In the 1830s Clement Clarke Moore came out as the author of a poem he had written anonymously, “A Visit to St. Nicholas,” commonly known as “Twas the Night Before Christmas.” Moore was a professor of theology and also a prominent resident of New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood, where a park is named after him.
Read MoreThe first words on this website are, “The cell phone videos are hard to watch but watch them I do.” And, “It’s never far from my mind that someone risked their safety to press the Record button, to document the humiliation, abuse and sometimes death of Black Americans taking place on the other side of the lens.”
Read MoreI was excited to be interviewed by Soniya Gogate Gokhale for her podcast A Desi Woman. Soniya is a wonderful interviewer -- it was like answering questions from a friend who is a really good listener.
Read MoreI first encountered Ty Seidule when I stumbled onto a video lecture he posted in 2015, in which he asserted that slavery was not merely acause of the Civil War, it was the cause. While this has long been the consensus view of historians, the video garnered 30 million views and sparked such vitriolic hate mail as to warrant alerting the FBI.
Read MoreLike many people, I was sickened to witness rioters brandishing the Confederate battle flag -- that most potent of racist symbols -- in the halls of the United States Capitol. In this USA Today op ed, I draw a connection between the enduring lie of white supremacy and the contents of my silverware drawer. A.B.
Read MoreDon’t miss Tom Hanks’ latest, in which he plays a “doggedly heroic” former Nazi officer who rescues an abducted child whose Jewish protector has been lynched and a “No Jews: This is white man’s country”” sign affixed to his shirt.
Read MoreI am happy to report that Confederates in My Closet is now a featured blog on the History News Network website. It will continue to have an independent existence here but I will post essays on the History News Network website as well.
Read MoreAnn Banks’ great-great-grandfather. A.J. Pickett was a slaveholder. Karen Orozco Gutierrez’s great-grandfather Milton Howard was one of the people he enslaved. Five generations later, the two women—one from New York City, one from Iowa, -- met in Montgomery, Alabama, to explore the disturbing truths of their shared past. In this webinar sponsored by the Shelter Island Library, they are interviewed by Donnamarie Barnes.
Read MoreIt is amazing what you still can learn, especially when your child is going to school.
Yesterday, while Nia was writing a paper on the Declaration of Independence, I read, for the first time, the entire document -- and I do mean the entire document, which is to say the draft that Thomas Jefferson included in his Autobiography.
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