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Two drawn caricatures of Ronald Reagan's face.

I’m a Historian of the ’80s. I Cannot Tell You How Bizarre the New Ronald Reagan Movie Is.

There’s hagiography, then there’s...whatever this is.
by Paul M. Renfro via Slate on September 3, 2024
A statue of Martin Luther King Jr. stands larger than life in the center of the frame; two small figures view it in the foreground

The Struggle for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Memory

How political misappropriations of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy fuel right-wing movements.
by Hajar Yazdiha via Contexts Magazine on January 15, 2024
Men hearing testimony at the courts marshal of 64 African American soldiers in Houston in 1917.

How Fake History Gets Made

A minor incident gets distorted in order to provide a desired racial story.
by Helen Andrews via The American Conservative on June 27, 2023
Inside Bryan's Museum, with a mannequin dressed as a Texas Ranger.

Those Who Don't Know the Past…

The outcome of a fight to control a nonprofit group could shape the teaching of history in Texas.
by Josephine Lee via The Texas Observer on May 15, 2023
Rosa Parks is fingerprinted by police Lt. D.H. Lackey in Montgomery, Ala., on Feb. 22, 1956, two months after refusing to give up her seat in a bus for a White passenger.
partner

Pitting Rosa Parks Against Claudette Colvin Distorts History

A new documentary explores the origins of the Montgomery Bus Boycott — with lessons on how we see movements.
by Jeanne Theoharis, Say Burgin via Made By History on October 19, 2022
A book labeled "history" begin painted white to represent revisionism.

Right-Wing Nationalists Are Marching into the Future by Rewriting the Past

Fights over history like those in the U.S. are happening all over the world.
by Ishaan Tharoor via Washington Post on February 11, 2022
This 1925 painting depicts an idealized version of an early Thanksgiving celebration in Plymouth.

How to Tell the Thanksgiving Story on Its 400th Anniversary

Scholars are unraveling the myths surrounding the 1621 feast, which found the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag cementing a newly established alliance.
by David Kindy via Smithsonian on November 23, 2021
President Donald Trump speaking at a podium at the National Archives
partner

Revisionist History is an American Political Tradition

The founding generation revised the country’s history to make the new nation work.
by Michael D. Hattem via Made By History on September 23, 2020
Painting of Santa Claus giving a sword to a Confederate cavalryman next to a dinosaur.

What Is Revisionist History?

What is revisionist history--and is it dangerous?
by Erin Bartram via Contingent on August 8, 2019

Pride and Prejudice? The Americans Who Fly the Confederate Flag

A listening tour in Mississippi asks flag supporters why they still support a symbol that represents pain, division and difficult history.
by Donna Ladd via The Guardian on August 6, 2018

Forrest the Butcher

Memphis wants to remove a statue honoring first grand wizard of the KKK.
by Liliana Segura via The Intercept on September 2, 2017
Black legislators behind the title "The Future of Reconstruction Studies."

The Future of Reconstruction Studies

This online forum sponsored by the Journal of the Civil War Era features 9 essays and a roundtable on the future of Reconstruction Studies.
by Eric Foner, Nancy Bercaw, Fitzhugh Brundage, Thomas J. Brown, Mark A. Noll, Thomas C. Holt, Lisa Tetrault, Martha S. Jones, Kidada E. Williams, Salamishah Tillet, Adrienne Petty, Luke E. Harlow, Elliott West, David M. Prior, Beverly Bond, Jennifer W. Taylor via Muster on August 1, 2017
A still of Dennis Quaid as Ronald Reagan overlaid on the seal of the United States.

The Thin Line Between Biopic and Propaganda

The success of “Reagan” reflects the market demands of a more fragmented moviegoing public—and reality.
by Zach Schonfeld via The Atlantic on November 18, 2024
An artistic collage juxtiposing a transatlantic slave ship with a tenement in Harlem.

How the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Continues to Impact Modern Life

A new Smithsonian book reckons with the enduring legacies of slavery and capitalism.
by Jennifer L. Morgan via Smithsonian on November 7, 2024
Members of the American Communist Party march with signs at a protest.

The Communist Party Helped Shape US History

A new book tells the story of American communism as an integral part of 20th-century US history, with Communists “as social critics and social change agents.”
by Daniel Colligan via Jacobin on September 16, 2024
Angela Davis standing at podium, speaking at Communist Party USA event.

How and Why American Communism Failed

Plus: One historian’s about-face on the Communist record.
by Ronald Radosh via The Bulwark on August 2, 2024
A colorful illlustration of Texas Rangers, three Tejano men, guns, and alcohol bottles.

After a Borderland Shootout, a 100-Year-Old Battle for the Truth

A century after three Tejano men were shot to death, the story their family tells is different than the official account. Whose story counts as Texas history?
by Arelis R. Hernández, Frank Hulley-Jones via Washington Post on May 15, 2024
A historical marker outside Fendall Hall, a plantation.

Historical Markers Are Everywhere In America. Some Get History Wrong.

The nation's historical markers delight, distort and, sometimes, just get the story wrong.
by Laura Sullivan, Nick McMillan via NPR on April 21, 2024
Lincoln Center on the opening night of the Met Opera, 1966.

Curtains for Lincoln Center

On the falsification of Lincoln Center’s history.
by James Panero via The New Criterion on April 17, 2024
A photograph of Andrew Johnson.

Tennessee Johnson Reel vs. Real

The real Andrew Johnson compared with the only film made about his life.
by Tom Elmore via Emerging Civil War on February 16, 2024
original

The Era Without a Name

There’s no one place to learn about the early decades of the 19th century. So I set off to see how that history is being remembered in the places where it happened.
by Ed Ayers on January 17, 2024

Mildred Rutherford’s War

The “historian general” of the United Daughters of the Confederacy began the battle over the depiction of the South in history textbooks that continues today.
by Adam Hochschild via New York Review of Books on November 16, 2023
A collage in which a photograph of Blanche Ames Ames is superimposed on a photograph of John F. Kennedy.

How John F. Kennedy Fell for the Lost Cause

And the grandmother who wouldn’t let him get away with it.
by Jordan Virtue via The Atlantic on November 13, 2023
A crowd of tourist superimposed over images of Salem attractions and a cemetery.

Salem’s Unholy Bargain: How Tragedy Became an Attraction

Is the cost worth the payoff?
by Lex Pryor via The Ringer on October 30, 2023
Collage of American Indian film characters.

Native Americans on the Silver Screen, From Wild West Shows to 'Killers of the Flower Moon'

How American Indians in Hollywood have gone from stereotypes to starring roles.
by Sandra Hale Schulman via Smithsonian on October 12, 2023
Madame Restell

‘Hag of Misery’

The abortionist Madame Restell is central to the story of how American women’s reproductive freedom was dismantled in the second half of the nineteenth century.
by Susan Faludi via New York Review of Books on October 12, 2023
An open textbook.
partner

The Right-Wing Textbooks Shaping What Americans Know

Conservative curricula are being pushed into tax-funded history classrooms.
by Adam Laats via Made By History on October 11, 2023
Portraits of Isabella Graham and Catherine Ferguson

Where Are the Women? Past Choices That Shaped the Historical Record

When women are missing from the history we tell, sometimes it’s because of how their stories were preserved and told in the past.
by Amanda Bowie Moniz via Perspectives on History on September 1, 2023
Freedpeople sit at Foller’s House in Cumberland Landing, Va., 1862.

If “Woke” Dies, Our Nation’s Truths Die with It

Ron DeSantis wants to retrofit history to conform to conservative ideology.
by Tera W. Hunter via Hammer & Hope on August 30, 2023

Africa, the Center of History

A new book works to counteract the “symphony of erasure” that has obscured and denied Africa’s contributions to the contemporary world.
by Adom Getachew via New York Review of Books on July 27, 2023
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