As readers of Historista know, I have been arguing for a while now that the removal of white supremacist memorials provides us with unique opportunities to transform them into socially just and intellectually productive public sites. One of the ways to do this is to appropriate the sculptures themselves - or their empty pedestals. An … Continue reading Transforming White Supremacist Memorials, Part 3: What to do with Empty Pedestals
Category: Megan Kate Nelson
By Matthew Christopher Hulbert For weeks now, marble and bronze likenesses of Robert E. Lee and his Confederate ilk have been - or are in the process of being - toppled from pedestals across the United States. In response, a number of the nation’s foremost historians of the Civil War and Reconstruction have supported … Continue reading The Resistance Files: Why Historians Often Talk Past Their Audiences – And How We Can Do Better
In the days and weeks after the neo-Nazi rally and attacks on anti-hate protestors in Charlottesville, individuals, communities, and local governments across the nation have used creative methods to respond to the monuments to white supremacy in their midst. Some of these acts were destructive and some were constructive. Almost all of them were defined … Continue reading Transforming White Supremacist Memorials, Part 2: Recent Acts of Creative Protest
By Gerard Fitzgerald Most nights I walk or jog 4-6 miles and my route takes me through the “Academical Village” at UVA. It is a beautiful and yet very conflicted historical space. Built in part by slaves, the design - and especially the neoclassical Rotunda - really can open the mind, just as Jefferson … Continue reading The Resistance Files: How Will We Remember What Happened in Charlottesville?
Since the tragic events in Charlottesville, many scholars of Civil War memory have been on the front lines of a public discussion about the meaning of white supremacist memorials, and their future in our nation's civil and collegiate landscapes. You will find below links to historian-authored op-eds and blog posts, listed in alpha order by … Continue reading Historians Take on White Supremacist Memorials: A Round-Up