How many of you have ever heard of the Stonewall Jackson Memorial Fund of Alabama? The 3-member panel created by Alabama lawmakers in 1955 and headed by state archives officials offers $1,000 scholarships to college-bound students for essays on the Confederate general. Apparently they have awarded 53 interest-free scholarships since 1989. What kind of essay [...]
Civil Rights History
It’s always difficult to teach the first two weeks in May with so many AP exams taking place. On most days I may have half of my class present, which makes it very difficult to organize and execute lesson plans. Over the past few years I’ve shown a movie that fits into the topic under [...]
The members of the Urquhart-Gillette Camp No. 1471, Sons of Confederate Veterans in Southampton County, Virginia hope to raise enough money to purchase the boyhood home of William Mahone, which is currently on the market. Mahone’s family moved into the home following “Turner’s Rebellion” in 1831 and established a tavern a fairly successful tavern. While [...]
My students and I are thoroughly enjoying our study of the civil rights movement. We are reading an excellent book by Harvard Sitkoff and my choice of additional primary and secondary sources has hopefully added to the complexity of their understanding. I do my best to get beyond the high-profile figures that dominate our memory [...]
This will be my last full week of teaching before a few days of review and the final exam. My survey classes are reading through parts of Harvard Sitkoff’s The Struggle For Black Equality and they seem to be enjoying it immensely. The book does an excellent job of getting beyond the high-profile figures and [...]
