Editor’s Note: We asked historian Paul Dickson to give us some perspective on the recent demonstrations in the nation’s capital. He pointed to the effort by thousands of veterans to get help during the Depression — protests that were met with violence, but eventually led to profound changes. Mr. Dickson coauthored The Bonus Army: An American Epic with Thomas B. Allen, and is the author of over 60 other books.
The Fourth of July and barbecue—and when we say barbecue we’re not talking hamburgers on a gas grill but traditional and delicious slow-pit-cooked pork, beef, and other meats—go together like… well, like Mom and apple pie. Except that apple pie came pretty directly from Europe and barbecue is as American as it gets: developed here, refined here, and enjoyed here, particularly on that quintessential American day of celebration—the Fourth of July.
The African-American past is an iceberg, still 90 percent submerged. Because so much material remains in family hands or lies piled in the unvisited attics and basements of libraries, newspapers, and even police stations, rich discoveries await. Currie Ballard, a historian in Oklahoma, has just made what he calls “the find of a lifetime”—29 cans of motion picture film dating from the 1920s that reveal the daily lives of some remarkably successful black communities.
The film shows them thriving in the years after the infamous Tulsa race riots and massacre of 1921, in which white mobs destroyed that city’s historic black Greenwood district and murdered scores of residents in what was known as the Black Wall Street of America. Through the flickering eloquence of silent film, we see a people resilient beyond anyone’s imagining, visiting one another’s country homes, parading through downtown Muskogee in some two dozen Packards, and crowding an enormous church in Tulsa not long after the riots, during a gathering of the National Baptist Convention.
GALVESTON, TEXAS, June 19, 1865 — A balding, brush-bearded officer in Union blue steps onto the balcony of the finest villa in this coastal town. On the plaza below, hundreds of Texans, black and white, wonder what this is all about. Major General Gordon Granger holds out a parched paper and begins.
“The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. . .”
Editor's Note: Earlier this week, we published an explanatory study of the figures behind 10 U.S. military bases named after Confederate generals. We then turned the question to our readers, asking on Facebook whether they thought--as a growing number of people around the country do--that the bases should be renamed. After receiving an outpouring of reactions both for and against the renaming, we thought we'd share some of the most insightful comments with the rest of our audience. Read on for a selection of those responses.
Should’ve ended a long time ago
"I've been saying that should’ve been changed decades ago. “The Lost Cause” fiction of a South which bears little to the facts- it must end, and it should’ve ended a long time ago. The flag and those who willingly fought under it were traitors to the Union. The symbols, statues and paraphernalia related to it belongs in museums."
--Steven Tamberino, New York, NY
No evidence that the Confederacy wanted to destroy the nation
GALVESTON, TEXAS, June 19, 1865 — A balding, brush-bearded officer in Union blue steps onto the balcony of the finest villa in this coastal town. On the plaza below, hundreds of Texans, black and white, wonder what this is all about. Major General Gordon Granger holds out a parched paper and begins.
“The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. . .”