Court Carney is Professor of History at Stephen F. Austin State University. This interview is based on his new book, Reckoning with the Devil: Nathan Bedford Forrest in Myth and Memory (LSU Press, 2024). JF: What led you to write Reckoning […]
Confederate monuments
For the record, Robert E. Lee was not a founding father
Watch Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine explain this to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia:
Melting Robert E. Lee
The Lee statue at the center of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia was just melted. Here is Teo Armus and Hadley Green at The Washington Post: It was a choice to melt down Robert E. Lee. […]
Should Princeton University remove its statue of former College of New Jersey president John Witherspoon?
I’ve spent a little time studying Princeton University’s history over the years. My first book was on a Witherspoon student who studied at Princeton (then the College of New Jersey) between 1770 and 1772. My second book covered Witherspoon’s role […]
The A.P. Hill statue near Richmond comes down
The statue of the Confederate general was Richmond’s last city-owned Confederate statue. Here is a taste of Paul Waldman’s piece at The Washington Post: The Lost Cause is dying with a whimper. For that, thank the committed activists who made […]
What do Americans think about Confederate flags and monuments?
Public Religion Research Institute just released a very revealing study about Confederate flag and Confederate monuments in America. You can read the entire report here. Here are a few of the findings that caught my attention: 72% of Americans believe […]
“The moral arc of the universe not only bends toward justice, but takes an occasional twist toward irony as well”
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 […]
Nashville removes a statue to the founder of the KKK
It was a really strange statue that one website said “accurately reflects the ugliness of its subject.” D. Patrick Rodgers’s piece at Nashville Scene is titled “Nathan Bedford Forrest Has Fallen.” Here is a taste: The Confederacy has fallen. Again. […]
What will happen to the Robert E. Lee statue that once stood in Charlottesville, Virginia?
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 […]
Where is the Robert E. Lee time capsule?
The 1887 time capsule was supposed to be buried under the recently removed Richmond, Virginia Lee monument. Here is Gregory Schneider at The Washington Post: Robert E. Lee lost his lofty perch — but he’s trying to hold on to […]
House of Representatives votes to remove Confederate statues from the U.S. Capitol
For some historical context on Confederate monuments check out our interview with Karen L. Cox in the latest episode of The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast. The vote was 285 to 120. This means that 120 Republicans wanted to […]
Episode 85: Reckoning with Confederate Monuments
Historian Karen L. Cox argues that “when it comes to Confederate monuments, there is no common ground.” In this episode, we talk with Cox about the history of Confederate monuments and how the recent racial unrest in the United States […]