A Few Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes to Share

With apologies to David Bowie.

Leading a group of history teachers through Arlington National Cemetery

I wanted to take a few minutes to share some changes that I am making to the management of this site.

I’ve been thinking a great deal about the post I published yesterday. If the next four years are anything like Donald Trump’s first term in office, we are likely going to hear a good deal about the history and memory of the Civil War in our public discourse. Much of it will undoubtedly be riddled with misconceptions, misinformation, and downright deception. Trump has gone out of his way to embrace individuals and organizations that wrap themselves in pro-Confederate ideology and as much as I would love to avoid it, I am going to want to do what I can to help people sort through the morass of information that is likely to come our way.

With that in mind, I am implementing a few changes to my subscription tier. Up til now I have reserved the comments section for paid subscribers. I did this, in large part, to limit discussion and drive away folks who have little or no interest in good faith discussion. But given what I just laid out above, I want to make every effort to respond to questions from as many people as possible and to promote positive engagement.

With that said, I want to make it perfectly clear that I will not tolerate rudeness or insults of any sort that are directed at me or anyone else. There will be no warnings. Individuals who violate this code of conduct will be immediately and permanently banned.

The other reason why I am making this change is that I miss having a platform where I can interact with people with a wide range of ideas and opinions that differ from my own. For a long time Twitter functioned along these lines for me, but in recent months it has deteriorated to the point of being useless. I migrated to Bluesky [@civilwarmemory.bsky.social] a while back and though it now has a large user base, I am not finding the same diversity of opinion. I am hoping I can bring some of that diversity to this site with the stipulation that conversation remains civil.

What Does This Mean for Paid Subscribers?

Last night I hosted my first Substack Live discussion and it went extremely well. If you don’t know what this is, Substack now allows writers to host impromptu live discussions with their followers. For now it operates through an app on your iPhone and Android, which you can download. Hopefully, it will be expanded to include a desktop version as well. As soon as I go live you receive an email with the option to join the discussion.

Last night I had around 80 people join me for an hour-long discussion. Participants can type in comments/questions. I’ve been looking for a way to host regular Q&A sessions, which I will call “Office Hours.” Of course, I can host more focused discussions as well.

I am definitely going to include this new platform on a regular basis. I plan to host a few more discussions for everyone, but I will eventually offer it only to paid subscribers. I hope those of you, who are already paid subscribers, find this new arrangement fair. I am really excited about integrating this new feature.

Your Paid Subscriptions Also Help History Teachers

I am very concerned about my many friends and colleagues who teach history in classrooms across the country. As many of you know, they have been under assault in various states over how they teach difficult and complicated subjects like the history of slavery. A number of states have passed laws that make it difficult to even know whether the content of certain lessons is problematic and whether they risk being fired as a result.

This is only going to get worse over the next four years. As many of you know, I spend a good deal of time working with history educators through various professional development programs and also directly with teachers. Many teachers work in districts that do not have sufficient funds to pay for my services, but one of the things I’ve been able to do with your paid support is offset these costs. I hope to do even more of this work in the coming years, but that is only going to be possible with your help.

I hope you will consider jumping on board if you have the means to do so. Thank you and as always thanks for taking the time to read what I write and for your support.