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A jar of soil from the burial site of Howard Cooper, dated 1885.

Now We Know Their Names

In Maryland, a memorial for two lynching victims reveals how America is grappling with its history of racial terror.
'In America: Remember' public art installation near the Washington Monument

The Black History Lost to COVID-19

Black history lives in memories and minds. COVID-19 has endangered those traditions.
A woman is surrounded by her children as she sits amid a pile of debris in the processing area towards Abbey Gate, as they wait to leave Afghanistan, Wednesday, August 25, 2021.

What We Miss When We Say a War Has “Ended”

Bringing to light the kinship among American wars—and, by extension, their true significance—requires situating them in a single historical framework.
Black and white photograph of Lucille Clifton.

Lucille Clifton and the Task of Remembering

The poet’s memoir Generations is both a chronicle of her ancestral lineage and lesson in the centrality of Black women to the story of American history.
Vintage drawing of a rural area with snowfall. In the foreground, two horses are pulling a man in a cart on the snowy road.

Cox’s Snow and the Persistence of Weather Memory

One of the worst snowstorms recorded in Virginia’s history began on Sunday, January 17, 1857. It remained in Virginians' collective memories eighty years later.
A photograph of Fannie Farmer cooking with another woman.

Baking for the Holidays? Here's Why You Should Thank Culinary Pioneer Fannie Farmer

We all can thank a 19th century Boston-born cookbook author and domestic science pioneer for revolutionizing the way recipes are replicated at home.
Memorial for the massacre at El Mozote, a stone wall with lists of names.

The Battle over Memory at El Mozote

Four decades on, the perpetrators of the El Mozote massacre have not been held to account.
Thirteen incarcerated children at Manzanar's Children's Village.

Manzanar Children’s Village: Japanese American Orphans in a WWII Concentration Camp

In June 1942, Kenji and just over one hundred other children were taken from their parents and relocated to Manzanar.
Black and white photograph of Mississippi SNCC workers at conference at Tougaloo College, 1965.

SNCC’s Unruly Internationalism

Though the organization’s legacy has been domesticated, its grassroots leadership embraced the global fight for freedom.
Picture of Claudette Colvin

Before Rosa Parks, Claudette Colvin Refused to Give Up Her Seat on a Bus. She’s Still on Probation.

Colvin, 82, is headed to court in Montgomery, Ala., to petition for her record to be cleared.
The Titanic sinking.

How The Titanic Haunts Us

We have good reason to remember the story of what happened to hubristic rich people, and the imprisoned poor, in an enormous opulent floating palace.
Shot full of bullet holes, a sign marking where police recovered the body of Emmett Till.
partner

Excluding Black Americans From Our History Has Proved Deadly

Why it's so important to remember even our ugliest and most racist chapters.
‘The Proposed Emigrant Dumping Site’; cartoon by Victor Gillam from Judge magazine, March 22, 1890

Whose Freedom?

On the ways that people have conflated freedom with whiteness but pays too little attention to the force of freedom as a concept.
A cracked picture of Washington crossing the Delaware River.

The Incoherence of American History

We ascribe too much meaning to the early years of the republic.
Lithograph of people fleeing the Great Fire of Peshtigo on horseback and on foot.

Why America's Deadliest Wildfire Was Largely Forgotten

In 1871, the Wisconsin town Peshtigo burned to the ground, killing up to 2,500. But due to another event at the time, many have never heard about the disaster.

Why the History of the Vast Early America Matters Today

There is no American history without the histories of Indigenous and enslaved peoples. And this past has consequences today.
John Henry swinging a hammer, with the steam drill behind him.

John Henry and the Divinity of Labor

Variations in the legend of a steel-driving man tell us about differing American views of the value and purpose of work.
Old cars piled up under a bridge overpass.

New York: The Invention of an Imaginary City

How nostalgic fantasies about the “authentic” New York City obscure the real-world place.
Destruction from the Tulsa Race Massacre, 1921.

Reflections on the Artifacts Left Behind From the Tulsa Race Massacre

Objects and documents, says the Smithsonian historian Paul Gardullo, offer a profound opportunity for reckoning with a past that still lingers.

Why Confederate Lies Live On

For some Americans, history isn’t the story of what actually happened; it’s the story they want to believe.
Vietnamese immigrants parading the flag of the Republic of Vietnam during the Tet festival at a North American Little Saigon.

The South Vietnamese Flag and Shifting Representations of the Vietnamese American Experience

The sight of the flag on January 6, 2021 has aroused curiosity and criticism. Missing, however, is the multiplicity of its symbolism to Vietnamese Americans.

What Does It Mean to Build—And Preserve—a George Floyd Memorial?

How do we choose what we remember?
The front page of the Chicago Defender on August 2, 1919.

The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 Commemoration Project

Why are Chicago’s race riots of 1919 overlooked in the city’s collective memory? A new project tells the stories of the 38 killed, and the legacy of racism in the U.S.
Photo of the 1870 U.S. Census, with lines highlighted in orange, yellow, and green

The Strange Case of Booker T. Washington's Birthday

If Booker T. Washington never knew when he was born, how are we so sure about it now?
Vienna’s plague column; the AIDS quilt; Mexico City’s Memorial to Victims of Violence; Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

How Will We Remember This?

A COVID memorial will have to commemorate shame and failure as well as grief and bravery.
Roundabout at the George Floyd memorial, at the intersection of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue.

George Floyd and a Community of Care

At E. 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis, a self-organizing network explores what it means to construct and maintain a public memorial.
Helen Keller, circa 1954.

Did Helen Keller Really “Do All That”?

A troubling TikTok conspiracy theory questions whether Keller was “real.”
Yearbook photo of a an African American girl, in front of newspaper headlines and pictures of her as an adult

Meet Claudette Colvin, the 15-Year-Old Who Came Before Rosa Parks

Claudette Colvin is a Civil Rights hero you've probably never heard of. In 1955, she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat, months before Rosa Parks.
John Ossoff.

The Politics of Nostalgia

Nostalgia is not merely reductive; it is also productive.
photograph of a woman from a carpeta

A New Photo Exhibit Looks at Decades of FBI Surveillance on American Citizens

A new book shares a cautionary tale of the American surveillance state.

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