Looking forward to one hour with some of my colleagues and students this Friday. We have before us a chance to do something necessary these days: breathe. We will do as much by sharing examples of how we decompress. I’ll have a couple of collages as will another professor. Yet another has contributed an amazing piece… Continue reading breathe
I just visited Southwestern Oklahoma State University. I was there to present two keynote addresses on two separate days at a joint meeting for the state’s professional historians and undergraduate and graduate members of Phi Alpha Theta, the honorary society for college students interested in history. As true last week in Montgomery, AL, where I… Continue reading trip to Oklahoma reenergizes
Many years ago, my grandmother gave me this dress. It is a dress from another time. Last night, I saw a performance that left me in tears. It reminded me of this dress. The choreography was by Cornelius Carter, Professor of Dance at the University of Alabama, someone I call friend. Think working women. Think… Continue reading dance piece brings memory of grandmas and those who struggle
This week, I will speak in Oklahoma as a guest of the Oklahoma Association of Professional Historians and neighboring state chapters of Phi Alpha Theta. As I prepare to travel to Southwestern Oklahoma State University, I am reminded of one of the state’s great natives: the late historian John Hope Franklin. When I was a… Continue reading oklahoma talks prompts memory of a great one
Hilary Green, Assistant Professor, Gender and Race Studies, and I had a great time at Ernest and Hadley Booksellers in Tuscaloosa, AL. Indeed, today’s Author Meet and Greet at the new indie bookstore in Tuscaloosa went well. It was so good seeing so many of our colleagues, among them Susan Reynolds, Associate Editor of Alabama… Continue reading Great author Meet & Greet at Tuscaloosa bookseller
I had a great talk at the Alabama Department of Archives and History today even though I was running on fumes. Every copy of my book sold at the gift shop. There were wonderful questions from audience. So glad to see so many eager to discuss our complex past and present. The presentation largely focused… Continue reading talk at Alabama Department of Archives and History went very well today
I’m still reeling from seeing the ties between Chance the Rapper’s Best New Artist acceptance speech at last night’s Grammys. His mention of God several times and indeed, his performance beside a choir, pose tensions with today’s lecture in my “American Civilization to 1865” class. I addressed the Enlightenment and Great Awakening, two movements that… Continue reading difficult conversations continue this week at state archives
This July will mark the 20th anniversary of the publication of my first book, Cuttin’ the Rug Under the Moonlit Sky: Stories and Drawings About a Bunch of Women Named Mae (Doubleday, 1997). A lot has changed since then. If you’d told me I’d be in the classroom teaching, I wouldn’t be entirely surprised. One… Continue reading 20th anniversary of Mae book
In honor of Black History Month, I wanted to present William Bolden Townsend. He is a descendant of the Townsends freed by Samuel Townsend, a Huntsville planter who left the bulk of an estate worth $5.1 million in today’s currency to ten enslaved children from five enslaved women and their immediate kin. William Bolden Townsend… Continue reading William Bolden Townsend, an Alabama native brings our complex past in view
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