Tennessee

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• 3/14/2023
  

  Statement by People for Black History at University of Tennessee-Martin

  The leaders of a student movement to resist Tennessee's restrictions on course content charges that their university's faculty senate has failed to give their petition a hearing. 

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• SOURCE: WPSD
  2/23/2023
  

  UT-Martin Student Government Condemns Tennessee "CRT" Law

  Members of the People for Black History group argued that uncomfortable aspects of the state's and nation's history can't be skipped over.   

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• SOURCE: Nashville Scene
  10/10/2022
  

  What Freedom Meant to Black People in Nashville During the Civil War

  Incoming AHA President Thavolia Glymph discussed how the actions of Black refugees who moved behind Union lines at Fort Negley and other locations changed the meaning of the war and ensured that it would ultimately abolish slavery. 

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• SOURCE: The Baffler
  5/26/2022
  

  The Dunce Party

  by Rachel Bryan

  Tennessee's "Divisive Concepts" bill would make it virtually impossible to teach the history and culture of the state and the wider South. 

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• SOURCE: UT Daily Beacon
  4/27/2022
  

  University of Tennessee Must Take Stand to Call Out State CRT Bill as Exercise in White Supremacy

  by David Barber

  "Our students, and our society, desperately need to hear and learn the real history of this country – a history of this country that has no better telling than that history as seen through the eyes and experience of Black people."

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• SOURCE: TomDispatch
  2/17/2022
  

  My Life With Maus

  by Tom Engelhardt

  Although the aftermath of the Tennessee "Maus" controversy involved a flood of donated copies sent to the local community and the book's return to the bestseller charts, the revival of book-banning sentiments bodes ill for the course of the nation. 

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• SOURCE: Vulture
  2/14/2022
  

  Art Spiegelman Interviewed on Maus, Art and History, and his Missing Glasses

  The graphic memoirist says that the Tennessee controversy probably doesn't reflect any antisemitic bigotry, but a desire to find a catharsis that fixes the horror of the Holocaust instead of recognizing it as ongoing. 

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• SOURCE: Substack
  1/27/2022
  

  Maus in Tennessee

  by Jeet Heer

  The stated objections to Maus – profanity, nudity, filial disrespect, violence – are impossible to separate from the fact that the book is a graphic history of the Holocaust. 

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• SOURCE: BBC
  1/27/2022
  

  Tennessee School Board Bans Holocaust Graphic Memoir "Maus"

  Author Art Spiegelman called the decision "Orwellian" and suggested young people would be deprived of knowledge. 

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• SOURCE: Nashville Tennessean
  10/5/2021
  

  The "Critical Race Theory" Ban Makes Teaching Black History Illegal in Tennessee

  by David Barber

  "The real object here is to prevent educators from discussing nearly four centuries of white domination over Black people.­­"

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/20/2021
  

  Chattanooga Struggles to Heal the Scars of a Lynching

  by Peter Canellos

  "In a time of mistrust along racial lines, the initiative in Chattanooga is a model for other communities. It demonstrates that agreed-upon facts can be a precursor to recovery."

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  8/17/2021
  

  The First Casualty in the War on Critical Race Theory

  "I don’t ask the students to subscribe to any ideas. I don’t ask them to base their opinions on materials that we read. I just ask that they critically evaluate it and understand it. We evaluate claims. That’s all that we do." 

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• SOURCE: Chalkbeat
  7/29/2021
  

  Professors: Tennessee Students Don't Learn Enough Black History

  Despite charges of a "politically correct" curriculum, Tennessee history professors report that students enter their classes with almost no exposure to Black (or Native American) history from their high school studies. 

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• SOURCE: NewsChannel 5 (Nashville)
  3/17/2021
  

  Bill Would Remove all Members of Tennessee Historical Commission

  Some conservative legislators are upset with the state Historical Commission's recent decision to remove a memorial to slave trader and Ku Klux Klan founder Nathan Bedford Forrest from the Tennessee capitol. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  3/11/2021
  

  The Lynching That Black Chattanooga Never Forgot Takes Center Stage Downtown

  "Even as the bridge became a central gathering place of the city, some Black Chattanoogans who know its history have refused to cross it."

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  7/15/19
  

  Tennessee just showed that white supremacy is alive and well

  by Keisha N. Blain

  Honoring a former Confederate general and KKK grand wizard in 2019 is outrageous.

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• SOURCE: CNN
  7/14/2019
  

  Here's the story of the slave trader who Tennessee's governor is honoring

  Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed a proclamation officially declaring July 13 "Nathan Bedford Forrest Day," thus honoring the former Confederate general, slave trader and early leader of the Ku Klux Klan.

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• SOURCE: Wate.com
  3/27/19
  

  Appalachian history professors applaud Tennessee bill recognizing dialect

  The bill states that people of the Appalachian Mountains are misunderstood and their dialect is often seen as uneducated. If the bill passed, it would legitimize the Appalachian dialect.

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• SOURCE: Longview News-Journal
  4-17-18
  

  Tennessee lawmakers punish Memphis for removing statues

  Last year the city of Memphis, which is majority black, was able to find a legal loophole to get rid of two Confederate statues and a bust by selling city parks to a nonprofit.

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• SOURCE: The Daily Beast
  3-9-18
  

  This Tennessee Elementary School Had a Mural of a Lynching Still Up. In 2018.

  An elementary school finally painted over an outside mural showing a Rebel flag and a scene suggesting a lynching. Was Crossville’s alleged past as a ‘sundown town’ to blame?