Continuing our roundtable on We We Eight Years in Power, today we share a post by Kelly Houston Jones, an assistant professor of history at Austin Peay State University. Her research focuses on slavery, agriculture, and the environment in the trans-Mississippi South. Previous installments of the roundtable are available here ...
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The contemporary moment is witnessing a disgraceful outpouring of violent racism, emboldened by an erratic President who has made the White House a bully pulpit for white supremacy. As disheartening as this is, it is occasioning an extraordinary amount of history education, as scholars and commentators work feverishly to counter the ...
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In our June 2017 issue, Dr. Sarah Gronningsater published an article titled “‘On Behalf of His Race and the Lemmon Slaves’: Louis Napoleon, Northern Black Legal Culture, and the Politics of Sectional Crisis.” She is an assistant professor of history at CalTech in Pasadena, California, with an expertise in legal, ...
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12 Years a Slave is one of the greatest movies about American history. Much to their credit, the filmmakers did an admirable job of capturing the life and experiences of Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841. After ...
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Here at Muster, we are fostering more opportunities for readers of The Journal of the Civil War Era to engage with our talented authors. Thus, in 2017 we will begin providing short author interviews to jump-start some stimulating discussions. Our first interview is with Kevin Waite, whose article “Jefferson Davis and Proslavery ...
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Plantation tours offer an abundance of learning opportunities, but they can also offer a stereotypical, even anachronistic, portrayal of slavery and life in the Old South. For instance, a tour guide at the Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation Historic Site near Brunswick, Georgia, stated during a tour that “in the holiday season, one ...
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This article was originally published by The African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS) and is reprinted here with permission. Although some of the material falls outside the temporal boundaries of this blog, we believe our readers will find it to be a valuable review, due to its connections to the Civil War. ...
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At the Aiken-Rhett House Museum in Charleston, South Carolina, visitors do not view the beautiful interiors of the slaveholders’ residence until they have become fully acquainted with the slaves’ living quarters and work spaces. Tours begin in the basement and back yard of the house. The site interrupts the nostalgic ...
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In May 2016, the remains of a dismantled eighteenth century wooden house appeared for sale on eBay. The online listing specified that, “Every single thing has been saved including the original plaster walls.” The seller asked $14.5 million to purchase the structure, claiming that the pieces constituted the “most important ...
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I was initially skeptical about the Roots remake (especially because of the History Channel’s involvement) and watched the original again to see if an update seemed warranted. I found that while still riveting, it has many shortcomings. The original mini-series inaccurately depicts West African kingdoms, for example, and glosses over the ...
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As scholarship on the Civil War era expands, Hollywood, too, has cast a wider gaze at the conflict and its roots. This year, with movies like “Free State of Jones” and “Birth of a Nation,” filmmakers continue to explore the struggles beyond the battlefield but still central to the war ...
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Perhaps nothing better encapsulates our personal histories than our homes. From the slightly outdated furniture to the embarrassing school-age portraits to the perfect warm spot by the fireplace, the amalgam of objects, images, and spaces that comprise home shapes our core. So too do those within; our families, friends, and ...
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In the last several decades, African Americans have become avid genealogists, turning eagerly to Ancestry.com and DNA testing, joining clubs and traveling to the National Archives in an effort to fill in their family trees. Henry Louis Gates credits the original 1977 television series, Roots, for initiating this interest, saying ...
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In the 1872 narrative, The Underground Rail Road, William Still stated that he owed “it to the cause of Freedom, and to the Fugitives and their posterity” to bring the activities of the Underground to “the public in the most truthful manner…to show what efforts were made and what success ...
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On March 14, 1846, Abraham Jones, a coroner in Edgefield County, South Carolina, filed a report concerning the death of a female slave named Rose. According to the coroner, five days earlier a man named Robert Moore visited the home of Michael Long, a slaveholder who claimed Rose as his ...
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Americans are increasingly forgetful of the fact that the Civil War was about slavery. Atlanta's 2010 Sesquicentennial kicked off with a celebration of secession, sponsored by the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Only a few days ago, Mississippi's governor declared April “Confederate Heritage Month.” Fortunately, opposing voices from the realm of ...
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