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Bass Reeves

The Resurrection of Bass Reeves

Today, the legendary deputy U.S. marshal is widely believed to be the real Lone Ranger. But his true legacy is even greater.
by Christian Wallace via Texas Monthly on June 22, 2021
Drawing of the Alamo

How Racism, American Idealism, and Patriotism Created the Modern Myth of the Alamo and Davy Crockett

Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson, and Jason Stanford on the making of a misrepresented narrative.
by Chris Tomlinson, Jason Stanford, Bryan Burrough via Literary Hub on June 22, 2021
Workers cover a statue of Christopher Columbus in Chicago before the start of a Juneteenth march on June 19, 2020. The memorial was later removed.

When Monuments Go Bad

The Chicago Monuments Project is searching for ways to resolve its landscape of problematic statues and make room for a new, different kind of public memorial.
by Zach Mortice via CityLab on June 8, 2021
Yuri Kochiyama holding a sign during a protest in support of waiters

Behind This Photo Is the Story of Two Asian American Folk Heroes

Remembering Asian-American activists Corky Lee and Yuri Kochiyama.
by Alice George via Smithsonian on May 20, 2021
An American propaganda leaflet dropped ahead of Curtis LeMay’s firebomb campaign over Japan.

Narrative Napalm

Malcolm Gladwell’s apologia for American butchery.
by Noah Kulwin via The Baffler on May 17, 2021
Robert E. Lee Monument in Richmond, Virginia.

Why Honor Them?

In the decades after the Civil War, Black Americans warned of the dangers of Confederate monuments.
by Karen L. Cox via Lapham’s Quarterly on April 12, 2021
Pocahontas characters overlaid onto a landscape.

Deconstructing Disney: Queer Coding and Masculinity in Pocahontas

Disney gets inventive when they need to circumvent white people’s historical responsibility for genocidal atrocities — and queerness is a useful scapegoat.
by Jeanna Kadlec via Longreads on April 1, 2021
The GOP elephant depicted as falling apart

What Is Happening to the Republicans?

In becoming the party of Trump, the G.O.P. confronts the kind of existential crisis that has destroyed American parties in the past.
by Jelani Cobb via The New Yorker on March 8, 2021
Drawing of a toppled statue head among grass, with a white bird

What Do We Do About John James Audubon?

The founding father of American birding soared on the wings of white privilege. How should the birding community grapple with this racist legacy?
by J. Drew Lanham via Audubon on February 23, 2021
"We the People"; US Constitution

It Would Be Great if the United States Were Actually a Democracy

The pervasive mythmaking about the supposed wisdom of the founders has covered up a central truth: the US Constitution is an antidemocratic mess.
by Aziz Rana, Chris Maisano via Jacobin on February 16, 2021
A collage with photos of Barack Obama.

The Limits of Barack Obama’s Idealism

“A Promised Land” tells of a country that needed a savior.
by Thomas Meaney via The New Republic on February 15, 2021
A negative from a photo of Abraham Lincoln

How Historians Say Abraham Lincoln Is Quoted and Misquoted

As Presidents' Day approaches, historians look back at the most notable recent uses and misuses of "the Great Emancipator's" words.
by Olivia B. Waxman via TIME on February 11, 2021
A pirate ship decorated for the Super Bowl.
partner

The Buccaneers Embody Tampa’s Love of Pirates. Is That a Problem?

How brutal outlaws became romanticized.
by Jamie L. H. Goodall via Made By History on February 5, 2021
Artistic photo of Malcolm X

Malcolm’s Ministry

At the end of his remarkable, improbable life, Malcolm X was on the cusp of a reinvention that might have been even more significant than his conversion.
by Brandon M. Terry via New York Review of Books on February 4, 2021
Book cover for Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

Chernow Gonna Chernow

A Pulitzer Prize winner punches down.
by Alexis Coe via Study Marry Kill on January 30, 2021
Simon Bolívar Crossing the Andes, after a painting by Arayo Gómez, 1857; it is based on Jacques-Louis David’s Napoleon Crossing the Alps

Democracy’s Demagogues

A new history of five heroes of the revolutionary period considers the power and instability of charismatic leadership.
by Ferdinand Mount via New York Review of Books on January 14, 2021
John F. Kennedy giving a speech.

Shamalot

Jack Kennedy, we hardly know ye—and to know ye is not to love ye.
by P. J. O'Rourke via Commentary on November 18, 2020
Gettysburg Battlefield, with monuments visible in the distance

We Need to Talk About Confederate Statues on U.S. Public Lands

At places like the Gettysburg battlefield and Arlington National Cemetery, there's a new, escalating conflict over monuments that honor the Lost Cause.
by Alex Heard via Outside on September 28, 2020
The cover of the textbook, "Heroes of Our America."
partner

"Heroes of Our America": Reading a "Patriotic" History of the United States

This 1952 textbook serves as an example of the "patriotic history" that Donald Trump grew up with and calls for today.
by Alan J. Singer via HNN on September 27, 2020

‘Patriotic Education’ Is How White Supremacy Survives

No, Trump can’t rewrite school curriculums himself, but a thousand mini-Trumps on the nation’s school boards can.
by Jeff Sharlet via Gen on September 21, 2020
Donald Trump in front of Mount Rushmore

Trump’s Vision for American History Education Is a Nightmare

But it’s one historians know all too well.
by L. D. Burnett via Slate on September 18, 2020
A political cartoon depicting Abraham Lincoln animalistically, playing cards on top of a keg of gunpowder.

The 1619 Project and the ‘Anti-Lincoln Tradition’

The Great Emancipator's character and anti-slavery legacy has been questioned by Black Americans for over a century.
by E. James West via Black Perspectives on August 11, 2020

UVA and the History of Race: The George Rogers Clark Statue and Native Americans

Unlike the statues of Lee and Jackson, these Charlottesville monuments had less to do with memory than they did with an imagined past.
by Christian McMillen via UVA Today on July 27, 2020
Christopher Columbus statue being removed from Grant Park in Chicago.
partner

Americans Put Up Statues During the Gilded Age. Today We’re Tearing Them Down.

Why the Gilded Age was the era of statues.
by Katrina Gulliver via Made By History on July 26, 2020

Charismatic Models

There is, and always has been, a vanishingly thin line between charismatic democratic rulers and charismatic authoritarians.
by Scott Spillman via The Point on July 26, 2020

J.F.K.’s “Profiles in Courage” Has a Racism Problem. What Should We Do About It?

Kennedy defined courage as a willingness to take an unpopular stand in service of a larger, higher cause. But what cause?
by Nicholas Lemann via The New Yorker on July 23, 2020

The Question of Monuments

Despite our long history of interrogating the memorial landscape, no movement has been able to dislodge it.
by Kirk Savage via Lapham’s Quarterly on July 13, 2020
Protests at the Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond, with an image of Robert E. Lee edited in the sky behind them.

How Northern Publishers Cashed In on Fundraising for Confederate Monuments

In the years after the Civil War, printmakers in New York and elsewhere abetted the Lost Cause movement by selling images of false idols.
by Harold Holzer via Smithsonian on July 7, 2020

Why We’ll Never Stop Arguing About Hamilton

Hamilton is an impossibly slippery text. The arguments over the show are part of what make it great.
by Aja Romano via Vox on July 3, 2020
Two statues next to each other

Confederates in the Capitol

The National Statuary Collection announced the unification of the former slave economy’s emotional heartland with the heart of national government.
by William Hogeland via Boston Review on June 29, 2020
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