“History is Illuminating”: Public memory crises and collectives in Richmond, Virginia

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 1173-1184
Author(s):  
Katie Logan
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
American South ◽  
Public Memory ◽  
Community Action ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
Historic Monument ◽  
The American South ◽  
Dominant Narratives

Amid the Black Lives Matter protests and calls to remove Confederate statuary in Richmond, Virginia, during the summer of 2020, the History Is Illuminating project constructed public signs that replicated the traditional historical markers used throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia. The signs were placed along Richmond’s historic Monument Avenue in conversation with the still-standing Confederate monuments. They challenged the monuments’ representation of public memory by re-introducing narratives about prominent Black Richmonders and informing readers of the Jim Crow legislation that enabled the monuments to be constructed and venerated. This edited and condensed interview with organizers from the project describes the multiple crises of collective memory that public historians confront in the American South, as well as the strategies the History Is Illuminating project used to counter dominant narratives about public memory. Finally, the interview highlights the importance of community action and a multiplicity of public memory projects in order to ensure a democratic approach to collective memory.

The American South

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Reagan Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
American South ◽  
Public Memory ◽  
Film Music ◽  
Short Introduction ◽  
Racial Tension ◽  
The American South

The American South: A Very Short Introduction explores the American South, a distinctive place with a dramatic history. It is a cultural crossroads, where Western Europe met West Africa in a colonial slave society. The Civil War and civil rights movement transformed the South and remain a part of a vibrant and contested public memory. Moreover, the South's pronounced traditionalism in customs and values have always contended with the forces of modernization and the continuing challenges of racial tension. This VSI looks at Southerners' diverse creative responses to these experiences, in literature, film, music, and cuisine, which have had worldwide influence.

scholarly journals Jim Crow Downunder? African American Encounters with White Australia, 1942––1945

2002 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 607-632 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Brawley ◽  
Chris Dixon
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
American South ◽  
Black Americans ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
White Americans ◽  
American Experience ◽  
The American South ◽  
The U.S

Between 1941 and 1945, as the U.S. military machine sent millions of Americans——and American culture——around the world, several thousand African Americans spent time in Australia. Armed with little knowledge of Australian racial values and practices, black Americans encoutered a nation whose long-standing commitment to the principle of "White Australia" appeared to rest comfortably with the segregative policies commonly associated with the American South. Nonetheless, while African Americans did encounter racism and discrimination——practices often encouraged by the white Americans who were also stationed in Australia during the war——there is compelling evidence that their experiences were not always negative. Indeed, for many black Americans, Australians' apparent open-mindedness and racial views of white Britons and others with whom African Americans came into contact during the war. Making use of U.S. Army censors' reports and paying attention to black Americans' views of their experiences in Australia, this article not only casts light on an aspect of American-Australian relations that has hitherto recieved scant scholarly attention and reveals something about the African American experience, but also offers insights into race relations within the U.S. armed forces.

“Just a Bunch of Agitators”: Kneel-Ins and the Desegregation of Southern Churches

2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 232-261
Author(s):  
Joseph Kip Kosek
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Southern Baptist ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
American South ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Religious Activities ◽  
Baptist Church ◽  
American Students ◽  
The American South ◽  
The Church

AbstractCivil rights protests at white churches, dubbed “kneel-ins,” laid bare the racial logic that structured Christianity in the American South. Scholars have investigated segregationist religion, but such studies tend to focus on biblical interpretation rather than religious practice. A series of kneel-ins at Atlanta's First Baptist Church, the largest Southern Baptist church in the Southeast, shows how religious activities and religious spaces became sites of intense racial conflict. Beginning in 1960, then more forcefully in 1963, African American students attempted to integrate First Baptist's sanctuary. When they were alternately barred from entering, shown to a basement auditorium, or carried out bodily, their efforts sparked a wide-ranging debate over racial politics and spiritual authenticity, a debate carried on both inside and outside the church. Segregationists tended to avoid a theological defense of Jim Crow, attacking instead the sincerity and comportment of their unwanted visitors. Yet while many church leaders were opposed to open seating, a vibrant student contingent favored it. Meanwhile, mass media—local, national, and international—shaped interpretations of the crisis and possibilities for resolving it. Roy McClain, the congregation's popular minister, attempted to navigate a middle course but faced criticism from all sides. The conflict came to a head when Ashton Jones, a white minister, was arrested, tried, and imprisoned for protesting outside the church. In the wake of the controversy, the members of First Baptist voted to end segregation in the sanctuary. This action brought formal desegregation—but little meaningful integration—to the congregation.

“I Ain’t no Man!”

2020 ◽  
pp. 68-88
Author(s):  
Veronica T. Watson
Keyword(s):  
Intimate Relationships ◽  
Black People ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
American South ◽  
Black Masculinity ◽  
Black History ◽  
The World ◽  
Women Of African Descent ◽  
The American South

As an African American man in Augusta, a town deeply rooted in the racist ideologies and practices of the segregated South, Frank Yerby certainly had had enough experiences with Jim Crow living, discrimination, and racial terrorism to fuel his writing for a lifetime. Despite becoming best-known, perhaps, for his prolific authorship of novels that focused primarily on white lives and characters, Yerby commented in an interview with Maryemma Graham, “In every novel I have written about the American South, I have subtly infused a very strong defense of Black history and Black people” (70). Rhetorical defenses in novels that are largely not about Black lives are certainly worth noting; however, in this chapter I argue that the exploration of the world as it impacted Black people was a more consistent interest for Yerby than many recognized. He wrote a number of short stories that specifically focused on the impacts of racism and subjugation on the Black psyche and identity, the intimate relationships between men and women of African descent, and the understandings and performances of Black masculinity.

scholarly journals Law, Society, Identity, and the Making of the Jim Crow South: Travel and Segregation on Tennessee Railroads, 1875–1905

1999 ◽  
Vol 24 (02) ◽  
pp. 377-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth W. Mack
Keyword(s):  
Jim Crow ◽  
American South ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
De Jure Segregation ◽  
Identity Based ◽  
The American South ◽  
Southern Society ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Jim Crow South ◽  
Modern Era

This article reexamines the well-known debate over the origins of de jure segregation in the American South, which began in 1955 with the publication of C. Vann Woodward's The Strange Career of Jim Crow. Arguing that the debate over Woodward's thesis implicates familar but outmoded ways of looking at sociolegal change and Southern society, the article proposes a reorientation of this debate using theoretical perspectives taken from recent work by legal historians, critical race theorists, and historians of race, class, and gender. This article examines the advent of railroad segregation in Tennessee (the state that enacted the nation's first railroad segregation statute) in order to sketch out these themes, arguing that de jure segregation was brought about by a dialectic between legal, social, and identity-based phenomena. This dialectic did not die out with the coming of de jure segregation; rather it continued into the modern era.

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