Person

Kevin M. Levin

Kevin M. Levin is a historian and educator based in Boston. He has written and lectured widely on the Civil War era, historical memory, and public history. He is the author of Searching for Black Confederate Soldiers: The Civil War's Most Persistent Myth and Remembering the Battle of the Crater: War as Murder, and editor of Interpreting the Civil War at Museums and Historic Sites. He blogs at Civil War Memory.

Bylines

Racism and the Limits of Imagination in the United States and the Confederacy

Why did it take so long for the U.S. Army to authorize the enlistment of Black men as soldiers?

by Kevin M. Levin via Civil War Memory on December 1, 2024
Did Robert Gould Shaw Have to Volunteer the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts to Prove Their Bravery?

Questions linger about the assault on Fort Wagner, which took place on this day in 1863.

by Kevin M. Levin via Civil War Memory on July 18, 2024
Civil War Memory, Reconciliation, and Social Media: A Cautionary Tale

The importance of contextualization and critical evaluation in historical analysis.

by Kevin M. Levin via Civil War Memory on December 26, 2023
Remembering Southern Unionists

Confederate monuments helped to erase the history of those white and black southerners who remained loyal and were willing to give their lives to save the United States.

by Kevin M. Levin via Civil War Memory on December 28, 2022
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The Virginia History its State Board Doesn’t Want Students to Know

Our racial history is complex and important, but debates today are eliding entire chapters of it.

by Kevin M. Levin via Made By History on August 25, 2022
Why 'Glory' Still Resonates More Than Three Decades Later

Newly added to Netflix, the Civil War movie reminds the nation that black Americans fought for their own emancipation.

by Kevin M. Levin via Smithsonian on September 14, 2020
Black Bostonians Fought For Freedom From Slavery. Where Are The Statues That Tell Their Stories?

Contrary to the image of the kneeling slave, Black abolitionists did not wait passively for the "Day of Jubilee." They led the charge.

by Kevin M. Levin via WBUR on June 16, 2020
Richmond’s Confederate Monuments Were Used to Sell a Segregated Neighborhood

Real-estate developers used the statues to draw white buyers to a neighborhood where houses couldn't be sold “to any person of African descent.”

by Kevin M. Levin via The Atlantic on June 11, 2020
The University of North Carolina's Payout to the Confederate Lost Cause

The University of North Carolina agreed to pay the Sons of Confederate Veterans $2.5 million—a sum that rivals the endowment of its history department.

by David W. Blight, Kevin M. Levin, W. Fitzhugh Brundage via The Atlantic on December 9, 2019
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How the Myth of Black Confederates Was Born

And how a handful of black Southerners helped perpetuate it after the Civil War.

by Kevin M. Levin via Made By History on July 17, 2019
The ‘Loyal Slave’ Photo That Explains the Northam Scandal

The governor’s yearbook picture, like many images before it, reinforces the belief that blacks are content in their oppression.

by Kevin M. Levin via The Atlantic on February 13, 2019
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Monument to the Niños Héroes, six carved pillars with a statue in the center.

The First Lost Cause: Transnational Memory

A comparison of the "Lost Cause" narratives from the Confederacy and Mexico's side of the Mexican-American War.

by Niels Eichhorn via Muster on November 30, 2021

A hand-colored 1892 print of the Battle of Fort Pillow, which shows Confederate soldiers massacreing Black soldiers and civilians with knives and bayonets.

At Fort Pillow, Confederates Massacred Black Soldiers After They Surrendered

Targeted even when unarmed, around 70 percent of the Black Union troops who fought in the 1864 battle died as a result of the clash.

by Erin L. Thompson via Smithsonian on April 10, 2023

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.

by Clint Smith via The Atlantic on May 10, 2021

Confederate Monument in Cemetery

Confederate Monuments in Cemeteries, Reminders That We Cannot All Rest In Peace

For people of color in particular, cemeteries can be a cruel reminders of trauma both past and present.

by Sandra Baker via Rad Death Blog on May 3, 2021

An illustration of an accordion being played.

The "Good Old Rebel" at the Heart of the Radical Right

How a satirical song mocking uneducated Confederates came to be embraced as an anthem of white Southern pride.

by Joseph M. Thompson via Southern Cultures on January 21, 2021

A man walking by graffiti on a white wall that reads "Why do we have to keep telling you black lives matter?"

What the Protesters Tagging Historic Sites Get Right About the Past

Places of memory up and down the East Coast also witnessed acts of resistance and oppression.

by Lindsay M. Chervinsky via Smithsonian on June 26, 2020

What We Can Learn From 1918 Influenza Diaries

These letters and journals offer insights on how to record one's thoughts amid a pandemic.

by Meilan Solly via Smithsonian on April 13, 2020

The Monuments We Never Built

Why we must ask not only what stories our landscapes of commemoration tell, but also what stories they leave out.

by Brian Hamilton via Edge Effects on August 22, 2017

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