Thanks to everyone who left a comment on the student video about some of the challenges surrounding the place of Confederate memory at the University of Mississippi. I wanted to share the following comment from Boyd Harris, who is a PhD student in history at Ole Miss: Thank you for posting this video, Kevin. I [...]
Memory
Richard Williams believes that I run a pro-Union blog, which I assume stands in contrast with a pro-Confederate blog. It’s kind of funny to be labeled in a way that suggests that I am somehow still fighting the war. On the other hand, I do not claim objectivity when it comes to this history. Who [...]
My editor at the Atlantic asked me to revise a recent post on the DNC and the Confederate flag. You can read it below or at the Atlantic. I have no doubt that it will raise the usual cries of South/Confederate heritage bashing from the usual suspects. What I find funny is that the posts [...]
I haven’t commented on what Brooks Simpson refers to as “the gift that keeps on giving” in some time, but news that Ann DeWitt is once again posting is too good to pass up. You know Ms. DeWitt as the person who discovered an entire regiment of black Confederate cooks and the owner of one [...]
Popular media really does have a great deal of influence over how we frame our public discourse about Civil War memory. We can see this most clearly in what I’ve dubbed the Continued War narrative, which assumes a nation divided along racial and/or regional lines. Reporters love to utilize this narrative when discussing controversies over [...]
I don’t normally share reader mail, but this struck me as worth posting. It’s been a few years since I last visited Stratford Hall and while I had a pleasant visit I too was struck by the emphasis on the cherubs. Today I visited Stratford Hall. The Great House obviously demonstrates the Lee family’s tremendous [...]
Word came earlier today that David Barton’s publisher has pulled his most recent book on Thomas Jefferson. Barton is best known as the evangelical Christian, who has built a career on uncovering or reclaiming the truth about America’s founding and Founding Fathers from the community of secular and liberal historians. Barton claims to be a [...]
This story out of Haywood County, North Carolina about the display of the Confederate flag on public ground is perfect for helping us to move beyond the popular narratives of North v. South and black v. white. It’s a fairly straightforward story: For years, David Crook had been making monthly rounds past the Confederate Memorial [...]
Next month President Obama will be renominated by the Democratic Party in Charlotte, North Carolina. Charlotte lays claim as the last Confederate capital in April 1865. It is here that Jefferson Davis learned of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. At first glance these two events may seem unrelated but not to the folks interviewed in [...]