The Bundys should learn from the example of Sarah Winnemucca.
Ben Railton
Birthright Citizenship: A Contested History
Denouncing the legal and Constitutional concept of birthright citizenship is a stunning reverse in a longstanding debate.
Distorting History: David Brooks and Atticus Finch
On Tuesday, July 14th, the publication of two books drew significant attention: Between the World and Me and Go Set a Watchman.
“I Want My Country Back” and Exclusionary Visions of America
“You’re taking over our country” echoes longstanding national narratives and has become prominent once again in conservative discourse.
“Our boasted civilization is but a thin veneer”: Remembering the 1921 Tulsa Riots
In 1921, Tulsa, Oklahoma featured one of the nation’s most successful African American commercial and residential neighborhoods. By the evening of June 1st, Greenwood Avenue had been entirely destroyed by rampaging white rioters.
“Religious Freedom” Laws and a Longstanding Battle within American Christianity
In the wake of Indiana’s passage of its controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act, much of the national debate has focused on the conflicts between American Christianity and other national ideals, but it is important to contextualize the law as part of a longstanding conflict within American Christianity
Remember the Ladies: Revolutionary Women Writers
In a March 31st, 1776 letter to her husband John, who was in Philadelphia engaged in the debates of the Second Continental Congress that would lead to the Declaration of Independence, Abigail Adams famously wrote, “by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.
Expanding Women’s History: Anna Julia Cooper, Zitkala-Ša, and Sui Sin Far
Like Black History Month, Women’s History Month is a radical and important starting point for better remembering histories and stories that can and should be part of our collective memories and narratives year-round.
Black History Month is American History Month
W.E.B. Du Bois’s magisterial book The Souls of Black Folk (1907) has left one particularly clear imprint on American conversations: its description of African Americans’ “double consciousness,” their sense of being both within and without American identity, insiders yet outsiders to this national community.
Securing Paradise at the Point of a Bayonet
On January 17th, 1893, more than 120 marines and sailors from the U.S.S. Boston helped thirteen powerful American business and political leaders calling themselves the Committee of Safety to overthrow Hawaii’s Queen Liliuokalani and install a new provisional government led by Sanford Dole.