Just returned from a weekend in Lake Placed, New York where I took part in a conference sponsored by a small grassroots organization called John Brown Lives! The conference brought together historians, teachers, students, and activists working to end modern day slave trafficking. It was an incredibly enjoyable and intellectually stimulating weekend. Many of you [...]
Frederick Douglass
I can’t tell you how often I receive emails from folks who believe that my blog reflects a personal assault against the Confederacy and all things southern. Yesterday I received the most bizarre email from a Frederick Douglass impersonator who took issue with my blog’s banner. I should point out that the banner was part [...]
Thanks to everyone who left a comment in response to my last post on David Blight. I wanted to take a few minutes to respond to Barbara Gannon’s comment, which I believe gets at something central to Blight’s overall approach to Civil War memory: Blight’s explanation is popular because it is neat and satisfying. It [...]
Tomorrow my American Studies classes will begin to discuss Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read it, but I still look forward to every opportunity to revisit this book. At some point I would like to teach an elective on the history of the nineteenth-century through [...]
As many of you know yesterday was the Anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. I recently reread Frederick Douglass’s oration delivered at the unveiling of the Freedmen’s Monument in memory of Lincoln in Washington, D. C. on April 14, 1876. Lincoln continues to attract both adulation or vitriol from various camps in a way that [...]
