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In Resist, award-winning journalist Rita Omokha charts the last century of civil rights activism, from the early years of renowned activist Ella Baker and others she inspired, to the first glimpse of allyship in the Bates Seven and a renewed examination of the Black Panther Party, all the way to the current generation of young […]
Boundaries of the lost state of Franklin. Wikimedia Public Domain. It’s one of many tales of the founding of America. Settlers from England were exploring more and more of the New World, and as they did, they set up new communities far from the comfort of home. We know these stories as well as the […]
This week sees the publication of my new book, Bandit Heaven: The Hole-in-the-Wall Gangs and the Final Chapter of the Wild West. The main characters are Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but unlike the classic movie, there is also emphasis on a wide range of colorful characters. Two of them are portrayed in the following excerpt from […]
Elizabeth Jennings Graham. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons. “We are not going back,” is a refrain heard in this year’s election campaign. We like to think of history as steady progress forward. But during the struggle toward human rights and racial justice in the United States, we have gone back more than once. In July […]
Exclusive picture of President Jimmy Carter in Stuart E. Eizenstat’s biography, President Carter. Far more complex, both politically and technically, was a divisive debate over whether to build the B-1 bomber, which presents a good lesson in how difficult it is, even for a president with a military background like Carter’s, to balance the appetites […]
Depiction of the fighting near Dunker Church by Thure de Thulstrup. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons. Should anyone consider “civil war” over the outcome, one way or the other, of the presidential election that is six weeks from now, let’s look at the Battle of Antietam. It took place 162 years ago this month and […]
In his new book Red Dead’s History, Tore Olsson reveals the gritty and brutal world that inspired the sensational video games Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Redemption II, shedding light on dark corners of the American past for gamers and history buffs alike. Get a sneak peek of the book below! Let’s start with […]
Imagine a bookcase large enough to contain all the works ever written about the history of the American South. (It would be quite massive!) But even though that region’s history spans centuries, I would bet that the overwhelming majority of its shelf space was devoted to just two decades: the 1860s and 1960s. That is […]