Grape & Canister
Personal News
I am hard at work on a number of projects, in addition to my biography of Robert Gould Shaw. Before the end of the year I hope to complete a short essay on the how the battle of the Crater was depicted in the movie “Cold Mountain” for an edited collection on the Civil War in popular culture that is being edited by Chris Mackowski. This is a return for me to the subject of my first book. I am also working on a longer essay on the Black Confederate narrative in the age of Trump for a collection that is being edited by Jennifer Murray and John Kinder. Think of it as a postscript to my book on the subject.
Finally, I will be co-leading a civil rights tour for a group of rabbis in the D.C. area that will take us to Atlanta, Tuskegee, Montgomery, Selma, and Birmingham. This will take place in late January.
Thinking about subscribing as a paid member? Here is your chance to do so with a 25% discount for life. You will be able to post comments and have access to the chat room and my new podcast series. OFFER ENDS ON DECEMBER 31. Happy Holidays!
In the News
This week the House of Representatives gave final passage to legislation to replace the bust of Roger Taney, the Supreme Court justice who wrote the Dred Scott decision, in the Capitol with one of Thurgood Marshall, the first Black person to serve on the high court.
A statue honoring Barbara Johns will soon replace that of Robert E. Lee inside the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. The statue is one of two that represents Virginia.
Here is a little historical background behind Will Smith’s new movie, “Emancipation.” I hope to watch it this weekend.
Videos
This is a wonderful conversation between historians Jacqueline Jones and Thavolia Glymph, which focuses on women in the Civil War.
Few people take the practice of living history more seriously than Marvin Alonzo-Greer. This discussion is well worth your time.
Kirstie Alley recently passed away. Some of you may remember her roll in the 1980s miniseries “North and South” in which she plays a slightly unhinged abolitionist—perhaps a reflection of how abolitionists generally were perceived at the time.
New to the Civil War Memory Library
Megan Bever, At War With King Alcohol: Debating Drinking and Masculinity in the Civil War (University of North Carolina Press, 2022).
Caroline Grego, Hurricane Jim Crow: How the Great Sea Island Storm of 1893 Shaped the Lowcountry South (University of North Carolina Press, 2022).
Laura N. Haumesser, The Democratic Collapse: How Gender Politics Broke a Party and a Nation, 1856-1861 (University of North Carolina Press, 2022).
Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer eds., Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past (Basic, 2023).
Zebulon Vance Miletsky, Before Busing: A History of Boston’s Long Black Freedom Struggle (University of North Carolina Press, 2022).
Otis
We spent Thanksgiving week in Quebec with Otis, who as you can see enjoyed the cold temperatures and snow. Hope all of you have a wonderful weekend.
So Taney, who wrote in *Dred Scott v Sanford* that, “They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order ... and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit,” is being replaced by a Black man, Justice Thurgood Marshall. And Lee, who went to war to preserve slavery, is being replaced by a Black woman, Barbara Johns, who at age sixteen led a student strike for equal education in Farmville, Virginia, and eventually became part of *Brown v Board of Education.*
“Though the mills of God grind slowly; Yet they grind exceeding small;
“Though with patience He stands waiting, With exactness grinds He all.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Retribution", Poetic Aphorisms, 1846
Mr. Alonzo-Greer came and spoke to a couple of our classes a few weeks ago. He was great!!!!