The following announcement appeared yesterday on H-NET. Here is a link to the pdf: http://www.nps.gov/ulsg/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&pageid=202422 This is a great opportunity for students and teachers to integrate the study of Civil War memory into their history classes as well as careful consideration of their own responsibilities as Americans to continue the work of those who came [...]
Civil Rights Movement
Answers from left to right: No / Yes / Perhaps
Before driving 60 miles for what you believe to be a scheduled event double-check the date. That’s right, Michaela and I drove to Richmond today for a walking tour of Lincoln’s visit to the city in April 1865 only to discover that it is actually scheduled for tomorrow. I guess I just assumed that a [...]
On April 4, 1968, LIFE photographer Henry Groskinsky and writer Mike Silva, on assignment in Alabama, learned that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., had been shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. They raced to the scene and there, incredibly, had unfettered access to the hotel grounds, Dr. King’s room, and the surrounding area. For [...]
I came across this interesting article on the changing face of the Lee County Courthouse in Mississippi. The Coalition for Change is scheduled to unveil a rendering of the estimated $7,000 civil rights monument to the Lee County Board of Supervisors in early September. The author apparently did her homework and interviewed two authorities on [...]
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 [...]
Martin Luther King Day has become too fashionable. At its worst it reinforces a skewed memory of the Civil Rights Movement as beginning with his organization of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955 and ending with his assassination in 1968. It also obscures the complexity of organization on the grassroots level and [...]