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African American history

“Slavery” or “involuntary relocation?”

John Fea   |  July 1, 2022

Here is Brian Lopez at The Texas Tribune: A group of Texas educators have proposed to the Texas State Board of Education that slavery should be taught as “involuntary relocation” during second grade social studies instruction, but board members have...

The Author’s Corner with Paul Escott

Rachel Petroziello   |  June 8, 2022

Paul Escott is Reynolds Professor of History Emeritus at Wake Forest University. This interview is based on his new book, Black Suffrage: Lincoln’s Last Goal (University of Virginia Press, 2022). JF: What led you to write Black Suffrage? PE: My two...

The International African American Museum will open in Charleston

John Fea   |  June 6, 2022

It was one of the busiest slave trading posts in early America. Here is CNN: The International African American Museum will open the weekend of January 21, 2023, the museum announced Wednesday. The 150,000-square-foot facility will be at the former site...

The Author’s Corner with Melissa Ford

Rachel Petroziello   |  June 2, 2022

Melissa Ford is Assistant Professor of History at Slippery Rock University. This interview is based on her new book, A Brick and a Bible: Black Women’s Radical Activism in the Midwest during the Great Depression (Southern Illinois University Press, 2022)....

Why does an image of the lynching of a Black man in Texas appear in a family photo album with vacation and wedding photos?

John Fea   |  May 31, 2022

I will let historian Jeffrey Littlejohn explain. Here is a taste of his piece at The Conversation: As a historian and director of the Lynching in Texas project, which has documented more than 600 racial terror lynchings, I receive regular emails from journalists, scholars...

The Buffalo shooting in historical context

John Fea   |  May 18, 2022

Historian Chad Williams places the shooting in the larger context of Buffalo history. Here is a taste of his piece at The Washington Post: Historical context is necessary to fully grasp the significance of the Buffalo shooting. White-supremacist terrorism targeting...

Who was Jim Limber and what was his connection to the Confederate Lost Cause?

John Fea   |  April 11, 2022

Here is Sydney Trent at The Washington Post: The little Black boy in the Civil War-era photograph stands atop a gilded chair, grasping its tall back with his small fist. His clothing is quotidian — striped pants and a matching...

What is going on at James Madison’s Montpelier?

John Fea   |  March 29, 2022

Here is Gregory Scheneider at The Washington Post: James Madison’s Montpelier estatedrew national attention last year when the board that manages the historic home announced plans to share authority equally with descendants of people who were once enslaved there. But...

The African American Intellectual History Society announces the finalists for its 2022 Pauli Murray Book Prize

John Fea   |  March 9, 2022

The finalists are: Tamika Nunley, At the Threshold of Liberty: Women, Slavery, and Shifting Identities in Washington, D.C. (University of North Carolina Press) Jarvis Givens, Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching (Harvard University Press)  Karen Cook Bell, Running From Bondage:...

Pennsylvania governor Thomas Wolf invests $4 million in York African-American History & Lecture Center

John Fea   |  February 27, 2022

Here is the press release: Governor Tom Wolf today visited the future site of the Crispus Attucks York African American History & Lecture Center which received a $4 million state investment through the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program (RACP) in downtown...

Biden will nominate Katanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court

John Fea   |  February 25, 2022

Amid all the Ukraine coverage, the Supreme Court has not received much coverage on cable news in recent days. But today Joe Biden nominated the first Black woman to the Supreme Court. Her name is Katanji Brown Jackson. Here is...

A St. Louis anti-vaxxer was arrested, strapped down by four men, and vaccinated after trying to convince Blacks from the South not to take the vaccine

John Fea   |  February 12, 2022

The article is from the St. Louis Dispatch, August 6, 1923. Thanks to historian Andrew Wehrman for bringing this to my attention. Here is his Twitter commentary:...

“The moral arc of the universe not only bends toward justice, but takes an occasional twist toward irony as well”

John Fea   |  February 9, 2022

The Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia will decide the fate of Richmond’s Robert E. Lee monument. Here is Michael Paul Williams at Richmond.com: The prophesy that John Mitchell Jr. issued about the Robert E. Lee monument continues...

Bringing the Bible to the Jim Crow South

John Fea   |  February 8, 2022

In 1900, Henry Nelson Payne, a missionary and president of Mary Holmes Seminary in West Point, Mississippi, a school for Black women, was frustrated that many Bible societies in the former Confederacy were not willing to distribute Bibles to African...

Why is Black History Month celebrated in February?

John Fea   |  February 1, 2022

Jonathan Franklin explains at NPR: Critics have long argued that Black history should be taught and celebrated year-round, not just during one month each year. It was Carter G. Woodson, the “father of Black history,” who first set out in 1926...

Henry E. Hayne represented the promise of Reconstruction. Why don’t we know more about him?

John Fea   |  January 24, 2022

Robert Greene II and Tyler D. Parry are trying to correct that. Here is a taste of their piece on Hayne at The Washington Post: In 1872, Hayne became South Carolina’s secretary of state. This elective position probably provided him...

Meme of the day

John Fea   |  December 28, 2021

Learn more about Ruby Bridges here....

What will happen to the Robert E. Lee statue that once stood in Charlottesville, Virginia?

John Fea   |  December 8, 2021

The Jefferson School African American Heritage Center will melt it down and turn it into a new piece of public art. Here is Eduardo Medina at The New York Times: The City Council of Charlottesville, Va., voted on Tuesday to...

Black Americans have a long history of creating spaces against violent white resistance

John Fea   |  December 7, 2021

Alicia Jackson teaches history at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia. Here is a taste of her Washington Post piece, “Black Americans have long envisioned and created spaces of sanctuary”: On a plot of land near Toomsboro, Ga., three dozen people...

The Author’s Corner with Nik Ribianszky

Rachel Petroziello   |  November 1, 2021

Nik Ribianszky is Lecturer of American History at Queen’s University Belfast. This interview is based on her new book, Generations of Freedom: Gender, Movement, and Violence in Natchez, 1779-1865 (University of Georgia Press, 2021). JF: What led you to write Generations...

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