Christopher P. Momany is a former college professor and chaplain. He currently serves as pastor of First United Methodist Church in Dowagiac, Michigan. For three decades Chris has researched the arguments for and against slavery in America’s past. His...
“Thoughts on Teaching: Why Modern Slavery Belongs in a History of Slavery” By Dr. Sara Lampert, University of South Dakota It was drizzling, threatening to rain, but that stopped no one. Students streamed across the quad to the coyote...
The End of College and the Community of Ends By Rev. Dr. Christopher P. Momany A long time ago, on a balmy spring evening in 1986, I was...
“Enslaved Children, ‘Rescue Fantasies,’ and the Problem of ‘Innocence’” by Dr. Anna Mae Duane Donald Trump, at some point during his visit to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, was shown a pair of manacles designed...
“Twice Punched in the Gut“ By Dr. Robert E. Wright Whenever I hear anyone earnestly claim that slavery is/was good for the economy, I feel like I have been punched in the stomach, twice. That is because I’m...
“Ravine to Freedom is Journey to Self” By Rev. Dr. Christopher P. Momany What we learn about ourselves along life’s path is as important as what we learn about history. In fact, the two belong together. Historians and activists...
The Lost Cause? Teaching the U.S. Civil War in 2016 By Dr. Thomas Balcerski Browse the ever-burgeoning corridors of the internet this time of year, and you will be sure to encounter a popular meme. Two images form...
“Black Freedom Fighters on the Silver Screen” by Dr. Peter H. Wood, Emeritus Professor of History, Duke University A quarter century ago, teaching a Native American History class at Duke, I noted that enrollment spiked after the release of...
“Mapping Memories of Enslavement”: The French Confront Their Own History By Dr. Mattie Fitch Like all European countries, France has a long history of participating in slavery, from slave labor in France’s colony of Saint Domingue that ultimately produced...
Art for Abolitionists: How I Joined the Fight Against Human Trafficking By Callen Buchanan [Ms. Buchanan is a high school student in Vinton, VA who organized a charitable event to raise money to combat human trafficking. Her event received...
Abolitionists are American Democracy’s Unsung Heroes By Dr. Manisha Sinha Most...
“Right and Rationalization,” by Rev. Dr. Christopher P. Momany Recent years have witnessed much understandable examination of the slavery-laced legacies at several American colleges and universities. There are many reasons for this attention, and a number of these institutions...
I often tell people that I do what I do for the young adults around me and the folks up in the graveyard. There is no contradiction between grass-roots presence with college and university students and hard-nosed scholarship that...
Guest Post by Calvin Schermerhorn It’s useful to view the ordeals of Solomon Northup in light of modern human trafficking. At first blush, the nineteenth-century odyssey of an African American New Yorker kidnapped and sold into chattel slavery under...
By David Gellman The film Selma contributes to many important conversations—about racially biased policing, about whether to think of the Civil Rights movement as a bottom up or top down triumph, about liberties movies take with historical records, about...
The history of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century abolitionism is replete with lessons about what NOT to do.