Grape & Canister

Note: My Odds & Ends feature will now be published as Grape & Canister.

Otis Pics

A number of you who followed me on twitter have asked if I would continue to post pics of our 100 pound Bernese Mountain Dog. I ran it by Otis and he thinks it’s a great idea. Here is a recent pic of the big guy.

In the News

Last week two Confederate monuments were removed and relocated to a local cemetery in Macon, Georgia. One hundred and eighteen Confederate monuments have been removed since May 2020.

“We’re not asking to put it in a dungeon. We’re not asking that it be thrown in the Ocmulgee River. We’re not asking that it be desecrated,” former Macon Mayor C. Jack Ellis said during protests in 2020. “We ask that it be put in its proper place, and that’s Rose Hill Cemetery, where those soldiers are buried and where this belongs because it, too, is dead. This era is dead, dead and gone. Put it in the cemetery where it belongs.”

Here is a short video documenting the changes to Richmond’s public spaces, which once included some of the most iconic Confederate monuments.

The Valentine Museum in Richmond unveiled its new exhibit featuring the Jefferson Davis statue from Monument Avenue. As I suggested last week, the decision to display it toppled over is a game changer.

Speaking

Last Monday I delivered a presentation on the history and memory of Juneteenth to a biotech company here in Boston. It’s not my normal audience, but I appreciate the chance to help this community think about how their industry is shaped by the past. The commemoration of Juneteenth is an opportunity to frame issues of diversity and equity around history and to reflect on the racial and gender profile of the industry, who earns promotions, and how the vast majority of C-Suites continues to reflect a privileged class.

Future Publications

I am happy to announce that I have agreed to write an essay on the Black Confederate myth during the Trump era for a forthcoming volume edited by Jennifer Murray and John Kinder. The book is titled Civil War Memories in a Polarized America and will be published by the University of Nebraska Press.

New to the Civil War Memory Library

Terrie Dopp Aamodt, Righteous Armies, Holy Cause: Apocalyptic Imagery and the Civil War (Mercer University Press, 2002).

Michael Hines, A Worthy Piece of Work: The Untold Story of Madeline Morgan and the Fight for Black History in Schools (Beacon Press, 2022).

Jeffry D. Wert, The Heart of Hell: T/he Soldiers’ Struggle for Spotsylvania’s Bloody Angle (University of North Carolina Press, 2022).

In the Pipeline

Keep an eye out for a post later this week on the Confederate memoirist Sam Watkins, who many of you may remember from Ken Burns’s Civil War documentary.