@wickenkamp.bsky.social
Abolitionist. "Either grandstanding or can't be trusted." -National Review
Historian of abolition here 💯Garrison always called it the slaveholders rebellion, that’s the correct term. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/02/o...
Opinion | The ‘Civil War’ Is a Lie. Let’s Call It the ‘Slaveholders’ Rebellion’ Again. (Gift Article)
To face our own history, we must be honest about it.
nytimes.com
I wrote about Florida Governor DeSantis' getting rebuked by the 11th Circuit for his tyrannical (and unconstitutional) "Stop WOKE Act." Hopefully, this will serve as a warning to other GOP states (but I doubt it). www.ms.now/opinion/flor...
Florida's so-called Stop WOKE Act gets the legal rebuke it deserves
Victor Ray: Ron DeSantis' loss in court is a win for education
ms.now
Critical education is a crucial part of ushering in this overdue, necessary third Reconstruction
🪬Lina-Maria Murillo@drlmmurillo.bsky.social · last mo.This is why we must plan for the third Reconstruction. We've got to undo all their shenanigans, brick by brick.
Cracking open history to reveal new new futures waiting for us, Hagopian offers searing clarity to today's convoluted spectacle. So. Damn. Good.
Jesse Hagopian@jessehagopian.bsky.social · last mo.Yes, Trump’s UFC cage fight for America’s 250th birthday was grotesque. But the rising fascism of our time is not a detour from the nation’s founding ideals. My new piece for @truthout. truthout.org/articles/tru... #Decolonize1776 #America250 #TeachTruth #BlackHistory
"But if it is childish, if any of this—the outrage, the horror, the belief that something must be done—is childish, it is only because a child could see it. It is only adults who find comfort in the reassuring sobriety of pessimism."
Ashwini Vasanthakumar@ashwinivasantha.bsky.social · last mo.A review essay for grown-ups on political violence and the political violence we normalise and even celebrate. Like the best review essays, it might be better than its source material.
Why should we all be feminist historians? This incisive piece by @drlmmurillo.bsky.social lays it out plain.
🪬Lina-Maria Murillo@drlmmurillo.bsky.social · 2mo agoHuge thanks to @msmagazine.com for their support as I told this story. The loss of women and gender studies programs and departments is a huge institutional blow, but we as scholars and students remain defiant. You can't erase our past, present, or future! msmagazine.com/2026/06/09/f...
de Castro stands to steal $400,000 annually if appointed full-time director of this sham. Paraphrasing him, "It's unfortunate students aren't forced to pledge support to an economic system that brought us slavery, Jim Crow, and the theft of whole continents."
Victor Ray@victorerikray.bsky.social · 2mo agoNothing says "intellectual freedom" like forcing students to take mandatory conservative indoctrination classes. Shout-out to all the embarrassing academics who believe any of this was in good faith.
Conservative “civic centers” are being embedded in public universities to normalize a right-wing version of U.S. history & political thought in order to produce the kinds of knowledge that some politicians & ideologues would prefer. “This civics curriculum is really just propaganda.” #AcademicSky
Florida uses public universities to build conservative civics pipeline ahead of ‘America 250’
Several civics centers opened in Florida as part of the Department of Education’s America 250 Civics Education Coalition to “renew patriotism”
prismreports.org
A solid piece worth reading. "This center isn’t a balance for anything. It is, instead, a beachhead for the right’s attempted authoritarian takeover of higher education in the state."
Victor Ray@victorerikray.bsky.social · 4mo agoMaking tenure count, for MSNOW I wrote about my employer, The University of Iowa, creating a center for intellectual freedom. It's a reactionary project built on decades of conservative propaganda about higher ed.
Huge thank you to everyone who participated in our virtual #NoKings protest. It meant a lot to many people who couldn't go in person. Thanks for bringing the fire! 🔥 @thedrdery.bsky.social @grantstern.bsky.social @wickenkamp.bsky.social @mariannedhe.bsky.social www.youtube.com/live/lUJ21CF... 1/2
No Kings 3
YouTube video by COVID Long Haulers
youtube.com
Guerilla Advocacy is back! Join us for a virtual No Kings rally focusing on anti-intellectualism and censorship. We have a stellar lineup of speakers. Want to participate but want to go out in person as well? Go for it! We start at 6:30 pm Central. You can register at the link below. 1/6
Wonderful article by our colleague Greg Wickenkamp about rural educators who, despite censorship campaigns and laws, "take pains to present history in all its complexity, encouraging students to develop their own informed stances through critical thinking." ⬇️ #TeachTruth
Barn Raiser@barnraiser.bsky.social · 5mo agoSince 2020, hundreds of federal, state and local laws have censored history education and ideas deemed “controversial” or “divisive.” Barn Raiser spoke with rural history teachers across the country about how they teach while in the culture war crosshairs. barnraisingmedia.com/rural-histor...
Deep gratitude to the editors and the truly heroic educators quoted in this piece. “We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future.”
Barn Raiser@barnraiser.bsky.social · 5mo agoSince 2020, hundreds of federal, state and local laws have censored history education and ideas deemed “controversial” or “divisive.” Barn Raiser spoke with rural history teachers across the country about how they teach while in the culture war crosshairs. barnraisingmedia.com/rural-histor...
Attention Iowa folks interested in public schools!! You won’t want to miss this, @schooldaves.bsky.social brings so much expertise and interesting ideas to school finance.
david i. backer@schooldaves.bsky.social · 6mo agoIf you’re in Iowa and want to talk school finance and left organizing come on out tomorrow night! iowacci.ourpowerbase.net/civicrm/even...
🧵 Glad this is getting coverage, though it deserves more. Over a year before UI's center was founded, I bumped into David Barker, an Iowa board of regents member. Before I realized who he was, he was telling me how he and his network planned to begin a new push around civics education.
Prism@prismreports.org · 6mo agoTaxpayer-funded ‘intellectual freedom centers’ at public universities are part of the effort to push conservative ideology on college students in the guise of civics education, @shayssen.bsky.social reports. Despite their heated political origins, the centers are expanding.
Historian of abolition here yes worse than the Civil Rights movement when the federal government could be goaded into doing the right thing. right now we are confronting the new Slave Power that controls the government of the United States.
Kevin M. Kruse@kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 6mo agoThe civil rights movement called its protests "demonstrations" because they were meant to demonstrate to the general public just how evil the status quo was and how depraved its defenders were. ICE is actually worse than Connor -- he had to be goaded into overreaching, they're doing it on their own
One day, if we are lucky, the erasure of American history will itself be remembered as a shameful chapter in American history
Philadelphia Inquirer@inquirer.com · 7mo agoGrateful for @democracynow.org for always bringing crucial daily news and for today airing excerpts from Dr King's ever-timely speeches.
Re-listening to King's Beyond Vietnam speech today it is striking how timely it remains. As Dr Jackson reminds us in this beautiful article, these are still revolutionary times. Tomorrow is already today and we must move with the fierce urgency of now.
Kellie Carter Jackson@kcarterjackson.bsky.social · 7mo agoMy latest for the Guardian...Happy MLK! On embracing the ‘urgency of now’ and unconditional love on MLK Day www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
"Abolishing an agency that teargasses two-year-olds and shoots mothers in the street isn’t radical. It is basic human decency" "'Abolish ICE' does not go far enough. We need to move away from a system predicated on violence in favor of one that centers people’s humanity" damn right the time is now
Victor Ray@victorerikray.bsky.social · 7mo agoIn the first of what's likely to be many collaborations with @hebagowayed.bsky.social (and my @us.theguardian.com debut) we argue that abolishing ICE would be a good start.
"I could not move, because history had me glued to the seat. . . It felt like Sojourner Truth’s hands were pushing me down on one shoulder & Harriet Tubman’s hands were pushing me down on another shoulder, & I could not move." — Claudette Colvin Claudette Colvin ¡Presente! has died at age 86. 💔
March 2, 1955: Claudette Colvin Refuses to Give Up Her Bus Seat
At age 15, Claudette Colvin refused to give up her bus seat to a white woman in Montgomery, Alabama.
zinnedproject.org
One of the best independent journalists in Iowa being denied access to elected officials.
Laura Belin@laurarbelin.bsky.social · 7mo agoI was just denied entry to an important budget briefing in Governor Kim Reynolds' office, to which many other statehouse reporters were invited. The First Amendment doesn't permit government officials to restrict media access based on content or viewpoints. www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Pc1...
Devastating, from Jane Nguyen, who works in the Des Moines, Iowa public schools: “For the first time in my 27 years as an elementary teacher of English Language Learners, I don’t have a single student new to the country this school year.” asianiowan.substack.com/p/the-empty-...
The Empty Chairs in My Classroom
In one year, my table has gone from overflowing to nearly empty
asianiowan.substack.com
I've lately been researching the JBS in Iowa. Their influence is hard to overstate. Surprising to me, they were 1) wildly successful at getting their framing in the media, and 2) funneled huge amounts of cash to far-right causes throughout the 1960s (likely > $250,000,000 in today's dollars)
Tom Joscelyn@tomjoscelyn.bsky.social · 7mo agoThe John Birch Society was once ostracized in conservative circles for its conspiratorial lunacy. But now it’s back. This JBS post, a version of the white nationalist great replacement theory,was shared by Elon Musk with his more than 230 million followers on X. White nationalism.
"The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind...It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane..."
We’ve graduated from “abolish ICE is the moderate position” to “Nuremberg trials for the Trump regime and its Gestapo is the moderate position.”
I highly recommend this article from U Iowa PhD student @wickenkamp.bsky.social on the new (and Orwellian) "Center for Intellectual Freedom's." Their inaugural event was headlined by Christopher Rufo, the right's leading anti-school propagandists and an authoritarian cheerleader.
Laura Belin@laurarbelin.bsky.social · 8mo agoNew post: Early this month, greg wickenkamp attended a panel discussion at the inaugural event of the University of Iowa's "Center for Intellectual Freedom." A reflection on what he heard there: www.bleedingheartland.com/2025/12/21/o...
