When I taught my college students, I tried to get across the diversity of 1920s American culture. I’d ask students their preconceptions about 1920s culture in the United States. Some thought it was a colorful time of flappers, speakeasys, dance halls, and so forth. Jazz music, the Harlem Renaissance, the radio. To some students, it […]
Tag: African Americans
The Ellenton Riot – One More Bloody Massacre in American History
The Ellenton Riot began about a month after the Hamburg Massacre, on September 16 of 1876. Like the Hamburg Massacre, it was in South Carolina and involved angry, armed, racist whites massacring African Americans. The main difference seems to be that in the Ellenton Riot, the body count of dead African Americans was much greater. […]
The Hamburg Massacre – A Tragic, Bloody Day In U.S. History
The Hamburg Massacre took place in South Carolina in July of 1876. It was another of the low-water marks of the era of American history we call Reconstruction, the twelve years following the end of the Civil War. Hamburg was a small town in South Carolina, just across the Savannah River that forms the state’s […]
Review of The Girls in the Stilt House – Should You Try This Novel?
My review of The Girls in the Stilt House is for the novel by Kelly Mustian that appeared in 2021. It’s the story of Ada and Matilda, two young women who grow up poor in 1920s Mississippi. The young ladies live on the Natchez Trace in a swampy area (that’s why the house needs stilts) […]
Marian Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial – History’s Most Famous Concert?
Truly, history’s most famous concert is a matter for debate. But the performance of Marian Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial on April 9 of 1939 was memorable for a host of reasons. Anderson, a world-famous contralto, sang before an audience estimated at 75,000 on Easter Sunday that year. It’s a performance still remembered today. What […]
What Are Some Frederick Douglass Books? Works By A Great American
When it comes to Frederick Douglass books, many of us remember his autobiography. It is one of the most famous autobiographies in US history. When I taught American History in college, I had my students read it each year. If you need a reminder, Frederick Douglass was the most famous African American in the United […]