We’re back with a few links that appeared during our winter break. 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.
- Melissa L. Cooper, “Inside the Struggle to Preserve Georgia’s Butler Island, Home to a Notorious Plantation,” Smithsonian Magazine (January/February 2025): LINK. “Descendants of people enslaved at the site are grappling with its complicated history while honoring the region’s rich culture.”
- Allison Wiltz, “Black History is American History. So, Why Is it Hidden From View,” Medium (January 4, 2025): LINK (might need a free account to access). Writing about the gap between public school education and Black history, a scholar writes: “Without all the puzzle pieces, students will leave their schools ill-equipped to confront the nation’s legacy of systemic racism. They won’t understand the connection between disparities in the modern era and those throughout history.”
- Adam Mahoney, “‘Our City Is Always Hurting’: Black New Orleans Residents Grapple With Inequity,” Capital B News (January 3, 2025): LINK. “As federal, state, and local authorities have mobilized extensive resources, including bringing in hundreds of government officials and increasing the police presence, Black residents worry about the consequences in a city with a long history of police brutality backdropped against the nation’s highest murder rate for two consecutive years.”
- Daniel Chang, “Trash incinerators disproportionately harm Black and Hispanic people,” The Grio (January 3, 2025): LINK. With a new trash incinerator scheduled to break ground in Miramar, Florida, protestors argue that the effects of burning trash fall disproportionately on Black and Latino neighborhoods, another legacy of historic racism.
- Willy Blackmore, “The End of the EPA’s Environmental Justice Era,” Word in Black (January 2, 2025): LINK. The Environmental Protection Agency tried to protect at-risk communities by using Title XI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but opened itself up to a myriad of legal challenges led by Republicans who have sued the agency.
- Brandon Gates, “The White House will soon be ‘anti-woke’ again. Republicans got a head start.” The Emancipator (January 2, 2025): LINK. “Initiatives once heralded as critical to addressing systemic inequities in workplace’s schools, and government are now at the center of a conservative push to roll back policies seen as redistributing power to historically marginalized groups.”
- Allison Wiltz, “Why America’s New Year’s Resolution Should Be to Confront Racism,” Level (January 2, 2025): LINK. The author asserts, before reviewing America’s racial gap in wages, education, housing, investment, and terrorism that “If America were to make a New Year’s resolution, it should be to confront the legacy of racism within its borders. This would be a natural conclusion after a good, hard look in the mirror.””
- Delaney Nolan, “Infrastructure neglect and poverty lead to parasites in the Mississippi Delta,” The Guardian (January 1, 2025): LINK. Recent research has proven that the US has not eradicated parasites from unclean water. In the case of a majority-Black county in Mississippi, it seems that only federal investment might help a community with historical sanitation problems.
- “Short Stuff: Watch Night,” Stuff You Should Know (January 1, 2025): LINK. “The episode [of this podcast] delves into the historical and cultural significance of Watch Night within the African American community. This tradition dates back to December 31, 1862, marking the anticipation of the Emancipation Proclamation. It is particularly prominent among African American Methodists who conduct a service on New Year’s Eve that concludes shortly after midnight, coupled with a special meal on New Year’s Day.”
- Marc Ramirez, “She hoped to learn more about her enslaved ancestors. A trip South revealed hard truths.” USA Today via Yahoo News (December 30, 2024): LINK. Michelle Johnson, an African American retired professor, dived deeply into her family’s history, piecing together her ancestry for the first time, going beyond online databases by visiting various Southern towns.
- Rolonda Teal and Jaclyn Tripp, “This Northwest Louisiana village has connection to Liberia,” KTSM News (December 30, 2024): LINK. An anthropologist discovers the little-known connection between Converse, a rural town in Louisiana, and freedpeople that resettled in Liberia.
- Michelle Duster, “New Coin Celebrates the Living Legacy of Ida B. Wells,” Smithsonian Magazine (December 30, 2024): LINK. The great-granddaughter of Ida B. Wells reflects on her legacy of teaching, writing, and organizing, as Wells posthumously becomes one of 20 women selected by the U.S Mint for the American Women Quarters program.
- Cynthia Greenlee, “How Collard Greens Became a Symbol of Resilience and Tradition,” Capital B News (December 23, 2024): LINK. Collard greens have provided inspiration to African Americans for decades, but have also been the subject of petty crimes committed against others in the years of rampant Jim Crowism.
- Kamri Hudgins, et al., “Detroit’s reparations task force now has until 2025 to make its report, but going slow with this challenging work may not be a bad thing,” The Conversation (December 20, 2024): LINK. A team of scholars provides context for understanding the challenges that Detroit faces in enacting reparations, especially since the initial deadline for a task force report came and passed in October 2024.