Leslie A. Schwalm is Professor Emeritus of History and Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Iowa. This interview is based on her new book, Medicine, Science, and Making Race in Civil War America (University of North Carolina […]
race in America
The Author’s Corner with Kimberly R. Kellison
Kimberly R. Kellison is Associate Professor of History & Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Baylor University. This interview is based on her new book, Forging a Christian Order: South Carolina Baptists, Race, and Slavery, 1696–1860 […]
How U.S. history textbook publishers are catering to Florida’s “anti-woke” laws
Here is a taste of Sarah Mervosh’s piece at The New York Times: In an attempt to cater to Florida, at least one publisher made significant changes to its materials, walking back or omitting references to race, even in its […]
Two divergent explanations of Southern inequality
Over at Dissent, political scientist Jared Loggins reviews Adolph Reed’s The South: Jim Crow and Its Afterlives and Imani Perry’s South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon Line to Understand the Soul of a Nation. (See my review of […]
The Author’s Corner with Kathleen M. Brown
Kathleen M. Brown is David Boies Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. This interview is based on her new book, Undoing Slavery: Bodies, Race, and Rights in the Age of Abolition (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023). JF: What […]
The Author’s Corner with Thomas Aiello
Thomas Aiello is Professor of History, Africana Studies, and Anthrozoology at Valdosta State University. This interview is based on his new book, Practical Radicalism and the Great Migration: The Cultural Geography of the Scott Newspaper Syndicate (University of Georgia Press, […]
In 1970, Mississippi banned Sesame Street
Here is Kristin Hunt at The Washington Post: In April 1970, members of Mississippi’s newly formed State Commission for Educational Television met to discuss Big Bird and Cookie Monster. “Sesame Street” had debuted on public TV the previous November, and […]
He was Florida’s professor of the year in 2006. Today his courses would be illegal.
In 2006, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching chose WIlliam Felice, a political science professor at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, as it’s Florida Professor of the Year. He is now retired, but if he were still teaching […]
The Author’s Corner with Thomas A. Castillo
Thomas A. Castillo is Associate Professor of History at Coastal Carolina University. This interview is based on his book, Working in the Magic City: Moral Economy in Early Twentieth-Century Miami (University of Illinois Press, 2022). JF: What led you to […]
The Author’s Corner with Jennifer Helgren
Jennifer Helgren is Professor of History and Chair of the History Department at University of the Pacific. This interview is based on her new book, The Camp Fire Girls: Gender, Race, and American Girlhood, 1910–1980 (University of Nebraska Press, 2022). JF: […]
Goodbye Roger Taney
Earlier this week my U.S. history survey students answered a final exam essay question on the short-term causes of the American Civil War. I haven’t graded their essays yet, but if their blue books do not contain something about Roger […]
The Author’s Corner with Michael Trotti
Michael Trotti is Professor of History at Ithaca College. This interview is based on his new book,The End of Public Execution: Race, Religion, and Punishment in the American South (University of North Carolina Press, 2022). JF: What led you to […]
On the slaveholder Jonathan Edwards and the Christians who read him
This past weekend a couple of folks called my attention to tweets from Joash Thomas. According to his Twitter bio, he is the National Director of Mobilization & Advocacy for the International Justice Mission (IJM) of Canada. I have great […]
Episode 105: “‘Heathenism’ in America”
According to historian Kathryn Gin Lum, Americans have long viewed the world as a realm of suffering heathens whose lands and lives needed their intervention to flourish. The term “heathen” fell out of common use by the early 1900s, but […]
Is the real threat to free expression cancel culture or the fear of cancel culture?
Eve Fairbanks, the author of The Inheritors: An Intimate Portrait of South Africa’s Racial Reckoning, is a Virginia-born author who currently lives in Johannesburg, South Africa. She writes as a white woman who published a book about race. Here is […]
We live in a world of persons; not “rigid” identity categories
David Brooks nails it: Besides being offended by the racist comments made by members of the Los Angeles City Council — as so many people were — I was also struck by the underlying worldview revealed during their leaked conversation. […]
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 […]
Some justice for Breonna Taylor
Here is Kenneth Walker, of Louisville, Kentucky: After nearly two and a half years, a person connected with the Louisville Metro Police Department has finally taken some responsibility for the death of my girlfriend, Breonna Taylor. Since March 13, 2020, I have […]
Annette Gordon-Reed on race in America
Chris Lehmann interviews the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian at Forum. Here is a taste: Chris Lehmann: In your recent book, On Juneteenth, you wrote very powerfully about the kind of stories that need to be told with regard to your experience growing […]
The Author’s Corner with Rebecca Sharpless
Rebecca Sharpless is Professor of History at Texas Christian University. This interview is based on her new book, Grain and Fire: A History of Baking in the American South (University of North Carolina Press, 2022). JF: What led you to […]