Tag Archive
01 January 2019 – Andrew Lang 2
In recent years, the debate over immigration and migration to the United States has been especially pronounced, with calls to end “invasions” of “illegal immigrants” from Latin America, build a border wall, institute a “Muslim travel ban,” refuse refugees seeking asylum, and rescind birthright citizenship. Read More
15 October 2018 – Mimi Eisen 1
In 1849, a community of black Philadelphians secured a plot of land devoted to preserving the rights of their dead kin—from dignified burial, to peaceful rest, to honorable remembrance. Lebanon Cemetery was an answer to the city’s expansive white-only cemeteries and a sanctuary from persistent racial terror and civil rights violations. Read More
09 August 2018 – James F. Brooks
museums, race, The Public Historian, TPH 40.3, National Museum of African American History and Culture, AAAM, collaboration
Editor’s note: We publish TPH editor James F. Brooks’s introduction to the August 2018 issue of The Public Historian. The entire issue is available online to National Council on Public History members.
On October 28, 2016, the editorial team of The Public Historian waited in a crisp windy dawn for the doors of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) to open. Read More
26 July 2018 – Adina Langer
Editors’ Note: This is the second part of a two-part editorial conversation on interpreting immigration in public history. Part 1 is available here.
AJL: How can public historians effectively take an intersectional approach to interpreting immigration? How can we bring different audiences and stakeholders together? Read More
19 July 2018 – Adina Langer 3
human rights, international, politics, race, Immigration, advocacy, social justice, community history
Editors’ Note: Four years ago, outgoing NCPH president Bob Weyeneth called on public historians to “pull back the curtain” on their process. Turning topics of contemporary relevance into public history involves numerous collegial conversations which usually remain behind the scenes. The History@Work editors thought our readers might be interested in the following conversation prompted by Adina Langer’s development of a new exhibition at the Museum of History and Holocaust Education at Kennesaw State University. Read More
26 June 2018 – Kimber Heinz
incarceration, advocacy, social justice, community history, NCPH 2018 Awards, memory, sense of place, collaboration, politics, race, conference
Editor’s note: This is the third in a series of pieces by recipients of NCPH’s 2018 best in public history awards.
From this year’s annual conference, one thing seems clear: as public historians, we want our work to make a difference. Read More
21 March 2018 – HIstorians for a Better Future 6
Members of Historians for a Better Future planned to encounter many personalities along the sidewalk when we set up in front of the Women of the Confederacy monument at the State Capitol building in Raleigh, North Carolina, on September 8, 2017. Read More
27 November 2017 – David Rotenstein 1
This is an exciting and anxiety-producing moment in the United States. It is a time when professional historians are stepping outside their classrooms and consulting practices to push for the removal of Confederate statues and for greater public dialogue about the roles that white supremacy played in the past and how it persists in our communities. Read More
24 August 2017 – Dina A. Bailey
A teachable moment at the 2017 AAM Conference
In walking through the expo hall at the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) conference in May, a friend of mine and I came upon one of the vendor displays that showed the figure of an enslaved black man shackled to a pole and a grey (white) auctioneer figure standing as if to accept bids. Read More
11 August 2017 – Paul Ringel 1
Consider a public history project on a Jim Crow era black high school in North Carolina, staffed by a white professor and three dozen predominantly white students. Add a growing level of distrust between the private, rapidly expanding university from which the project emerged, and the poor, largely non-white, surrounding community that was the home neighborhood for this high school. Read More