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- Frank Scaturro, “Grant and the Terrells: Acts of kindness and civil rights milestones,” The Hill (July 24, 2024): LINK. The president of the Grant Monument Association reflects on the legacies of President Ulysses S. Grant and Harrison Terrell, a formerly enslaved man hired by Grant as a butler. Terrell’s son, Robert, became a judge in the District of Columbia; Robert’s wife, Mary Church Terrell, was a prominent African American educator and civil rights leader.
- Bill Thompson, “The All-Too-Human Flesh of It,” Los Angeles Review of Books (July 26, 2024): LINK. A review of Pete Candler’s A Deeper South: The Beauty, Mystery, and Sorrow of the Southern Road (University of South Carolina Press, 2024). Candler, a self-described “white son of privilege,” explores the South through the lens of race, hoping to tell a story about memory.
- Diana Ochoa-Chavez, “The Legacy of Critical Whiteness Studies,” Harvard Political Review (July 28, 2024): LINK. “Given the importance of addressing institutional racism in order to achieve social justice, it might seem useful to have academics engage with the topic of White supremacy in a standalone manner. … [But de-emphasizing Critical Whiteness Studies] in favor of the broader field of ethnic studies is a step toward more inclusive, critical conversations.”
- Anna Chiaradonna, “Lineage and Legacy: The Invisible Strings Tying Abraham Lincoln to Lancaster,” The College Reporter (July 29, 2024): LINK. This reflection on Abraham Lincoln’s local ties to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was published in the student newspaper of CIC member Franklin & Marshall College.
- Kristen Cabrera, “The story of love pulled apart by slavery is being told through dance,” NPR (July 29, 2024): LINK. “The legacy of the emancipation of Jim and Winnie Shankle reaches through generations of their family. The story of their love — pulled apart by slavery — is now being told through dance” at a local Black church in Texas.
- Quintessa Williams, “Georgia’s AP African American Course Reversal Highlights Ongoing National Debates,” Word in Black (August 1, 2024): LINK. “Following a public outcry, the Georgia Department of Education now says districts are free to teach [AP African American Studies], and the state will pay for it as long as they use a ‘lower-level introductory code’ linked to an existing state-approved course in African American studies.”
- Renata Sago, “Why Courts Use Laws Tied to Slavery — And How to Stop Them,” Word in Black (August 2, 2024): LINK. Judges and lawyers continue to cite antebellum laws that interpreted Black people as property. In response, law professor Justin Simard created the Citing Slavery Project to “show people how deeply slave-era policies are embedded in U.S. laws, in an effort to end the practice.”
- Kate Selig, “Tulsa Creates Commission on Reparations for Race Massacre,” New York Times (August 3, 2024): LINK. “The mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma, announced the creation of a commission tasked with developing a plan for reparations for the Tulsa Race Massacre…. [T]he commission will study how reparations can be made to survivors of the massacre and their descendants, as well as residents of North Tulsa.”