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

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

Interview: Sandra A. Gutierrez on Latin American Street Food

I mean, what’s not fun about dressing a sandwich with all sorts of condiments, until it becomes a tower of goodness? You have to figure out how to eat it without wearing it, but that’s another story. One of my favorite things about street food is that so much of it can be prepared in advance—which not only makes it easy for entertaining but also makes it a cinch to put dinner on the table every day. Continue Reading Interview: Sandra A. Gutierrez on Latin American Street Food

In Our Orbit: Author Voices On Air and Online

A roundup of authors making news this week: Ed Blum and Glenn Eskew on the 50th anniversary of the Birmingham bombing, Hester Blum offers tips for the academic job hunter, Sandra Gutierrez has a Twitter chat about Latin Street Food, and Blain Roberts looks at the Miss America pageant. Continue Reading In Our Orbit: Author Voices On Air and Online

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

William Ferris: Comfort in My Mother’s Stories

Our daily conversations help me understand Mother’s story. Her long life is filled with tales, like a library with shelves of books. Each day we select a story that reminds me of who I am and why family and place are so important in my life. Continue Reading William Ferris: Comfort in My Mother’s Stories

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?

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?

Book Trailer: Latin American Street Food

From tamales to tacos, food on a stick to ceviches, and empanadas to desserts, Latin American Street Food takes you on a tasting tour of the most popular and delicious culinary finds of twenty Latin American countries, including Mexico, Cuba, Peru, and Brazil, translating them into 150 easy recipes for the home kitchen. Continue Reading Book Trailer: Latin American Street Food

Tobe: Charles Anderson Farrell Photographs Digitized in New Collection

Even with all the criteria Farrell needed to meet, the final product is wonderfully authentic. Farrell explained, “The children look natural and unposed because I spent far more time on the little game we played than on the photography. The photography was incidental, and I think that only a few times were the children aware of the camera.” Continue Reading Tobe: Charles Anderson Farrell Photographs Digitized in New Collection

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

Carolyn Herbst Lewis: Dropping the K-Bomb

In rejecting the evidence presented in the Kinsey volumes that contradicted their definitions of sexual health, medical professionals reinforced a brand of sexual citizenship that not only made full citizenship exclusively available to married heterosexuals with children, but also limited those couples’ sexual activities to a strict protocol. Continue Reading Carolyn Herbst Lewis: Dropping the K-Bomb

Interview: Adrian Miller on Soul Food

The deep-fried delights, the rich repasts, and the sugary triumphs fall in line with the time-immemorial tendency to show off one’s best dishes to those outside one’s group. That celebration food is not meant to be the sum of the cuisine. Soul food has a strong tradition of making delectable dishes featuring vegetables and unprocessed ingredients. In fact, many of the celebrated and faddish “superfoods” that are good for your body—dark, leafy green vegetables and sweet potatoes, for example—have been soul food staples for centuries. Continue Reading Interview: Adrian Miller on Soul Food

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

New Omnibus E-book: Nortin Hadler’s 4-Volume Healthcare Collection

This collection of Nortin Hadler’s definitive works on the state of healthcare in America today—collected here for the first time in a 4-volume Omnibus E-Book—is a must-have for anyone interested in navigating the complex issues surrounding their healthcare, and improving their well-being as they age. Continue Reading New Omnibus E-book: Nortin Hadler’s 4-Volume Healthcare Collection

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