Memory

What new possibilities might arise if we were to consider history as ongoing memory work, rather than a set narrative of progress or as singular “truth”?

Mississippi makes a move to confront a shameful episode from the past.

“I’m amazed at how numb many of us can be about these sites.”

On Lewis Mumford, Herman Melville, and the gentle art of looking back in time.

Before Juneteenth became an official federal holiday, 94-year-old Opal Lee was on a mission.

Fifty years on, Nick Ut’s Pulitzer Prize–winning photograph, “Napalm Girl,” still has the power to shock. But can a picture change the world?

A new book examines explores the ways that an uncritical celebration of “good” gays and “good” gayness can cause harm.

In 2015, precisely 31 years to the day of her death, blues and cabaret singer Alberta Hunter was inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame.

Ashley D. Farmer and Tanisha C. Ford explain the importance of biographical writing of African American women and the personal connection involved.

“Paper City” explores the forgotten firebombing of Japan’s capital.

Seating was segregated, and the ceremony's only Black speaker was forced to drastically revise his speech to avoid spreading "propaganda."

"History​ is written by the victors, but diligent and continual silencing is required to maintain its claims on the present and future."

Accountability is crucial as we remember the individuals and communities harmed by our institutions and call for retroactive justice.

The commission is charged with renaming bases whose names currently honor Confederate leaders.

In early 1945, a six-panel comic in a U.S. pamphlet offered a visceral depiction of the Third Reich's killing machine.

A journey through the African American landscape.

Decorating graves with flowers, from a Civil War grassroots ritual of remembrance to a national tradition honoring all military dead.

The debate over abortion is an important part of the story of polarization in American politics, but it is not its genesis.

Some essential lessons from an earlier culture war.

Debates between neighbors escalate over the use of Confederate names within a Northern Virginia neighborhood.

Fifty years ago, a fame-seeker shot the polarizing politician five times, paralyzing him from the waist down.

Why our nuclear fears faded – and why that’s dangerous.

The 1836 Project will indoctrinate new Texans with fables about our history.

Cinco de Mayo has deep roots in Mexican American history.

A single choice can branch out to infinite realities.

Kristen Green’s "The Devil’s Half Acre" recounts the story of a fugitive slave jail, and the enslaved woman, Mary Lumpkin, who came to own it.

Joan Scott’s "On the Judgment of History" asks us to imagine the past without the idea of progress. But what gets left out in the process?

John Brown and the historical novel.

Richard Cándida Smith on Ian Tyrrell’s "American Exceptionalism: A New History of an Old Idea."

When Charles Sumner died in 1874, a bill he had sponsored two years earlier threatened to overshadow his legacy.