Shannon M. Smith, College of Saint Benedict & Saint John's University
Protests of Confederate flags and monuments have grown since 2015, but resistance is not new. African Americans have been protesting against Confederate monuments since they were erected.
Suffering a pandemic and the aftermath of a war that killed 50 million, the world in 1920 faced a turning point as it negotiated a new political order. As today, the key issue was racial inequality.
Religion was no barrier for Southern lynch mobs intent on terror. White pastors joined the KKK, incited racial violence and took part in lynchings. Sometimes, the victim was a preacher.
The U.S. under Trump is no longer seen as the enemy by Europe’s New Right, who are the ideological descendants of the original fascists. With Trump’s rise, they have a new hero in an unexpected place.
The public was shocked by the blackface image on Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s yearbook page. But if blackface is now taboo, there was a time when it played a big role in American culture.
One year after Charlottesville’s white supremacist march, US racism is seen primarily as a Southern-grown problem. But Jim Crow laws started in the North, which has a long history of systemic racism.
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice helps demonstrate that the lynching of black people was not the fault of victims. But telling this history risks re-traumatizing the black community.
White Americans have been in denial about the fact that police go after Black men and other men of colour. But the research and statistics kept by state and federal agencies show this happens.
Managing Director of the McCourtney Institute of Democracy, Associate Research Professor, Political Science, Co-host of Democracy Works Podcast, Penn State