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- Abby Schultz, “Philanthropy Is Stepping up to Advance Reparations and Racial Repair,” Barron’s (December 6, 2023): LINK. “Philanthropy’s role is not to achieve reparations alone, but it can begin to close the financial and cultural gaps that exist in creating a pathway for reparations to take hold.”
- John H. Haas, “A grim anniversary: John Brown’s execution,” Current (December 5, 2023): LINK. A thoughtful reflection on the enduring legacy of John Brown: Is martyrdom (or violence) for justice ever necessary? The author teaches at CIC member Bethel University (IN).
- John Reeves, “Unraveling Ulysses S. Grant’s Complex Relationship with Slavery,” Smithsonian Magazine (December 5, 2023): LINK. General Grant saved the Union and later protected the rights of freed people during Reconstruction—but he and his wife once owned slaves: “Grant never publicly criticized [slavery] in the years before the Civil War…the soldier who played such a crucial role in destroying slavery also profited immensely from the practice up until the penultimate year of the war.”
- Edward Moreta Jr., “Walden, Freestyled: Reimagining and Reclaiming What It Means to Be Black in Nature,” Literary Hub (December 4, 2023): LINK. Reflecting on popular culture and the experience of camping with fellow Black friends, the author argues against an exclusive tradition represented by Emerson, Thoreau, and Muir and instead dreams of “young Black people experiencing the great outdoors, in green spaces, on the land….”
- Steven Monacelli, “The Texas Historical Commission Removed Books on Slavery from Plantation Gift Shops,” Texas Monthly (December 7, 2023): LINK. Following an amateur historian’s outrage about books, an exhibit, and an informational video on slavery at the Varner-Hogg plantation (near Houston), a board member of the Texas Historical Commission pushed for a policy that has restricted the sale of books about systemic racism and other legacies of slavery across properties owned by the commission.
- Jared Del Rosso, “Why dozens of North American bird species are getting new names: Every name tells a story,” The Conversation (December 7, 2023): LINK. The author, who teaches at CIC member the University of Denver, considers the National Audubon Society’s recent decision to change the names of birds that contain racial or ethnic slurs or that were named after enslavers, eugenicists, etc.
Medical Inequalities:
- Usha Lee McFarling, “New England Journal of Medicine reckons with its racist past and complicity in slavery,” STAT (December 6, 2023): LINK. “The New England Journal of Medicine, the world’s oldest continually published medical journal, publicly reckoned with its history and complicity surrounding slavery and racism Wednesday, publishing the first of a series of essays by independent historians on the role the prestigious publication has played in perpetuating racist thinking in medicine that continues to this day.” NEJM began publishing in 1812 and remains one of the most influential medical journals in the world.
- Margaret Vigil-Fowler, “The History Behind America’s Devastating Shortage of Black Doctors,” TIME (November 29, 2023): LINK. While politicians look to address the contemporary shortage of Black doctors, it is worth looking back on the history of the American Medical Association—a professional organization designed to enforce standards and raise the prestige for doctors that also systematically barred African American members for decades and limited Black people’s access to medical education.
- Fatimah Jackson, Carter Clinton, and Jennifer Caldwell, “Core issues, case studies, and the need for expanded Legacy African American genomics,” Frontiers in Genetics 14 (2023): https://doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2023.843209. From the introduction: “Genomic studies of Legacy African Americans have a tangled and convoluted history in western science. In this review paper, core issues affecting African American genomic studies are addressed and two case studies, the New York African Burial Ground and the Gullah Geechee peoples, are presented to highlight the current status of genomic research among Africa Americans.”