The Defenders Online | A Civil Rights Blog » slavery

Excavating Harvard’s Slavery-Connected Past

The Editors — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 20:16:00 +0000

By Kenneth J. Cooper Brown University’s daring self-examination of its historical ties to slavery has prompted a second Ivy League school, venerable Harvard University, to do the same. The 2006 report that Brown President Ruth Simmons, “Slavery and Justice,” commissioned found deep connections between the university in Providence, R.I. and slavery and the slave trade. [...]

The Civil War’s Unfinished Business

The Editors — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 16:24:37 +0000

By Lee A. Daniels
Imagine, in the heart of Dixie, once the land of cotton, where, to some whites, the old times of white-over-black dominion are not only not forgotten but wistfully remembered, there’s a park that’s a memorial to treason.

The FAMiLY Leader Pledge and Figments of the Racist Imagination

The Editors — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 17:16:35 +0000

By Lee A. Daniels
Before the heat got too great. Before the criticism forced them to shelve – at least, momentarily – the moral-deadening posture of “Lost Cause romanticism.” Before somebody told them You can’t say things like that today and get away with it, the self-proclaimed Christian pressure group, the FAMiLY Leader, revealed that when it comes to black Americans, its “traditional” views are very old-fashioned indeed.

HARD LESSON: Educators Learn How Not to Teach Children About Slavery

The Editors — Fri, 13 May 2011 23:28:12 +0000

By Tarice L.S. Gray
Slavery as a topic needs no introduction to most Americans. But it does need an introduction to children; and how the facts of Negro Slavery in America has been taught to schoolchildren has often been as fraught with tension and controversy as other spheres what used to be know as “race relations.”

Overlooking Injustice

The Editors — Wed, 11 May 2011 19:57:46 +0000

By Lee A. Daniels
Why is a symbol of a treasonous undertaking, led by men who betrayed their oaths as elected officials and military officers of the United States, still honored by those who claim to pledge allegiance to the United States of America?

Canada’s Racial History: Slavery, Tolerance, Discrimination, and Miscegeny

The Editors — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 20:35:31 +0000

By Janet Singleton
Canada too, the modest parallel universe above the United States, celebrated Black History Month in February. But that may surprise people who assume Canada is white and untouched by slavery.

‘Cleansing’ Huck Finn: I’m A’gin It

The Editors — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 00:44:25 +0000

By Lee A. Daniels
Two high profile events of this week underscore the wisdom of the warning the great historian Barbara W. Tuchman gave in 1982 to those who would “practice” the craft of writing history.

“Leaving things out because they do not fit,” she wrote in her book, Practicing History: Selected Essays, “is writing fiction, not history.”

Virginia: Intent on Considering the ‘Tough Stuff’ of American History

The Editors — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 19:22:58 +0000

By The Editors
On Friday, Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell said he would declare April 2011 as “Civil War in Virginia Month” in keeping with the state’s effort to “remember [its] past with candor, courage and conciliation.” McDonnell’s designation last winter of April as “Confederate History Month” provoked an intense national controversy.

The Red and the Black: African Americans and Cherokees in Antebellum America

The Editors — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 12:16:47 +0000

By Kenneth J. Cooper
Most people are astonished when I tell them the Cherokees owned slaves. Schools don’t teach about the slaveholding of the Cherokee and four other tribes who, most ironically, became known as the “Five Civilized Tribes.”

The Bermuda Heritage Trail

The Editors — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:48:31 +0000

By Eisa Nefertari Ulen I am walking the Bermuda’s African Diaspora Heritage Trail, and I am learning about Bermudians and other African Americans who, like me, are connected to this place.

Teachable Moment: Neo-Slavery

The Editors — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:24:33 +0000

By Eric V. Copage On June 18, the United States Senate unanimously passed a resolution apologizing for slavery, the land of the free’s erstwhile “peculiar institution,” and the worst of its aftermath. Was the apology America’s “Come to Jesus” moment regarding black people?