Current Events

“Black Indians: A Hidden Heritage” Lecture, Discussion and Book Signing

November 14, 2017
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Tearing Down the Flags of Hatred and Oppression

July 9, 2015

1935 was half a century before Bree Newsome was born and 80 years before she climbed that flagpole to pull down a Confederate flag that stood for slaveholders, racial terror and treason. She and James Tyson her spotter were quickly arrested. On July 26, 1935 Bill Bailey, a broad-shouldered Irish American seaman and union organizer, […]

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“The Birth of a Nation”: A Century Later

February 17, 2015

By an odd coincidence the first week of Black History Month this February, Time magazine ran an article on the 100th anniversary of the first public showing of the movie classic The Birth of a Nation. This 22-reel, 3-hour and 10 minute silent film was Hollywood’s first blockbuster, first great historical epic, first full-length film (when […]

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Rethinking Columbus banned in Arizona: Katz essays included

January 31, 2012

The following is a response to news that Rethinking Columbus, a textbook aimed at critically engaging the legacy of Christopher Columbus in American and Indigenous history, is no longer approved for use in Tuscon public schools. The banning is a result of new laws that have shut down Mexican [American] Studies programs in the area. […]

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Gingrich Confronts History in South Carolina

January 24, 2012

“It’s not that I’m a good debater. It’s that I articulate the deepest-felt values of the American people,” announced the victorious Newt Gingrich in South Carolina. Republican voters [only 2% were African Americans] saw his tough, angry, racial language as straight talking. He eagerly strummed racial themes—Black urban pupils serve as assistant janitors to learn […]

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November is Native American History Month

November 25, 2011

This October as many Americans celebrated “Columbus Day” men and women from more than half a dozen Native American nations marched to Zuccotti Square to voice support for “Occupy Wall Street.”  Invited to address the famous General Assembly, they linked their original experience with “colonialism and corporate greed” to OWS demands and current struggles of […]

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