I know many of you out there are looking forward to a day/week without a blog post about Earl Ijames. Many of you are perhaps disappointed with the way I’ve gone about all of this. There is plenty of room to disagree. I want to state up front that my goal has never been to [...]
Southern History
Update: I now have the audio of this talk. Unfortunately, the files are very large and as it stands I am unable to upload them for your listening pleasure. I will continue to work on this. The talk is literally just a string of individual stories strung together. There is almost no analysis of the [...]
One of the most disturbing aspects of so called accounts of “black Confederates” is the almost complete absence of the voice of the individuals themselves. All too often these men are treated as a means to an end. Accounts all too often reduce complex questions of motivation to one of loyalty to master, army, and [...]
I have enjoyed following the debate over at Richard Williams’s blog re: my handling of Earl Ijames’s research. Much of the give and take relates to my decision to publicly request Ijames’s presentation as well as my decision to Cc: the director at the North Carolina Office of Archives and History. I’m still not sure [...]
Earlier today fellow blogger and historian, Brooks Simpson, left a comment offering to host a debate between myself and Earl Ijames at Civil Warriors. Sounds to me as if Earl Ijames has challenged Kevin Levin to a duel, so to speak. Now, by the code duello, Mr. Levin has choice of weapons. I assume he’d [...]
One of the reasons why it is important for serious historians to publish in peer-reviewed journals is that it provides the community with stable reference points. Scholarly publications are intended to add to our knowledge of the past by providing rich interpretation along with supporting documents that can be verified. In this setting interpretation can [...]
Looks like Earl Ijames is taking his “black Confederate” roadshow out once again. We first met Mr. Ijames, who works as a curator at the North Carolina Museum of History, in the summer of 2008 in a series of posts I did on Weary Clyburn [and here]. In a comment contained in the second link [...]
I have been giving this question some thought since our recent discussion surrounding the upcoming movie about Patrick Cleburne and the broader black Confederate narrative. As many of you know I’ve been committed to responding to some of the more outlandish claims in the news and on numerous websites. My goal has not been simply [...]