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Kate Masur

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What Pre-Civil War History Tells Us About the Coming Abortion Battle

Fights over fugitive slave laws pitted states against each other and showcased the risks of the federal government not supporting liberty.

by Kate Masur via Made By History on July 14, 2022
Lessons From the Civil Rights Struggle That Began Before the Civil War

The path to equality in the free Northern states was inconceivably steep. But in time, the movement maneuvered from the margins into mainstream politics.

by Kate Masur via Los Angeles Times on April 6, 2021
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The Lack of Federal Voting Rights Protections Returns Us to the Pre-Civil War Era

The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments tried to remove the power of the states to impede key rights.

by Kate Masur via Made By History on March 29, 2021
A Confusion of Language

On the legal foundations that spurred centuries of civil rights movements.

by Kate Masur via Lapham’s Quarterly on March 24, 2021
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Yes, Wednesday’s Attempted Insurrection Is Who We Are

While Wednesday's images shocked us, they fit into our history.

by Gregory P. Downs, Kate Masur via Made By History on January 8, 2021
Black Organizing in Pre-Civil War Illinois: Creating Community, Demanding Justice

Their main objective was to draw attention to racist state policies and demand their repeal.

by Kate Masur, Emiliano Aguilar, Hope McCaffrey, Mikala Stokes, Marquis Taylor via Colored Conventions Project on September 10, 2020
How One Amateur Historian Brought Us the Stories of African-Americans Who Knew Abraham Lincoln

Once John E. Washington started to dig, he found an incredible wealth of untapped knowledge about the 16th president.

by Kate Masur via Smithsonian on February 20, 2018
Monumental Effort: Historians and the Creation of the National Monument to Reconstruction

Two historians weigh in on President Obama's move to designate a national monument to Reconstruction in South Carolina.

by Kate Masur, Gregory P. Downs, Kritika Agarwal via Perspectives on History on January 24, 2017
There's No National Site Devoted to Reconstruction—Yet

The National Parks Service, which preserves many Civil War sites, is finally looking for a way to mark the struggles that defined its legacy.

by Gregory P. Downs, Kate Masur via The Atlantic on April 29, 2015

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Historical photo of a group of black men and women

The United States' First Civil Rights Movement

A new history charts the radical agitation around Black rights and freedom back to the early nineteenth century.

by Kellie Carter Jackson via The Nation on June 16, 2021

Engraving of freedmen voting in New Orleans, 1867

Forging an Early Black Politics

The pre-Civil War North was a landscape not of unremitting white supremacy but of persistent struggles over racial justice by both Blacks and whites.

by Sean Wilentz via New York Review of Books on June 11, 2021

Watch meeting on New Year's Eve in Grafton, Virginia.

Countdown to Freedom

The significance of New Year’s Eve ‘watch night’ services for Black Americans.

by Chandelis Duster via CNN on December 31, 2023

Article about the KKK from an old copy of the Atlantic

What The Atlantic Got Wrong About Reconstruction

In 1901, a series of articles took a dim view of the era, and of the idea that all Americans ought to participate in the democratic process.

by Yoni Appelbaum via The Atlantic on November 13, 2023

Black and white photograph of a man. The main has his hair styled to point upwards, and a tattoo of the word Mississippi on his back.

Where Does the South Begin?

A new history cuts against stereotypes, to show a region constantly changing—and whose future is up for grabs.

by Scott Wasserman Stern via The New Republic on June 26, 2023

The Freedmen’s Bureau drawn by A.R. Waud, 1868.

Social Welfare and the Politics of Race in the Post-Civil War South

The politicized rhetoric linking race and welfare has a long, ingrained history.

by Ryan W. Keating via Black Perspectives on May 24, 2023

Sketch of a gathering of African Americans gathering in a meetinghouse.

“Nativity Gives Citizenship”: Teaching Antislavery Constitutionalism Through Black Conventions

The demand of antislavery activists for accused fugitives to be guaranteed a jury trial was an implicit recognition of Black citizenship.

by Erik J. Chaput via Commonplace on March 7, 2023

Hands holding a sign in that reads "DC statehood is racial justice."

Republicans’ Anti-Democratic, Anti-Black Plans for D.C. Are a 19th-Century Throwback

The same ideas that have harmed D.C. for more than a century are again rearing their ugly head.

by Vincent L. Femia via Made By History on March 2, 2022

A negative from a photo of Abraham Lincoln

How Historians Say Abraham Lincoln Is Quoted and Misquoted

As Presidents' Day approaches, historians look back at the most notable recent uses and misuses of "the Great Emancipator's" words.

by Olivia B. Waxman via TIME on February 11, 2021

An Unfinished Revolution

A new three-part PBS documentary explores the failure of Reconstruction and the Redemption of the South.

by James Oakes via New York Review of Books on November 21, 2019

Dressmaking Led Elizabeth Keckley From Slavery to the White House

But her memoir caused a rift with Mary Todd Lincoln.

by Nadra Nittle via Racked on February 26, 2018

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