Robert Jeffress, the Trump-loving pastor of Dallas’s First Baptist Church, should get credit for showing-up at this event. It’s a step in the right direction. Here is Matt Goodman at Dallas Magazine: Monday evening at SMU’s Dallas Hall, Dr. Michael Waters,...
segregation
How private interests led the way on urban segregation in America
Historian Colin Gordon argues that the federal housing policies contributed to segregation in cities, but private interests led the way. Here is a taste of his piece at Dissent: Recent scholarship and reporting on racial disparities in the United States...
Desegregating bowling alleys
Check out Ashawnta Jackson’s piece at JSTOR Daily: In 1968, students from South Carolina State College, a historically Black college in Orangeburg, attempted to enter a segregated bowling alley in town. The alley was closed by police for the night....
John Marshall Harlan: The lone dissenter in Plessy v. Ferguson
Here is Peter Canellos at The New York Times. His forthcoming book is titled The Great Dissenter: The Story of John Marshall Harlan, American Judicial Hero. A taste: The Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, announced 125 years ago Tuesday,...
A Texas state representative defends the phrase “purity of the ballot box.” It does not go well.
Watch: The Washington Post has it covered: Early on in a contentious night of debate over a bill that would create newvoting restrictions in Texas, state Rep. Rafael Anchía (D) zeroed in on what he called a “peculiar term.” The bill said...
Teaching Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”
This is a revised and updated version of a post originally published on March 6, 2020: After a couple weeks focusing on “creation” in my Created Called for Community (CCC) course at Messiah University, we have shifted gears slightly to focus on the...