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- Paul Crider, “Against the Slave Power: The Fugitive Liberalism of Frederick Douglass,” Liberal Currents (August 5, 2024): LINK. What advice can Frederick Douglass offer for today’s “antiliberal” times? “Douglass’s great enemy was not any person, but the system and spirit of slavery. Though slavery itself was destroyed by the Civil War, Douglass believed the spirit of slavery persisted, and would take generations to fully defeat.”
- Amy Cohen, “Public Art Examines Freedom and Slavery at Declaration House,” Hidden City (August 8, 2024): LINK. Declaration House, a new installation just steps from Independence Hall in Philadelphia, throws new light on the once-concealed story of Sally Hemmings, Thomas Jefferson, and their children.
- David W. Blight, “An extraordinary historical collaboration sees Nat Turner’s slave rebellion in a prophetic light,” Los Angeles Times (August 9, 2024): LINK. David Blight reviews Anthony J. Kaye and Gregory P. Downs, Nat Turner, Black Prophet: A Visionary History (2025), a speculative history that explores Nat Turner’s religious thinking and his role as a militant prophet.
- “NHCJE’s Icon Series: Where Art Meets Justice and Equity,” In Depth NH (August 13, 2024): LINK. From the New Hampshire Center for Justice and Equity, a collection of stickers that pay tribute to those who “paved the way for equity and justice across various fronts, including civil rights, racial justice, disability rights, LGBTQ+ rights, workers’ rights, and more.” The first stickers in the collection were designed by Matt Lambert, an intern from CIC member Wheaton College (MA).
- Derek H. Alderman, et al., “Offensive names dot the American street map — a new app provides a way to track them,” The Conversation (August 14, 2024): LINK. “A newly released app allows users to search for discriminatory roadway names [across North America], helping communities grasp the ubiquity of inequalities embedded in everyday spaces and the harm they cause.” (For example, we found a Slavery Lane in Pulaski, KY; a Great Slave Avenue in Eunice, LA; and hundreds of variations on “Confederate” or “Plantation.”)
- Daniel N. Gullotta, “The Complicated History of Evangelicals & Slavery,” Providence Magazine (August 14, 2024): LINK. Evangelicals are wrestling with their faith tradition’s connections to slavery and racial inequality. Some chose to frame this history as a narrative about faithful but misguided believers (including George Whitefield, John Wesley, and Jonathan Edwards) in a fallen world: “Christians still need heroes even while maintaining a sober view that neither idealizes nor dismisses the great men and women of history.”
- Christopher J. Schell, “To Dream of Beauty: On the Possibility of Afrofuturism as a Solution to Climate Catastrophe,” Literary Hub (August 15, 2024): LINK. In an excerpt from his new essay in the collection The Heart of the Wild, the author argues that “from slavery to genocide, Jim Crow segregation to apartheid, the intergenerational struggle for civil rights and equality provides a compelling framework to begin unpacking how we regain our bonds with nature.”
- Dorothy S. Boulware, “This Faith-Based Reparations Fund Helps Kids Pay for College,” Word in Black (August 15, 2024): LINK. The Justice League of Greater Lansing (Michigan) is addressing the racial wealth gap by committing what its calls “reparations” ($400,000 so far) from predominantly white houses of worship to scholarships for college-bound Black high school graduates.