Author / abritt

by abritt

Crespino Comments on Stone Mountain’s Past and Future in ‘The Washington Post’

Dr. Joseph Crespino, Jimmy Carter Professor and Department Chair, was recently quoted in an article in The Washington Post about the history and fate of Confederate memorialization at the Atlanta-area Stone Mountain Park. The Stone Mountain Memorial Association recently voted to implement some changes at the site, which was conceived of and constructed a half century after the Civil War by those who resisted the expansion of political and civil rights to Black Americans. Crespino, an expert in the history of U.S. South since Reconstruction, offers crucial historical context about the establishment of the park and discusses its future. Read an excerpt below along with the full article: “Georgia park wants to ‘tell the truth’ about world’s largest Confederate monument. Others want it gone.”

“Work on the carvings dragged out. For decades, there was just Lee’s head.

“Then, in the 1950s, a man named Marvin Griffin ran for Georgia governor vowing to fight the federal government’s efforts at desegregation — and also to purchase Stone Mountain and finish the job. He won; the landmark became state property. Work resumed on the carvings, and Georgia also incorporated the Confederate battle emblem into its flag.

“The flag was changed decades later. Now, Crespino says, ‘it’s going to be the flag 2.0 for the state of Georgia as to how to deal with Stone Mountain.’

“’I used to be, as a historian, always leaning toward contextualization,’ he told The Post. ‘But I do think there are some that are so prominent and so central that they do need to be removed.'”

by abritt

Anderson Quoted in ‘AJC’ on “Jim Crow 2.0”

An article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently quoted Dr. Carol Anderson, Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies, Department Chair, and Associated Faculty in the History Department. The piece investigates the term “Jim Crow 2.0,” which has recently gained purchase as a description of disenfranchising election laws passed in states throughout the U.S., including Georgia. Anderson offers historical context about the similarities and differences between official anti-Black policies and practices from the turn of the 20th century and today. Read an excerpt below along with the full article: “What does Jim Crow 2.0 mean? A look at the history of segregation laws.”

“The rationale for poll taxes and other voting restrictions in Mississippi’s 1890 constitution — a model for other Southern states, including Georgia — was to restore election integrity, said Carol Anderson, chair of African American studies at Emory University. But Mississippi’s governor admitted the real reason was to eliminate Black people from politics, she said.”

by abritt

Anderson Analyzes Voter Suppression, Past and Present, in the ‘AJC’

Dr. Carol Anderson was quoted in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article about the parallels between GA’s recently-passed election law and statutes that prevented Black voters from casting ballots in the Jim Crow era. Anderson is Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies, Department Chair, and Associated Faculty in the History Department. Her most recent book is One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy (Bloomsbury, 2018). Read an excerpt from the AJC piece below along with the full article, “Calls of ‘Jim Crow’ spark debate about Georgia election law.”

“The rationale for poll taxes and other voting restrictions in Mississippi’s 1890 constitution — a model for other Southern states, including Georgia — was to restore election integrity, said Carol Anderson, chair of African American studies at Emory University. But Mississippi’s governor admitted the real reason was to eliminate Black people from politics, she said.”

by abritt

‘Buried Truths’ Wins the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award

The latest season of the Emory course-related podcast “Buried Truths” has won the distinguished Silver Gavel Award for Media and the Arts from the American Bar Association. The podcast draws from an undergraduate course on Civil Rights Era Cold Cases taught by Hank Klibanoff, James M. Cox Jr. Professor of Journalism and Associated Faculty in the History Department. The most recent season of “Buried Truths” centers on the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed Black man killed near Brunswick, Georgia, in February of 2020. The Emory News Center recently published a feature story on the podcast and the prize. Read an excerpt below along with the full article.

“What matters most to me is that we got it right and were able to say it clearly,” Klibanoff says. “It’s thrilling to be honored for having accomplished that in telling a story that is surrounded by complicated legal matters.”

Working with five Emory undergraduates, writer Richard Halicks and the production team at public radio station WABE, Klibanoff unearthed the centuries-long roots of Arbery’s killing in a story told across seven episodes.

by abritt

Anderson Discusses Historical Implications of Not Forming Jan. 6 Commission in ‘AP News’

Dr. Carol Anderson, Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies, Department Chair, and Associated Faculty in the History Department, was recently quoted in the AP News article “Shock of Jan. 6 insurrection devolves into political fight.” The piece discusses Republican resistance in the U.S. Senate to forming an independent commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection. Read the full piece here, along with an excerpt quoting Anderson on the historical and archival implications of not establishing such a commission below.

“The partisan fight over the new panel is alarming to historians who say an independent record of that dark day is needed to understand what happened and hold those involved accountable.

“‘If you don’t have follow-up, it reaffirms that folks are right in their wrongness,’ said Carol Anderson, a professor of African American studies at Emory University.”

by abritt

Alumni Update: Kate McGrath (PhD, ’07)

Dr. Kate McGrath, a 2007 graduate of the doctoral program, was recently promoted to Associate Dean of the Carol A. Ammon College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at Central Connecticut State University. McGrath completed her degree in Medieval history with a dissertation titled “Medieval Anger: Rage and Outrage in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Anglo-Norman and Northern French Historical Narratives.” Her dissertation research has informed multiple publications since, including the book chapter “The ‘Zeal of God’:  The Representation of Anger in the Latin Crusade Accounts of the 1096 Rhineland Massacres,” published in the edited collection Slay Them Not: Jews in Medieval Christendom (Leiden: Brill, 2013). Read more about McGrath’s work here.

by abritt

Suddler Pens Piece in WaPo: “George Floyd changed the world of athlete activism”

Dr. Carl Suddler, Assistant Professor of History, recently published an article in The Washington Post’s “Made by History” series. The piece examines how athletes have become more outspoken in their criticism of police brutality and, at the same time, more directly involved in supporting social justice and anti-racism. Suddler locates this trend to the previous decade, beginning with the founding of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2012 and reaching a new peak in the last year in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd. Suddler also discusses how Black athletes – including Floyd, himself a former college basketball player – navigate the threat and reality of police violence and brutality. Read an excerpt below, along with the full piece: “George Floyd changed the world of athlete activism.”

However, one of Floyd’s most lasting legacies may well be his impact on the sports world. As a former athlete, his life story, which had a special meaning for a generation of athletes, underscored the fine line separating athletic heroes and victims of police violence. His death cemented a new generation of athletes as activists against police violence and professional sports leagues, at minimum, as performative allies. The history of athlete activism reminds us that this movement is one of radical possibility.

by abritt

Crespino Quoted in ‘AJC’ Article on the Future of Stone Mountain

Dr. Joseph Crespino, Jimmy Carter Professor and Department Chair, was recently quoted in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article about the fate of Georgia’s Stone Mountain, the three-acre carving that memorializes Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, and Robert E. Lee. The article discusses recent proposals to provide greater historical context for the memorial, whose construction was motivated by white supremacist ideologies. Read a snippet that quotes Crespino below, along with the full piece: “What ‘telling the truth’ about Stone Mountain might look like.”

“Nostalgia for a white supremacist past,” said Emory University professor Joe Crespino, “was driving the revival of the Klan at the same time it was driving the memorialization efforts of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.”

by abritt

Lipstadt Discusses Anti-Semitism on ABC National Radio

Dr. Deborah E. Lipstadt, Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies and associated faculty in the History Department, was a recent guest on Australian Broadcasting Corporation Radio National program. Lipstadt discusses anti-Semitism and the far right in the interview with host Phillip Adams. Read a brief summary of the interview below and listen to the full segment here.

The January insurrection in Washington, aimed at the heart of American democracy, was not only a demonstration of right wing anger and power. Prominent Jewish historian, Deborah Lipstadt, argues that antisemitism is the foundation stone of ‘white power’ and the ‘white nationalist agenda’, that allows them to then take part in attacking, deriding and demeaning people of colour.

by abritt

Emory News Center Highlights Work of Graduate Fellows Lemos and Strakhova

The Emory News Center recently published a profile of two 2020-’21 graduate fellows from the History Department. Sponsored by the Emory Libraries and Laney Graduate School, graduate fellowships provide graduate students with immersive and meaningful experiences in the following areas: digital humanities, instruction and engagement, research and engagement, data services and the Rose Library. Xanda Lemos, a doctoral candidate in Latin American History, was the fellow in digital humanities at the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship. Anastasiia Strakhova, a doctoral candidate in Modern European History, was the Anne and Bill Newton Graduate Fellow at the Rose Library. Read more about the work that they and the other three fellows contributed across campus over the last year here: “Graduate fellows provide thesis, data and publishing support for students and staff.”