Plantations could be used to teach about US slavery if stories are told truthfully

  State legislatures across the United States are cracking down on discussions of race and racism in the classroom. School boards are attempting to ban books that deal with difficult histories. Lawmakers are targeting initiatives that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education.

  Such efforts raise questions about whether students in the U.S. will ever be able to engage in free and meaningful discussions about the history of slavery in America and the effect it had on the nation.

Confederate Christmas ornaments are smaller than statues – but they send the same racist message

  As Christmas approaches, many families undertake a familiar ritual: an annual sojourn to the attic, basement, or closet to pull out a box of treasured ornaments bought, created, and collected over years, even generations.

  Hanging these ornaments on the tree is an opportunity to reconnect with memories of personal milestones, holiday icons and, in many cases, destinations visited.

  But, I argue, it may be time to take some of these old travel keepsakes off the tree.

The brutal trade in enslaved people within the US has been largely whitewashed out of history

  For my recently published book, “The Ledger and the Chain,” I visited more than 30 archives in over a dozen states, from Louisiana to Connecticut. Along the way, I uncovered mountains of material that exposed the depravity of the men who ran the largest domestic slave trading operation in American history and revealed the fortitude of the enslaved people they trafficked as merchandise.

  But I also learned that many Americans do not realize that a domestic slave trade existed in the U.S. at all.

Removing the propaganda

  In the 1860s, Robert Mills Lusher served as a Confederate tax collector and then as Louisiana’s superintendent of education following the Civil War. The Reconstruction-era educator wrote in his journal that the chief goal of education was to “vindicate the honor and supremacy of the Caucasian race.”

  In the last decade of his life, Lusher edited his Louisiana Journal of Education, where he called for “manual training” for Black students and the removal of rights from Black citizens. He filled the pages of his unfinished memoir by reminiscing over a lifetime of advocacy for white supremacy. 

  Simply put, Lusher did not believe in educating Black people. But today, a K-12 public school in New Orleans – one with a majority Black student population – bears his name.

New documentary tells truth about Confederacy, tracks root of ‘Lost Cause’ myth

  Living in New Orleans in 2015, CJ Hunt was frustrated that Confederate symbols still occupied the city’s common spaces – or “neutral grounds” – intended for all citizens, which he called “absurd.” At the time, the nation was reeling from the deadly attack at the historic Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, where nine Black people were killed by a young white supremacist who had posted a picture of himself with a Confederate flag.

  But when the state of South Carolina removed the Confederate flag from its capitol, Hunt could tell a powerful movement was brewing to remove Confederate symbols nationwide. In New Orleans, the organizers of Take ‘Em Down NOLA, a grassroots organization that has fought for the removal of Confederate monuments, were already marching in the streets, and the mayor took the calls to remove those statues seriously when he demanded the removal of four monuments. The backlash, Hunt said, was intense.

Critical race theory: What it is and what it isn’t

  U.S. Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana sent a letter to fellow Republicans on June 24, 2021, stating: “As Republicans, we reject the racial essentialism that critical race theory teaches … that our institutions are racist and need to be destroyed from the ground up.”

  Kimberlé Crenshaw, a law professor and central figure in the development of critical race theory, said in a recent interview that critical race theory “just says, let’s pay attention to what has happened in this country, and how what has happened in this country is continuing to create differential outcomes. … Critical Race Theory … is more patriotic than those who are opposed to it because … we believe in the promises of equality. And we know we can’t get there if we can’t confront and talk honestly about inequality.”

‘A New Dawn’: How four young Black activists powered a movement to remove Confederate emblem from Mississippi flag

  On the day of the demonstration, Jarrius Adams stood in front of the Mississippi Governor’s Mansion in Jackson, where the state flag bearing an image of the “rebel flag” of the Confederacy flew to his left. Scores of people lined the street, eager to hear Adams speak as they marched elbow to elbow in solidarity for Black lives. Drones circled overhead, and supporters held signs, one reading “Racism is a Virus.” The demonstration would be called one of the largest in Mississippi’s history. Its success would bring historic change that had long eluded civil rights activists.

Confederate symbols have no place in public spaces. Stone Mountain is no exception.

  Stone Mountain is the world’s largest monument to white supremacy. The enormous landform – the centerpiece of a state park that draws more than 4 million visitors a year, some 15 miles northeast of Atlanta – is marred by a massive carving commemorating the hateful legacy of the Confederacy.

  The carved surface depicts Confederate leaders Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson in a reverent light across three acres. The men sit on horseback, hats over their hearts, in a tableau that cannot be interpreted as anything other than a celebration of the Confederacy and the values – white supremacy and the enslavement of Black people – for which it stood.

The forgotten history of Memorial Day

  In the years following the bitter Civil War, a former Union general took a holiday originated by former Confederates and helped spread it across the entire country.

  The holiday was Memorial Day, and today's commemoration marks the 152nd anniversary of its official nationwide observance. The annual commemoration was born in the former Confederate States in 1866 and adopted by the United States in 1868. It is a holiday in which the nation honors its military dead.

Faith made Harriet Tubman fearless as she rescued slaves

  Millions of people voted in an online poll in 2015 to have the face of Harriet Tubman on the U.S. $20 bill. But many might not have known the story of her life as chronicled in a recent film, “Harriet.”

  Harriet Tubman worked as a slave, spy, and eventually as an abolitionist. What I find most fascinating, as a historian of American slavery, is how belief in God helped Tubman remain fearless, even when she came face to face with many challenges.

How the American Civil War cemented modern Christmas tradition

  Shortly before Christmas Day 1864, Abraham Lincoln received an extraordinary Christmas present – Savannah, Georgia. Union General William Sherman presented the captured city to the president via telegram, noting his gift included guns, ammunition, and several thousand bales of cotton.

  An unusual gift, but the tale hints at how traditions bend during wartime. By the time the war broke out, the majority of Christmas traditions that we would recognize – and indeed celebrate today – were in place in America. Many of these built upon traditions from Europe. But the way these were upheld during the war went a long way towards cementing aspects of the American Christmas that has since been commercialized and exported around the globe.

Hank Sanders: Sketches #1689 - The Second Amendment does not apply to Black folk

  The Second Amendment does not apply to Black folk. I knew that a long time ago. Alabama, where I live, is a strong Second Amendment state. It is an open-carry state. It has some of the most rigorous pro-gun laws in these United States. But I know that the Second Amendment does not apply to Black folk.

  I know that from current manifestations. I know that from recent history. I know that from the long history stretching way back beyond the founding of the country.

  I am convinced, and I stand to be corrected, that I cannot safely carry an open weapon in Alabama in spite of the law. I am a Black man who turned 77 last week. However, if I took a rifle or a pistol and walked into a Walmart or any other store, I would likely be shot. I don’t have to wave the gun or say anything; I just have to have it and for other people know it.

Slavery shaped America’s pathology on race and whiteness

  Four hundred years ago this month, the White Lion, a warship commanded by English privateers, docked at Point Comfort in the colony of Virginia.

  On board were “20 and odd” Africans who had been captured by Portuguese slavers in present-day Angola and then stolen during an act of piracy on the high seas. Once on land, the African men and women were bought by the “Governor and Cape Marchant … at the best and easyest rate they could,” wrote John Rolfe, the colony’s first successful tobacco planter.

  The arrival of the White Lion is frequently thought of as the beginning of chattel slavery in what is now the United States and, as such, the genesis of African-American history and culture.

Hank Sanders: Sketches #1671 - The end of slavery was monumental

  The end of slavery. The end of slavery. The end of slavery. The end of slavery was one of the most impactful events in the history of the United States of America. It changed so much. But we don’t celebrate the end of slavery. It’s a fateful failure. There are many reasons for this great failure. The end of slavery was monumental.

  To understand the huge importance of the end of slavery, we have to understand the profound dimensions of slavery. We have deliberately blocked out such knowledge. Slavery was so terrible that we don’t want to remember it. We don’t want to talk or read, or see movies or television programs about slavery. It is too painful. We act the way many respond to truly traumatic events such as brutal rapes. We often refuse to remember. Even when we don’t remember slavery, its impact is still deep and manifests itself in many ways. We cannot celebrate the end of slavery if we refuse to remember slavery.

With Rosa Parks Day, Alabama moves toward recognition of its true heroes

  On December 1, the state of Alabama marked its first Rosa Parks Day.

  It was a significant step toward recognizing the state's prominent civil rights activists.

  Sixty-three years ago – on Dec. 1, 1955 – Parks was arrested and jailed for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

Frank Earnest is the chief of ‘heritage defense.’ The question is, whose heritage?

  Even before neo-Nazi James Alex Fields Jr. was convicted of first-degree murder, no one disputed he drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia during the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in August 2017.

  And neither the prosecution or the defense disputed that Heather Heyer died on impact. Watching video of that moment in court last week, one juror clapped his hand over his mouth — but Fields showed no emotion.

  Fields was among the white supremacists who were in Charlottesville to protest the city’s plan to remove giant statues of Robert E. Lee and Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson from its parks.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse - Frank Johnson and the legend of the Free State of Winston

  Those of us who are Baby Boomers remember the tumultuous times of the 1960s. We lived through the Civil Rights revolution. Those of us who grew up here in the Heart of Dixie witnessed the transpiring of racial integration first hand. Most of the crusades and struggles occurred here in Alabama, especially Montgomery.

  A good many of the landmark Civil Rights court decisions were handed down in the Federal Court in Montgomery. The author and renderer of these epic rulings was Frank M. Johnson, Jr. Johnson, who served as Federal Judge in the Middle District of Alabama for 24 years from 1955 through 1979.

Hank Sanders: Senate Sketches #1632 - Why there is no Lost Cause

  “Hank, I have to go to Washington, D.C. Can you fill in for me on the panel of the Museum of the Lost Cause Symposium?” Those were the words of Faya Rose Toure, my wife of nearly 49 years. I had a radio program scheduled as well as my weekly law office meeting. But I went to Montgomery for the Museum of the Lost Cause Symposium. The event was organized by Dr. Derryn Moten, chair of the History Department of Alabama State University. I want to share some of what I said or tried to say, or intended to say.

  I say, there is No Lost Cause. It was never lost. It is alive and well. It can be perceived most anytime, most anywhere, in most anything, if we open our eyes, our ears, our minds, and our spirits. In fact, The Lost Cause is more visible in 2018 than at any time in the last 53 years. Just look to the White House. The Lost Cause is not lost.

Hank Sanders: Senate Sketches #1628 - The power of looking back to move forward!

  Looking back to move forward. This is a powerful concept. It is not a new concept. There is even an African symbol for this concept. It is an eagle-like bird with its head looking back while its feet are facing forward. The name of the concept is Sankofa.

  As a child, I looked back to move forward. I looked back at Thurgood Marshall, the great civil rights lawyer who was the architect of the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling. This decision cracked the wall of oppressive segregation constructed by the Plessy v. Ferguson Case of 1896 that forged the specious "separate but equal" doctrine. I looked back and commenced my journey to become a civil rights lawyer.

Executed for committing war crimes — then honored with a Confederate monument

  We’ve seen the monuments to Jefferson Davis. We’ve seen the ones to Robert E. Lee. But why is there a monument to a Confederate captain executed for war crimes?

  Captain Henry Wirz took command of a Confederate prisoner-of-war camp in Andersonville, Georgia, in 1864. The camp was originally intended to be a temporary holding pen for prisoners who would be exchanged with the Union. It was nothing more than an open-air stockade.

  But within six months of its establishment, Camp Sumter was holding 32,000 Union soldiers. Technically, it was the fifth largest city in the Confederacy.