By Luise White (NHC Fellow, 1993–94; 2016–17) In Fighting and Writing Luise White brings the force of her historical insight to bear on the many war memoirs published by white soldiers who fought for Rhodesia during the 1964–1979 Zimbabwean liberation struggle. In the memoirs of white soldiers fighting to defend white minority rule in Africa long after … Continued
By Margaret Humphreys (NHC Fellow, 2004–05) Black soldiers in the American Civil War were far more likely to die of disease than were white soldiers. In Intensely Human, historian Margaret Humphreys explores why this uneven mortality occurred and how it was interpreted at the time. In doing so, she uncovers the perspectives of mid-nineteenth-century physicians and … Continued
By Orville Vernon Burton (NHC Fellow, 1994–95) and Armand Derfner In the first comprehensive accounting of the U.S. Supreme Court’s race-related jurisprudence, a distinguished historian and renowned civil rights lawyer scrutinize a legacy too often blighted by racial injustice. The Supreme Court is usually seen as protector of our liberties: it ended segregation, was a … Continued
By Theda Perdue (NHC Fellow, 2003–04) The Cotton States Exposition of 1895 was a world's fair in Atlanta held to stimulate foreign and domestic trade for a region in an economic depression. Theda Perdue uses the exposition to examine the competing agendas of white supremacist organizers and the peoples of color who participated. White organizers … Continued
Edited by Jeffrey C. Stewart (NHC Fellow, 1990–91) and Alain LeRoy Locke Race Contacts and Interracial Relations comprises five lectures that Alain Locke, Howard University professor of philosophy and critic of the Harlem Renaissance, delivered in 1916 at Howard University. Locke examines race and racism in twentieth-century social relations and provides a means of analyzing … Continued
By John L. Jackson, Jr. (NHC Fellow, 2005–06) The Civil War put an end to slavery, and the civil rights movement put an end to legalized segregation. Crimes motivated by racism are punished with particular severity, and Americans are more sensitive than ever about the words they choose when talking about race. And yet America … Continued
By Nancy MacLean (NHC Fellow, 2008–09; 2021–22) and Edward H. Peeples Scalawag tells the surprising story of a white working-class boy who became an unlikely civil rights activist. Born in 1935 in Richmond, where he was sent to segregated churches and schools, Ed Peeples was taught the ethos and lore of white supremacy by every adult … Continued
Before the Civil War, segregation existed mainly in cities in both the North and the South. In the years immediately after the Civil War segregation eased somewhat. In the 1880s legislation strengthened segregation in the South. By the 1890s it had become entrenched. In the North, while legislation combated segregation, African Americans were still kept … Continued
In To Kill a Mockingbird Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose embodies and gives public voice to the values and attitudes of the Old South. The way the novel’s protagonist Atticus Finch responds to her suggests that he lacks the critical perspective needed to acknowledge the depth and pervasiveness of his community’s racism.
Why do we struggle with admitting how pain and love are entangled in in cherished artifacts of our childhood? In this talk, I argue that confronting this fact is the best way to dismantle the White-supremacist delusion of “cancel culture,” to develop more complex relationships with favorite works of our youth, and to create a … Continued