November 6, 2013
William Byrd II of Westover’s Curious Words
What’s a “shoaller”? Or a “hough”? How about the “pride of the beaver”? Berland explores these ideas and more. Continue Reading William Byrd II of Westover’s Curious Words
October 29, 2013
Sarah Caroline Thuesen: The North Carolina NAACP: 80 Years at the Forefront of Struggles for Equality
It is fitting that in this 80th anniversary year of the 1933 rally the North Carolina NAACP is once again in the headlines, this time for its leading role in the recent Moral Monday protests at the state legislature. Continue Reading Sarah Caroline Thuesen: The North Carolina NAACP: 80 Years at the Forefront of Struggles for Equality
October 23, 2013
Jaime Amanda Martinez: Zeb Vance, Ken Cuccinelli, and Chris Christie: Governors as Bellwethers
The elections in Virginia and New Jersey have been touted as indicators of where the Republican Party, and indeed the entire country, will head in 2014 and beyond. The North Carolina governor’s race in 1864 served a similar role. Though often overshadowed in discussions of Civil War politics by the U.S. presidential election of 1864, the North Carolina race, which pitted incumbent Zebulon Baird Vance against newspaper editor William W. Holden, tells an equally important story about shifting political winds. Continue Reading Jaime Amanda Martinez: Zeb Vance, Ken Cuccinelli, and Chris Christie: Governors as Bellwethers
October 16, 2013
Jonathan Scott Holloway: Where Does a Historian Find the Truth?
I still rely on and value deeply these brick-and-mortar archives, but my research in Jim Crow Wisdom has taught me to value the archive of the imagination as well. Like any archive, the imagination is a place that is fundamentally about assemblage: a mixture of our best efforts to remember the past accurately, the eroding effects of time, and a desire for narrative clarity and poignancy. Relying on the imagination for its archival properties is central to this book and helps us develop a richer sense of memory and of history. Continue Reading Jonathan Scott Holloway: Where Does a Historian Find the Truth?
October 14, 2013
Video: Tracy Devine Guzman discusses Native and National in Brazil
Tracy Devine Guzman gives a book talk about Native and National in Brazil: Indigeneity after Independence, at Books & Books in Coral Gables, Florida. Continue Reading Video: Tracy Devine Guzman discusses Native and National in Brazil
October 9, 2013
Adam D. Shprintzen: Beyond, Beyond Meat
Meat substitutes attempted to provide these gustatory benefits while also ensuring a violence-free diet. In fact, early meat substitutes were positioned as being even more effective than meat in their strength- and muscle-building properties. Continue Reading Adam D. Shprintzen: Beyond, Beyond Meat
October 2, 2013
David T. Gleeson: Irish Confederates and the Meaning of American Nationalism
As an immigrant, something I’m familiar with myself, one’s sense of identity is heightened by the immigration experience. In your new country, even when your language is the same as the natives, you suddenly you have an “accent,” your religion and culture are different, and you must adapt to new social and political realities. Immigrants then give us valuable insights, not only into their own changing identity, but also that of the host country. Irish immigrants in the South had to become Americans and Confederates. They had to negotiate the cultural traits they brought from Ireland with the demands of loyalty to their new home. And, it was this Irish cultural baggage which played the key role in binding them to the United States and the Confederacy Continue Reading David T. Gleeson: Irish Confederates and the Meaning of American Nationalism
September 18, 2013
Tracy K’Meyer: The Ongoing Struggle for Civil Rights in Schools
The modern civil rights movement fought for racial equality and to create an interracial “beloved community.” People in the movement did not make a distinction between action in the schools, the voting booth, or the streets toward those goals. Education was another arena for fighting racism and securing equal resources and opportunity. Seeing school desegregation as an integral part of the civil rights movement reminds us that an equal education is a basic human right that has been fought for but not yet achieved, and that overcoming racism in the classroom as in the community remains a moral imperative. For many local people, like Suzy Post, in Louisville and Jefferson County, the civil rights movement continues because the struggle to protect desegregation and through it achieve educational equity and better human understanding has not yet been won. Continue Reading Tracy K’Meyer: The Ongoing Struggle for Civil Rights in Schools
September 17, 2013
Twelve Years a Slave: The Narrative Behind the Film
The film tells the story of Solomon Northrup (Ejiofor), a free man and fiddle-player from New York who was drugged, kidnapped, and sold into slavery in Louisiana. It explores Northrup’s efforts to retain his dignity in the face of inhumanity as he longs for the family he was taken from and hopes for freedom throughout time in the employ of three different masters, ranging from a kindly preacher (Benedict Cumberbatch) to a cruel plantation owner (Fassbender). Remarkably, and horrifically, the story is a true one. Continue Reading Twelve Years a Slave: The Narrative Behind the Film
September 11, 2013
David T. Gleeson: Immigrants and American Wars: The Irish Confederate Experience
Rather than becoming southern “under fire,” they became southern by misremembering, reimagining, and reinterpreting the real experience of being under fire. Continue Reading David T. Gleeson: Immigrants and American Wars: The Irish Confederate Experience
September 5, 2013
Adam D. Shprintzen: Are You Ready for Some Vegetarian Football?
The Vegetarian Magazine, the monthly publication of the Vegetarian Society of America, welcomed the development, explaining that a halfback was made “strong and elastic” from “oatmeal porridge and cranberry sauce.” In contrast, meat-eating opponents were characterized as “rude and coarse.” Continue Reading Adam D. Shprintzen: Are You Ready for Some Vegetarian Football?
September 4, 2013
Jonathan Scott Holloway: Whose Dream? Whose History?
Even though the museum recognizes Smith’s protest, if only barely, her protest tells us something valuable about the production of history and the sanctification of certain experiences over others. Here, a single person with a particular set of memories and a determination to remember a figure of such importance as King in a specific way finds herself facing an institution with a public commitment to remembrance that has become her own horror. Continue Reading Jonathan Scott Holloway: Whose Dream? Whose History?
August 21, 2013
Michael H. Hunt: Obama’s Cairo, Then and Now
The Cold War, far from an aberration, built on a pattern that had become well established earlier in the century. Elected governments, Washington feared, might be swayed by popular passions or betrayed by their own immaturity. Coups whether in Iran in 1953 or in Egypt in 2013 paved the way for strongmen promising stability and accommodating U.S. interests. Continue Reading Michael H. Hunt: Obama’s Cairo, Then and Now
August 15, 2013
Sarah Caroline Thuesen: Jim Crow’s Roots, Jim Crow’s Remedies
A historical examination of segregated schooling in North Carolina warns against a hasty retreat from efforts to create diverse classrooms and equitable opportunity. Continue Reading Sarah Caroline Thuesen: Jim Crow’s Roots, Jim Crow’s Remedies
August 13, 2013
Glenn David Brasher on Preserving the Battleground at Williamsburg
When rumors of “development” encroach upon areas with rich historical backgrounds, they most likely will find a wall of resistance waiting. This is the current situation in the Virginia Peninsula, where the site of the Battle of Williamsburg is now vulnerable to such an unfortunate fate. Continue Reading Glenn David Brasher on Preserving the Battleground at Williamsburg
August 12, 2013
Tracy E. K’Meyer: Busing and the Desegregation of Louisville Schools
For historians of school desegregation, Louisville’s story challenges a narrative that has been dominated by resistance, disillusion, and failure. For citizens, these stories remind us how our predecessors struggled for equality in education and inspire us to keep up a fight that is far from over. Continue Reading Tracy E. K’Meyer: Busing and the Desegregation of Louisville Schools
July 30, 2013
Rebecca Sharpless on Paula Deen, Dora Charles, and the History of Southern Kitchens
Of course, white employers typically believed that their cooks loved them and cooked for them out of that love. When Ms. Deen claimed that she and Ms. Charles were “soul sisters,” she fell squarely into the tradition of declaring an employee to be just like a member of the family. Continue Reading Rebecca Sharpless on Paula Deen, Dora Charles, and the History of Southern Kitchens
July 26, 2013
Tiffany A. Sippial: The 26th of July Movement: Remembering Failure, Celebrating Victory
Not only were the rebels young (“just like us” my students find themselves saying), but they actually failed. Government snipers shot many of the young rebels on sight, and those who survived were charged with treason and imprisoned on the Isle of Pines. In a surprising plot twist, however, the audacious Cuban rebels recast their military failure as a propaganda victory by claiming the date of the attack as the name of their movement—the 26th of July Movement (M-26-7). Continue Reading Tiffany A. Sippial: The 26th of July Movement: Remembering Failure, Celebrating Victory
July 25, 2013
Video: Bland Simpson on NC Bookwatch
In Two Captains from Carolina, Bland Simpson twines together the lives of two accomplished nineteenth-century mariners from North Carolina–one African American, one Irish American. Though Moses Grandy (ca. 1791- ca. 1850) and John Newland Maffitt Jr. (1819-1886) never met, their stories bring to vivid life the saga of race and maritime culture in the antebellum and Civil War-era South. With his lyrical prose and inimitable voice, Bland Simpson offers readers a grand tale of the striving human spirit and the great divide that nearly sundered the nation.
In this interview on NC Bookwatch, Simpson speaks with host D.G. Martin about Two Captains from Carolina and the fascinating lives led by Grandy, former slave turned Boston abolitionist, and Maffit, a midshipman in the U.S. Navy at age thirteen turned legendary blockade runner. Simpson also explains his reasons for contrasting these two men with each other in this “nonfiction novel.” Continue Reading Video: Bland Simpson on NC Bookwatch
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