history

On Monday our Shaftesbury Society forum looked at the controversy over the hiring of New York  Times reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones by UNC-Chapel Hill’s journalism school and the claims Hannah-Jones makes about the founding of our country in the 1619 Project.  Our guests included Peter Wood, President of the…

Over the weekend I sat down with a book I pick up occasionally and read a few pages chosen at random. I was too young to fully appreciate Johnny Carson’s humor and interviewing skills during his prime. It’s only through watching “The Tonight Show” on You Tube that I’ve become…

In the office, Bob Luebke and I got into a recent discussion on the late historian Forrest McDonald (1927-2016). McDonald was a professor who spent much of his time at the University of Alabama and wrote extensively on early America and its founding. Luebke mentioned the…

I am pleased to be among the initial signatories to the Civics Alliance, a project of the National Association of Scholars. In this explanatory article, Peter Wood describes the need for “a new coalition dedicated to defending and restoring true civics education across the United States.” A…

Social studies standards for North Carolina are under fire, as reported by Carolina Journal last week. A N.C. State Board of Education meeting Wednesday, Jan. 27, became a flashpoint in the national debate over racism and American identity. Some Republicans complained proposed social studies standards were full of negativity,…

One hundred years and one day ago, North Carolinians went to the polls to choose the Ohioan that would become the next president of the United States.  There was no incumbent that year, as President Woodrow Wilson had served two terms, and Democrats were not keen on nominating Wilson for…

Here is an announcement of the Juneteenth declaration printed in the Galveston Daily News on Wednesday, June 21, 1865.  …

In an article originally published in RealClearInvestigations, former News & Observer reporter John Murawski writes, Like growing numbers of public high school students across the country, many California kids are receiving classroom instruction in how race, class, gender, sexuality, and citizenship status are tools of oppression, power, and privilege. They…