Change Needed

  by Marty Blatt and David J. Harris

  We might well ask whether Peter Faneuil actually paid for the building or whether it was purchased by the lives and freedom of those he transported and sold.

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• SOURCE: Boston Globe
  7/5/2020
  

  MIT Professor Tunney Lee, an Architect, Urban Planner, and Historian of Chinatown, Dies at 88

  “He was great public servant," said former Governor Michael S. Dukakis.

• 
• SOURCE: Civil War Memory
  6/26/2020
  

  Should the Freedmen’s Memorial Stay or Go?

  by Kevin M. Levin

  In considering what to do about the emancipation memorial, academic observers would do well to consider the gap between their understanding of a statue's public impact and the way that black residents experience it. 

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• SOURCE: Boston Globe
  2/27/2020
  

  A Historian Finds Women, Children, and ‘Family History’ at the Boston Massacre

  “What happens when we think of this as an event that is populated by women and children as well as just guys with guns?”

• 
• SOURCE: Civil War Memory
  6/26/19
  

  Boston’s Black History is American History

  by Kevin Levin

  We still have a ways to go in reaching beyond the traditional narrative of history in Boston and beyond.

• 
• 4/14/19
  

  The Spies' Marathon before Patriots Day

  by William Lambers

  A tale of a spy mission gone wrong and the history behind Patriots' Day. 

• 
• SOURCE: AP
  2/22/19
  

  Boston Mayor Mary Walsh Proposes Public History Project to Recognize Boston's Long Ties to Slavery

  Boston is taking a step toward recognizing the role slavery played at one of its most visited landmarks.

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• The Direct Line Between Slavery And Racism In Boston

  by Janna Malamud Smith

  When you live with a false story about your nation’s past ... developing an informed consensus for action becomes extremely difficult.  

• 
• SOURCE: Simon and Schuster (Special to HNN)
  12/12/2018
  

  This writer decided to write about the year 1721 after he got one of those Fact-a-Day calendars

  He was intrigued by the entry noting that in 1721 Boston was hit by a devastating small pox epidemic. (Interview)

• 
• SOURCE: WRAL
  6-6-18
  

  Boston Grapples With Faneuil Hall, Named for a Slaveholder

  Peter Faneuil, one of the richest merchants in 18th century New England, was a slave owner. And he traded not only in sugar, molasses and timber, but in humans.