Those of you living in the Richmond area will find this documentary to be particularly interesting. In 1993 the city organized Healing the Heart of America, which among other things included a walk through Richmond in an attempt to address lingering tensions over slavery, race, and history. Some of the interviews are quite interesting. You [...]
Memory
I am in the home stretch with Bruce Levine’s wonderful new book, The Fall of the House of Dixie: The Civil War and the Social Revolution That Transformed the South. It’s extremely well written and is an excellent introduction to the story of the Confederacy and the central role that slavery played in its ultimate [...]
One of my responsibilities at the upcoming Future of Civil War History Conference at Gettysburg College is to moderate a panel on interpreting USCTs at historical sites. Panelists include Barbara Gannon, Emmanuel Dabney, Hari Jones, Joseph McGill, Jill Newmark, and Robert Sutton. The presenters have already submitted short essays on various issues that they believe [...]
Letter-to-the-editor in Memphis’s The Commercial Appeal: I can’t express how much I agree with the writer of the Feb. 7 letter “No honors for traitors.” I, too, am a native white Southerner and Memphian. My great-grandfather fought for the Confederacy. That’s my family’s history; it’s not something about which I boast. He never bought or [...]
There are a number of plans on the table that would change the name of Nathan Bedford Forrest Park in Memphis, Tennessee. Any plan that involves removing the Forrest monument would also have to include the removal of his remains which are buried below. That presents all kinds of challenges. As I’ve said before, I [...]
Those of you in the Richmond area should make it a point to check out Ray Carver’s one-man show, “Gettysburg 1963″ which will premier at the Gayton Kirk Presbyterian Church on Saturday February 23. I was invited to participate in a panel discussion following the show, but the organizer didn’t realize that I no longer [...]
It looks like next year I will once again be teaching my Civil War Memory course. I’ve already begun to think about readings as well as class visits to Boston. The class was very popular in Virginia and I especially enjoyed our tours of Richmond, including Monument Avenue, Hollywood Cemetery and Tredegar. At this point [...]
This first video is perfect for a course on Lincoln and/or Civil War memory. It provides a nice overview of how Lincoln has been interpreted in Hollywood movies and television since 1915. The only reference that I was unfamiliar with is the recent short animation, Robot Chicken: Jedi in Chief, in which George W. Bush [...]
