The historian and his wife Abby recently toured “the quiet farmlands and serene towns along the Erie Canal” once known as the “burned-over district.” As Ayers writes in this piece at Bunk: “Religious revivals, reform movements, and political conflict had...
I have never voted for Scott Perry, but he does represent me in the United States House of Representatives. Perry is the chairman of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus. He refused to cooperate with the House committee investigating January 6th...
A delegate of the General Assembly of Virginia wants better citizenship education for the students of the Commonwealth. Earlier this week Wren Williams proposed a bill (House Bill 781) to amend the Code of Virginia to strengthen “student citizenship skills.”...
On Tuesday, October 12, Yale historian David Blight will deliver the 2021 Messiah University American Democracy Lecture. Free tickets are still available. They can be reserved at the Messiah ticket office: 717-691-6036. On Wednesday, October 13, I will join my...
Robert S. Levine is Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Maryland. This interview is based on his new book, The Failed Promise: Reconstruction, Frederick Douglass, and the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson (W. W. Norton & Company, 2021). JF:...
Here is historian Peniel Joseph at CNN: Juneteenth commemorates the June 19, 1865, announcement of the end of slavery by a Union major general in Texas. Long celebrated in Black communities from coast to coast, it has been a Texas state holiday...
150 years ago yesterday, Douglass delivered this Decoration Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery. Decoration Day was the predecessor of Memorial Day. Learn more about it here. Here is Douglass: The Unknown Loyal Dead Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia, on Decoration...
Kevin McCarthy made a Black History Month video. It featured African American leader Frederick Douglass. Watch: Yale historian David Blight, the author of the definitive biography of Douglass, Prophet of Freedom, commented on McCarthy’s videos at the Los Angeles Times....
Yesterday, Liberty University’s Falkirk Center, the culture war wing of the largest Christian university in the world, held a 1-day conference titled “Get Louder: Faith Summit 2020.” Evangelical Trump supporters were encouraged to yell and scream more, fight more, and...
Listen or read here. A taste: DAVID BLIGHT: Multiculturalism, we use it so loosely that we don’t even know what it means anymore. Well, Douglass knew what it meant. It meant the dream put into reality that people of every...
Watch: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Osdm3oaBbJI&w=560&h=315] There are a lot of historical problems with this video, but the one of the most overt problems is Barton’s claim that most 19th-century Americans were abolitionists. Apparently Barton believes that those who used the Bible to...
Princeton historian Matt Karp talks with Jacobin magazine’s Megan Day and Micah Uetricht about his recent Catalyst essay, “The Mass Politics of Anti-Slavery.” This is a wide-ranging discussion about abolitionism, Karl Marx, Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party of the 1850s, and contemporary politics....
Two of my colleagues in the Messiah University history department, Bernardo Michael and David Pettegrew, have an op-ed at PennLive today on their work on the African American communities of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Pettegrew is the director of the university’s Digital...
According to this piece at NPR, Yale University has acquired the seldom seen Frederick Douglass papers used by David Blight in his book Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom. Here is a taste: For years, researchers interested in the life of...
There are many white evangelicals who believe that a spiritual revival will solve the problem of racism in the United States. When God transforms a human heart, the argument goes, the inclination to perform racist acts will subside. So we...
Learn more about this Washington D.C. monument here. I would also encourage you to read David Blight’s Washington Post piece on why it should stay. If you want to dig even deeper, read the opening chapter of Blight’s book Frederick Douglass:...
What have Trump’s evangelicals been saying since our last update? They are still coming for Jesus: As I said in an earlier tweet…. the left is coming after Jesus and the apostles next. Not the statues but the historic faith of Christianity https://t.co/wO8INqFk0v —...
I have linked to this in a couple of posts over the course of the last week, but I just realized I never devoted a stand-alone post to it. Watch: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBe5qbnkqoM&w=560&h=315] ...
At his July 3, 2020 speech at Mount Rushmore, Donald Trump said: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alEE-5Pk5DQ&w=560&h=315] More here. And here is the text of the executive order: By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws...
In case you missed it, Trump gave a speech at Mount Rushmore, South Dakota on the night of July 3, 2020. Read the text here. Watch the entire event here: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z61WalX3m_k&w=560&h=315] Thoughts: 1. Mary Hart 2. South Dakota governor...
