Slave children, with almost an alabaster complexion, straight hair, and blue eyes, whose mothers were jet black, or brown, were often a great source of annoyance in the Southern household, and especially to the mistress of the mansion. Continue Reading Book Excerpt: My Southern Home, by William Wells Brown
Today, over at the First Peoples blog, UNC Press author Celia Naylor writes about the history and current events surrounding the Cherokee freedmen controversy. In particular, she draws our attention to the historical import of the Dawes Commission, especially as regards sovereignty, race, and citizenship. Continue Reading The Lost History of the Cherokee Freedmen Controversy
We’re thrilled to offer our heartiest congratulations to historian Tiya Miles for being awarded a 2011 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (aka the “Genius Grant”). Miles is the author of “The House on Diamond Hill: A Cherokee Plantation Story”. From the announcement: “A scholar of range and promise, and increasingly an authoritative voice in reframing and reinterpreting the history of our diverse nation, Miles is adding texture and depth to the mosaic that was our shared past and that is our heritage.” Continue Reading Congratulations to Tiya Miles, 2011 MacArthur Fellow
David Ruggles (1810-1849) was one of the most heroic–and has been one of the most often overlooked–figures of the early abolitionist movement in America. Graham Russell Gao Hodges provides the first biography of this African American activist, writer, and publisher who secured liberty for more than six hundred former bond people, including Frederick Douglass. Hodges’s portrait of Ruggles establishes the… Continue Reading Interview: Graham Russell Gao Hodges
Today we welcome a guest post from Tiya Miles, author of The House on Diamond Hill: A Cherokee Plantation Story. Last weekend she attended a gathering to celebrate the historic plantation home and held a signing event for her new book. Over the course of her day, past and present were juxtaposed in an experience that truly gave life to… Continue Reading “We Are Standing on Beautiful History”
I have been frustrated by this week’s back-and-forth between the Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert and civil rights veteran Jesse Jackson. Don’t get me wrong; Dan Gilbert’s letter smacked of grating paternalism; he spoke of James like a petulant child, rather than a man who had more than fulfilled his seven-year contract. His tone was inappropriate and disrespectful. Such a… Continue Reading Slavery and the NBA?
We welcome a guest post today from Anne E. Marshall, author of Creating a Confederate Kentucky: The Lost Cause and Civil War Memory in a Border State, which we’ll publish in December 2010. The book traces the development of a Confederate identity in Kentucky between 1865 and 1925 that belied the fact that Kentucky never left the Union and that… Continue Reading Confederate History Month and the Politics of Memory
The Tar Heels are on order by the Commander in Chief to win the NCAA tourney tonight. Go Heels!! Here’s a preview of tonight’s celebration on Franklin Street. This video was shot on Saturday, when the Tar Heels beat Villanova in the final four. Hopefully any potential thunderstorms and tornadoes will happen sooner rather than later today so we can… Continue Reading Upcoming events: UNC wins NCAA championship, etc.
In 1860 one of the largest and most successful plantations in North Carolina was Somerset Place. In the course of becoming one of the state’s most prosperous rice, corn, and wheat plantations, the plantation’s owner, Josiah Collins, became one of the largest slaveholders in the state. Somerset Place covered as many as 100,000 acres and was home to more than… Continue Reading Dorothy Spruill Redford on WUNC’s “The State of Things”
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called 11 a.m. Sunday mornings “the most segregated hour of the week.” Even today, integrated churches are the exception, not the rule. But that wasn’t always the case. In the colonial and antebellum South, black and white evangelicals frequently prayed, sang, and worshipped together. In The Origins of Proslavery Christianity: White and Black Evangelicals in… Continue Reading Charles Irons on Today’s State of Things
On July 28, 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was declared in effect, after the required 28 states had ratified the bill that was propsed in 1866. The amendment guaranteed due process and the equal protection of the laws to former slaves. This was one of three “Reconstruction Amendments” meant to restructure the U.S. from a land divided… Continue Reading Today in history: the 14th Amendment takes effect
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