We took a short break on Labor Day but we’re back with more links! As always, we invite you to share this post with students, colleagues, and anyone else who is interested in the legacies of slavery. A link here does not imply agreement or endorsement by the Council of Independent Colleges.
Public Memory:
- David K. Li, “University of Virginia suspends tours that had come under fire for mentioning Thomas Jefferson’s ties to slavery,” NBC News (August 30, 2024): LINK. The Jefferson Council, a conservative alumni group, called for changes or cancellation of a campus tour program at the University of Virginia, which they criticized for focusing too much on Thomas Jefferson’s ties to slavery. The university has suspended the tour.
- Laura Jedeed, “Where MAGA Granddads and Resistance Moms Go to Learn America’s Most Painful History Lessons,” Politico (August 31, 2024): LINK. Colonial Williamsburg is at the center of a raging culture war: “What are America’s foundational values, and are those values worth preserving? Were America’s framers biblically inspired visionaries, enlightened freedom fighters or colonizing enslavers desperate to avoid a small tax on imported goods? How does America teach its history?”
- Andrea Y. Henderson, “Exhibits about slavery in St. Louis and the enslaved who fought it are on display downtown,” NPR (September 3, 2024): LINK. Two new exhibits—“Slavery in St. Louis” and “Freedom Suits”—are helping St. Louisans learn more about slavery in the region, including the legacy of lawsuits that Black Missourians brought against their enslavers in the municipal courts. The exhibits are co-curated by the Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site.
Medical Racism:
- Kylie Marsh and Herbert L. White, “‘Racialized myths,’ medical exploitation and dire results,” The Charlotte Post (August 31, 2024): LINK. The facts are clear: “Black women are up to four times more likely to die due to pregnancy and birth-related complications than their white counterparts.” The authors argue that “America’s maternal mortality gap can be traced to slavery-era medical exploitation.”
- Katie Palmer and Usha Lee McFarling, “Doctors use problematic race-based algorithms to guide care every day. Why are they so hard to change?” STAT News (September 3, 2024): LINK. While some hospitals have removed the use of race, ethnicity, or ancestry from algorithms used to guide physicians’ decisions about patient care, race-based medical algorithms are still widely used.
Other Links:
- Matthew Schuerman, “The Peekskill Riots Revealed the Racism and Antisemitism Hidden Beneath the Surface of the Anti-Communist Movement,” Smithsonian Magazine (August 24, 2024): LINK. Paul Robeson’s fellow-traveling with Communists and his advocacy for civil rights helped spark the largely forgotten Peekskill, NY, riots in 1949. “Peekskill offered a valuable lesson for civil rights activists. By the late 1940s, mainstream civil rights organizations were already taking pains to remove communists from their ranks, even though they had long been among its most dedicated and energetic members.”
- Omnia Saed, “For Black Archaeologists, the Atlantic Ocean is an Ancestral Graveyard,” Atmos (August 26, 2024): LINK. The Slave Wrecks Project explores the loss of enslaved Africans to the oceans during the Middle Passage. The sea was a site of terror and now a resource for healing: “We were never able to put our people to rest in the ways that they should have been put to rest. So our dead continue to haunt us.”
- Jeff Tiberii, Rachel McCarthy, “Golden Leaf series: In NC’s old tobacco warehouses, Black workers faced brutal conditions by day. By night, their dancing challenged Jim Crow.” North Carolina Public Radio (August 28, 2024): LINK. A podcast explores tobacco’s deep roots in the state and the brutal conditions in early- and mid-20th century tobacco warehouses. During this period, Black entertainers and party-goers often transformed the warehouses at night, challenging Jim Crow in the process.
- Sophie Austin, “California lawmakers pass landmark bills to atone for racism, but hold off on fund to take action,” AP News (August 31, 2024): LINK. California lawmakers approved proposals allowing for the return of land or compensation to families whose property was unjustly seized by the government and also formally apologized for laws and practices that have devastated Black people and their communities.
- Jemar Tisby, “Black women made MLK’s March on Washington happen. Yet their voices went unheard.” USA Today (August 31, 2024): LINK. Last week was the anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (August 28, 1963). The author focuses on the hidden role of women organizers, before and long after the March: “While their presence up front at the March on Washington was minimal, there can be no accurate assessment of that day and no adequate progress in civil rights without accounting for and honoring black women of the movement.”
- Robert S. Burch, Jr., “Voices: African Americans helped build Utah. But our fight for freedom, equality and economic empowerment is far from over,” The Salt Lake Tribune (September 2, 2024): LINK. “The labor of African Americans is intricate to the very fabric of America’s history—starting from the first arrival of enslaved Africans, through the Civil War and into the stories of Black farmers and business owners in Utah.”
- Torsheta Jackson, “At Jackson Freedom School, Students Rallied for the ‘Right to Read,’ Defying Book Bans,” Mississippi Free Press (September 3, 2024): LINK. A thousand volunteers traveled to Mississippi in 1964 to help register Black voters and challenge racism. Sixty years later, the Children’s Defense Fund is rallying students to protect their right to read.
- Carolyn Eastman, “Remarkable Documents Lay Bare New York’s History of Slavery,” Smithsonian Magazine (September/October 2024): LINK. A newly digitized collection highlights the stories of Black New Yorkers and the gradual manumission (and limited freedom) of antebellum African Americans in several Northern states.