Person

Blain Roberts

Bylines

The South Carolina Monument That Symbolizes Clashing Memories of Slavery

In Charleston, a monument to John C. Calhoun squares off against its symbolic rival, the steeple of Emanuel A.M.E. Church, where a white supremacist killed nine.

by Ethan J. Kytle, Blain Roberts via Zócalo Public Square on September 6, 2018
When the Fourth of July Was a Black Holiday

After the Civil War, African Americans in the South transformed Independence Day into a celebration of their newly won freedom.

by Ethan J. Kytle, Blain Roberts via The Atlantic on July 3, 2018
When the South Was the Most Progressive Region in America

Elections in the late 1860s gave birth to real, if short-lived, interracial democracy—the likes of which America had never seen.

by Ethan J. Kytle, Blain Roberts via The Atlantic on January 17, 2018

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The Persistence of Whitewashing

How can Americans have such different memories of slavery?

by Jason Silverstein via The New Republic on May 31, 2018

Lauren Davila, standing in front of a historical marker for slave auctions, in Charleston, South Carolina.

How a Grad Student Uncovered the Largest Known Slave Auction in the U.S.

The find yields a new understanding of the enormous harm of such a transaction.

by Jennifer Berry Hawes via ProPublica on June 16, 2023

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

“Big Elliott” Wright at the Big Apple Night Club.

Set the Country to Stamping

The origins of the Big Apple dance.

by Robert Greene II via Oxford American on November 19, 2019

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