I had a good time talking about the legacy of Reconstruction on yesterday's The Majority Report with Sam Seder. The link is below. www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiZQ...

Ohio GOP Abuse Scandal; Reconstruction's Black Countermemory w/ Robert Bland | MR Live

YouTube video by The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder

youtube.com

I am looking forward to this AMA conversation with r/AskHistorians on July 1!

Dan Howlett@dhowlett1692.bsky.social · 2mo ago

July 1st is a phenomenal lineup (thanks to @uncpress.bsky.social) with a panel on Race, Rights, and American Democracy with author of Requiem for Reconstruction @robertdbland.bsky.social, author of The Trinity @sharronwconrad.bsky.social and author of No Common Ground @drkarenlcox.bsky.social

I really enjoyed this conversation! Grateful to be in community with such a rich tradition of scholars and scholarship.

The Blackstudies Podcast@blkstudies-podcast.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Robert Bland on the podcast, talking about Black Studies methods, writing history, and reckoning with postbellum Black life in the United States. Fantastic conversation, listen in here or most streams: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

I really enjoyed this thoughtful interview with Jim Townshend and the Levin Center. Reconstruction-era stories are more important now as we continue to confront the ongoing struggle to make American democracy meaningful

Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy@levincenter.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Professor Robert Bland (University of Tennessee Knoxville) joins the Levin Center to explore Reconstruction, Black countermemory, and the fight for multiracial democracy—from Robert Smalls to today’s lessons. #BlackHistoryMonth youtu.be/pO7-Ey9LHE4

Important piece from @uncpress.bsky.social author Robert Bland on how today’s voting-rights battles echo the unresolved conflicts of Reconstruction

The Conversation U.S.@us.theconversation.com · 6mo ago

The Supreme Court is considering a case challenging Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act — and it’s expected to overturn it, a change that legal historians say would make it easier to dilute Black voting power and roll back decades of political gains. buff.ly/RZRPeWs #polisky

I wrote a piece for @theconversation.com on the Reconstruction-era roots of racial gerrymandering. As we continue our slide into a post-Voting Rights Act world, it is more important than ever to understand the nineteenth-century precedents for our current moment. theconversation.com/the-supreme-...

The Supreme Court may soon diminish Black political power, undoing generations of gains

The Supreme Court appears poised to abolish a key part of the Voting Rights Act. It may draw on a constitutional amendment that empowered African Americans.

theconversation.com

After federal troops forced a fugitive slave named Anthony Burns back into slavery in the 1850s, one Bostonian wrote, “we went to bed one night old-fashioned, conservative, Compromise Union Whigs and waked up stark mad Abolitionists.” The abuse of power radicalizes people. We are seeing that now.

Renee Nicole Good, the woman shot & killed by an ICE agent, had a young son whose father died in 2023, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune “There’s nobody else in his life,” the boy’s grandfather told the paper. “I’ll drive. I’ll fly. To come get my grandchild.” www.huffpost.com/entry/latest...

A preview of the larger story that you will find in my book, Requiem for Reconstruction. Now available through @uncpress.bsky.social

The Journal of the Civil War Era@jcwe.bsky.social · 7mo ago

In today's Muster @robertdbland.bsky.social examines the legacy of the Reconstruction generation www.journalofthecivilwarera.org/2026/01/reme...

It's our first pub day of 2026 🎉 From the fascinating world of crayfish to uncovering the untold complexities of Reconstruction, to clothing, culture, and violence in the Civil War Era these new releases make for a powerful start the year 📚 Check them out 👇 uncpressblog.com/2026/01/06/n...

New This Week: January 6th 2026 - UNC Press Blog

Today calls for celebration—it’s our first publication day of 2026! We’re thrilled to kick off the new year with three incredible titles that span a wide range of topics: from the fascinating world of...

uncpressblog.com

I had a great conversation with @thesullivansummer.bsky.social and @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social about my book, Requiem for Reconstruction, which will be officially released tomorrow (1/6) through @uncpress.bsky.social. You can listen to that interview here newbooksnetwork.com/requiem-for-...

In today's Muster, @richcondon.bsky.social explores the recent Netflix series Death by Lightning and its portrait of James Garfield as the last "Lincoln Republican" www.journalofthecivilwarera.org/2025/12/deat...

Death by Lightning - An Ode to Service - The Journal of the Civil War Era

In his inaugural speech on March 4, 1881, newly elected President James Garfield emphasized the importance of ongoing Reconstruction, asserting that the “elevation of the negro race from slavery to th...

journalofthecivilwarera.org

Christmas came early in East TN. 📚

Requiem for Reconstruction is now available for presale. It is still a bit surreal to know that it is actually going to be out in the world. If you buy the book through UNC press, you can get 30% off with the promo code 01UNCP30. uncpress.org/book/9781469...

Requiem for Reconstruction | Robert D. Bland | University of North Carolina Press

The promise of Reconstruction sparked a transformative era in American history as free and newly emancipated Black Americans sought to redefine their place i...

uncpress.org

📚🚨It’s Book Pub Day for @hngreen.bsky.social's Unforgettable Sacrifice: How Black Communities Remembered the Civil War 📚🚨 www.fordhampress.com/978153150852... Get your copy and request it from your library. #booksky #blackskybookclub

Unforgettable Sacrifice

Rediscover the Civil War through the voices that refused to be silencedUnforgettable Sacrifice offers a groundbreaking exploration into the heart of African ...

fordhampress.com

At some point today, perhaps around noon, take some time to read Lincoln’s words for yourself. It will do you good. 🗃️ kevinmlevin.substack.com/p/i-needed-t...

I Needed To Read Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address Today. You Should Too.

On this inauguration day I find myself, once again, reading Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, which was delivered 160 years ago this coming March.

kevinmlevin.substack.com

I pray this helps some of you today. We have a duty to Dr. King whose life was taken because he dared demand that this country face itself, to demonstrate that his work & sacrifice was not in vain. Let’s do it together. Please share. And subscribe. open.substack.com/pub/sherrily...

It Is MLK Day. Do Not Despair. This Year Especially, We Have Work To Do.

With delicious anticipation, we imagined it.

open.substack.com

Best data from the article.

ProPublica@propublica.org · 2y ago

#ICYMI: ProPublica identified 155 counties in the Deep South with private schools that opened as likely segregation academies. One in Amite County, Mississippi, has never — over nearly 30 years of surveys — reported enrolling more than one Black student. Read more: https://propub.li/4iNVpxl

The December issue of the JCWE is now available. This special issue on Black Internationalism is edited by Brandon Byrd, associate professor of history at Vanderbilt University and author of The Black Republic: African Americans and the Fate of Haiti www.journalofthecivilwarera.org/june2024142/

Current Issue - The Journal of the Civil War Era

Volume 14, No. 3 December 2024 This is a special issue on Black Internationalism organized and edited by Brandon Byrd. Introduction – Brandon Byrd This introductory essay offers a historical and histo...

journalofthecivilwarera.org

The Rise and Rapid Fall of the First US Department of Education The department, established in 1867, faced opposition from Southern congressmen, who associated it with education for the formerly enslaved. 🗃️ www.history.com/news/departm...

The Rise and Rapid Fall of the First US Department of Education | HISTORY

The department, established in 1867, faced opposition from Southern congressmen, who associated it with education for the formerly enslaved.

history.com

Hypothermia alert for DC tonight. It's been a dangerously cold day & will be a dangerously cold night. Precautions are needed by all & compassion towards the unhoused. @remorahousedc.bsky.social @knilirabaj.bsky.social @jl3001.bsky.social @ginatb2.bsky.social

The co-winners of the Frederick Douglass Book Prize are Marlene Daut for “Awakening the Ashes” (@uncpress.bsky.social) & Sara Johnson for “Encyclopédie Noire:” (OIEAHC and UNC)!!!!!!!! macmillan.yale.edu/glc/stories/...

Yale Announces 2024 Frederick Douglass Book Prize Winners

macmillan.yale.edu

This thanksgiving, I'm thinking about how we've been complaining about losing recipes for years, and need to get intentional about preserving them. open.substack.com/pub/naimacoc...

History Interns at Old Dominion Work to Reconnect Virginia Families Separated by Enslavement www.odu.edu/article/hist... "Focusing on people enslaved by the Custis-Washington-Lee clan, they are combing through tax lists, wills and inventories to reveal broken family links."

History Interns Work to Reconnect Families Separated by Enslavement

By Sam McDonald Two Old Dominion University student interns are growing their knowledge of American history as they seek to reunite Virginia families pulled apart long ago by the institution of slaver...

odu.edu

W. Ralph Eubanks explores his family's connection to Mileston, MS: “Black farmers owning their own land and profiting from it was what my father thought would lift the Delta out of poverty.” Read: ow.ly/XnnE50Ugf3Y 📷 Marcella Plantation, 1939, FSA/LOC

Calling all history teachers. This is a great opportunity to work with some excellent Civil War scholars @naucivilwar.bsky.social at the University of Virginia next summer. 🗃️ docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

'Erik S. McDuffie...shows how cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland, as well as rural areas in the heartland, became central and enduring incubators of Marcus Garvey’s Black nationalist Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and its offshoots' www.dukeupress.edu/the-second-b...

In today's Muster, Bonnie Laughlin-Schultz discusses using nineteenth-century art to teach the antislavery movement www.journalofthecivilwarera.org/2024/11/teac...

Teaching the Civil War: Disrupting the Conventional Antislavery Narrative and Engaging Students in Visual Analysis - The Journal of the Civil War Era

This post is the first in a new Muster series that will highlight innovative ways that classroom instructors have approached teaching the Civil War era. Today’s post is written by Professor Bonnie Lau...

journalofthecivilwarera.org

Sobering article by historian Eric Foner about the many terrible historical precedents for Trump's mass deportation plan, esp. the popular 1800s idea of "colonization"--sending formerly enslaved people to Africa so America would be a white country www.thenation.com/article/soci...

America Has Done Mass Deportation Before

From the Indian Removal Act of 1830 to the deportation of Mexican-Americans during the Great Depression, Trump can easily find precedents for his policy. None of them ended well.

thenation.com