The foundation of America, and of systemic racism, happened at the same time and from the same consciously created laws. Critical Race Theory (CRT) has become a lightning rod for conservative ire at any discussion of racism, anti-racism, or the non-white history of America. Across the country, bills in Republican-controlled legislatures have attempted to prevent[…]
What is it? Why does it matter? Does it advance justice? Critical race theory has been in the news recently. What is it? Why does it matter? Does it advance justice? How can it inform our teaching, research, or campus work? Join three experts to discuss with a large panel. Glenn Bracey is Assistant Professor[…]
Crenshaw is known for her work on intersectionality – how overlapping or intersecting social identities relate to systems and structures of oppression. Curated/Reviewed by Matthew A. McIntoshPublic HistorianBrewminate Introduction Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw is Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law at Columbia University. This introduction is taken from her profile page at the institution. Crenshaw[…]
The basic tenets of CRT include that racism and disparate racial outcomes are the result of complex, changing and often subtle social and institutional dynamics. Curated/Reviewed by Matthew A. McIntoshPublic HistorianBrewminate Introduction Critical race theory (CRT) is a body of legal scholarship and an academic movement of civil-rights scholars and activists in the United States that seeks to[…]
Mindfulness practice can bring about transformation on different levels. Interview with Rhonda V. Magee, MA, JDProfessor of LawUniversity of Minnesota What Is Systemic Racism? The crisis playing out through the media is only one symptom of a larger system of inequity, which permeates our society and which most white people are not able to see.[…]
NBC Sunday TODAY Marking the 100th anniversary of one of the worst outbreaks of racist violence in American history, Viola Fletcher, 107, and Hughes Van Ellis, 100, open up to NBC’s Morgan Radford for Sunday TODAY about surviving the Tulsa Race Massacre. Viola was just seven years old when a white mob attacked her home.[…]
The White League had formed in 1874 as an insurgent, white paramilitary group in Grant Parish and nearby parishes. Curated/Reviewed by Matthew A. McIntoshPublic HistorianBrewminate Introduction The Election Massacre of 1874, or Coup of 1874, took place on election day, November 3, 1874, near Eufaula, Alabama in Barbour County. Freedmen comprised a majority of the population and had been electing Republican candidates[…]
The white planters wanted to drive freedmen out of Memphis and back to plantations, to support cotton cultivation with their labor. Curated/Reviewed by Matthew A. McIntoshPublic HistorianBrewminate Introduction The Memphis massacre of 1866[1] was a series of violent events that occurred from May 1 to 3, 1866 in Memphis, Tennessee. The racial violence was ignited by political, social, and[…]
Unresolved race matters from the past intersect with twenty-first century activism to counter the continued devaluation of black lives. Abstract New questions about the legacies of 1968 and the 1960s in general are presenting themselves to us, as scholars and as citizens, ever more urgently. This is particularly true of race and racial struggle, as[…]
A successful violent coup perpetrated and fueled by white supremacist ideology spread happened in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1898. Introduction While experts debate whether the U.S. Capitol siege was an attempted coup, there is no debate that what happened in 1898 in Wilmington, North Carolina, was a coup – and its consequences were tragic. These[…]
White supremacist resistance against the civil rights movement transformed its rhetoric while seeking to align with the conservatism. This article examines the development of Massive Resistance, in particular Citizens’ Councils, in Louisiana after the council movement in the South had passed its zenith when being unable to prevent the passage of federal civil rights and[…]
Wallace appeared on the national scene in the early sixties to give an unadulterated voice to feelings of anger and fear felt by whites. Abstract Gender and emotions are important factors in the rise of modern U.S. conservatism. This article examines the 1968 presidential election as a pivotal moment in the development of the New[…]
The violent overthrow of a duly elected government by a group of white supremacists. Introduction The Wilmington insurrection of 1898, also known as the Wilmington massacre of 1898 or the Wilmington coup of 1898, occurred in Wilmington, North Carolina, on Thursday, November 10, 1898. It is considered a turning point in post-Reconstruction North Carolina politics.[…]
The Battle of Liberty Place was an insurrection by the Crescent City White League against the Reconstruction Era state government. Introduction The Battle of Liberty Place, or Battle of Canal Street, was an attempted insurrection and coup d’etat by the Crescent City White League against the Reconstruction Era Louisiana Republican state government on September 14,[…]
Lynching gained momentum during Reconstruction to spread fear among African Americans demanding equal rights. Introduction For many African Americans growing up in the South in the 19th and 20th centuries, the threat of lynching was commonplace. The popular image of an angry white mob stringing a black man up to a tree is only half[…]
Anti-Apartheid protest in the 1980s are mere snapshots of time in the long journey towards equality, paved by the sweat and blood of those in the African National Congress and beyond. Paul Weinberg/Wikicommons Understanding the impact of Apartheid requires looking beyond Nelson Mandela’s achievements to the bloody struggles of the African National Congress and international forces prolonging the violence. By Dr. David Robinson / 10.10.2018 Lecturer of[…]
The first separate black church in Newport was the Union Colored Church and Society The society is considered one of the first formal organizations founded by free blacks in the United States. By Michael J. Barga Board Member Catholic Social Workers’ National Association Background Mutual aid societies were created by free blacks in the early[…]
Convict labor at the State Lime Grinding Plant, Virginia / From Virginia; Its Agricultural and Industrial Resources, 1914 Immediately following the Civil War and adoption of the 13th Amendment, most states of the former Confederacy adopted “Black Codes”, laws modeled on former slave laws. Introduction Immediately following the Civil War and adoption of the 13th Amendment,[…]
A Soviet anti-racism stamp from 1960 features a black child in typical blackface imagery / Wikimedia Commons When Langston Hughes traveled to Moscow in 1932 to film “Black and White” — a Soviet propaganda film about the horrors of American racism — he figured he had little to lose. By Dr. Jennifer Wilson / 08.31.2017[…]
A 1950s photograph of Emmett Till and his mother Mamie Till Mobley, during a visit to Jackson, Miss. AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis Most Mississippi civil rights history leads back to the widespread outrage over the Till case in the summer of 1955. By Dr. Davis W. Houck / 07.13.2018 Professor of Communications Florida State University The U.S.[…]
This undated photo shows Emmett Louis Till, a 14-year-old Black Chicago boy, who was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered in 1955 in Mississippi. The federal government has reopened its investigation into his slaying. | AP The federal government has reopened its investigation into the slaying of Emmett Till. By Jay Reeves / 07.12.2018 The federal government[…]
His name was Josiah Henson and he once was as famous as Frederick Douglass. So what happened? By Jared A. Brock / 06.17.2018 When one thinks of the pantheon of the great black abolitionists, several spring to mind: Frederick Douglass. Harriet Tubman. Solomon Northup. But there is a fourth leader who once belonged to that[…]
By Dr. Katherine Mellon Charron Associate Professor of History North Carolina State University Introduction Segregation contradicts what most students have learned about American freedom and democracy. Textbooks locate segregation’s origins in Southern disenfranchisement laws of the 1890s and highlight the Supreme Court’s 1896 “separate but equal” ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson. The majority of African Americans still lived[…]
Collector Keya Morgan bought this photograph of two slave children, which was accompanied by a document detailing the sale of John for $1,150 in 1854. / Public Domain By Dr. Colleen Vasconcellos Associate Professor of History University of West Georgia Introduction From the 16th to the 18th centuries, an estimated 12 million Africans crossed the[…]
Martin Luther King Jr.‘s dream – which alternated between shattered and hopeful – can be traced back to Hughes’ poetry. AP Photo In order to avoid being labeled a communist sympathizer, King needed to publicly distance himself from the controversial poet. Privately, King found ways to channel Hughes’ prose. By Dr. Jason Miller / 03.30.2018 Professor[…]
Linda Brown Smith, right, and her two children in their Topeka, KS home 1974. AP While Linda Brown is being celebrated for her role in the historic Brown v. Board of Education case that desegregated US schools, a researcher says the story behind the case is more complex. By Dr. Charise Cheney / 03.30.2018 Associate Professor[…]
Josephine Baker | AP By Chauncey K. Robinson / 03.01.2018 It seems only fitting with Black History Month closing out, and Women’s History Month beginning, to highlight a Black woman who exemplified strength and resilience in the face of discrimination and oppression. Famed entertainer Josephine Baker was not only a pioneer in breaking color barriers[…]
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. , chats with African-Americans during a door-to-door campaign in 1964. AP Photo/JAB By Dr. Paul Harvey / 01.11.2018 Professor of American History University of Colorado After this last tumultuous year of political rancor and racial animus, many people could well be asking what can sustain them over the next coming days: How do they[…]
Belgian Jewish star. (Photo by DRG-fan, Wikimedia Commons) Bill Moyers in conversation with author James Whitman about his new book that uncovers how the Nazis used Jim Crow laws as the model for their own race laws. By Bill Moyers / 10.12.2017 To get to the core of race in America today, read this new book by James[…]
P. T. Barnum’s white elephant Toung Taloung, featured in an extra supplement to the Illustrated London News, January 26th 1884 / Wikimedia Commons Feuding impresarios, a white-but-not-white-enough elephant, and racist ads for soap — Ross Bullen on how a bizarre episode in circus history became an unlikely forum for discussing 19th-century theories of race, and inadvertently[…]