Reporting from the SHA: Reconstruction, Race, and Policing

Reporting from the SHA: Reconstruction, Race, and Policing

Panelists were Elizabeth Barnes (University of Reading), “‘I Saw Their Stars’: Race, Rape, and Policing in the Reconstruction South;” Bradley D. Proctor (Evergreen State College), “Southern Policing and the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction;” and Samuel Watts (University of Melbourne), “Reconstruction Justice: Black Law Enforcement and the Politics of Space in Charleston and New Orleans.”

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Reporting from the SHA: “(Re)Constructing an Empire: The South and the Nation after the Civil War”

Reporting from the SHA: “(Re)Constructing an Empire: The South and the Nation after the Civil War”

Panelists were Courtney Buchkoski (University of Oklahoma), “Lessons from Kansas: The New England Emigrant Aid Company and Imperial Projects in the Reconstruction Era;” Evan Rothera (Sam Houston State University), “The Complete Triumph of National Arms in the Cause of the Republican Constitutional Government: Anti-Imperialism and U.S./Mexico Relations;” and Cecily Zander (Pennsylvania State University), “The Great Task Remaining: The Reconstruction-Era Army in Texas.”

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Reporting from the SHA: “Championing Justice and Rejecting White Supremacy: The Public Role of Southern Historians?”

Reporting from the SHA: “Championing Justice and Rejecting White Supremacy: The Public Role of Southern Historians?”

This roundtable discussed the role of historians in countering bad historical interpretation and supporting a narrative that challenges white supremacy in our current society. Presiding was Redell Hearn of the Mississippi Museum of Art and Tougaloo College, and panelists were John Hayes (Augusta University), Robert Luckett (Jackson State University), Anthony Dixon (Bethune-Cookman University), and Rachel Stephens (University of Alabama).

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Reporting from the SHA: “Sanitation, Statistics, and State-Building in Reconstruction America”

Reporting from the SHA: “Sanitation, Statistics, and State-Building in Reconstruction America”

The panelists were Judith Giesberg (Villanova University), “‘A Muster Roll of the American People’: The Making of the 1870 Census and Postwar National Sovereignty”; Evan A. Kutzler (Georgia Southwestern State University), “‘Seeing like a State,’ Smelling like a Sanitarian: The Landscape of Health in Civil War Prisons”; and James Kopaczewski (Temple University), “‘The Seed of Robbery…Reaps Its Harvest of Blood’: Placing Grant’s Peace Policy within Reconstruction America.”

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Reporting from the SHA: Arrivals and Departures: Unionists, Confederates, and Occupiers in the Deep South During the Civil War

Reporting from the SHA: Arrivals and Departures: Unionists, Confederates, and Occupiers in the Deep South During the Civil War

Panelists were Clayton J. Butler (University of Virginia), “‘We Are True Blue’: White Unionist Regiments in the Deep South during the Civil War”; Stefanie Greenhill (University of Kentucky), “‘Yankee Skedadlers’: Unionism, Displacement, and Native Northerners who fled from the Confederacy”; and J. Matthew Ward (Louisiana State University), “‘To Rid the Community of All Suspicious Persons’: The Confederate Community in Civil War Louisiana.”

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Reporting from the SHA: Northern Civilians and the Occupied Wartime Confederacy

Reporting from the SHA: Northern Civilians and the Occupied Wartime Confederacy

In this panel presented at the 2018 Southern Historical Association meeting in Birmingham, AL the panelists focused on the experiences of northern civilians who traveled south into the Confederacy during the Civil War. The panelists were Paul E. Teed (Saginaw Valley State University) and Frank J. Cirillo (New-York Historical Society) with Caroline E. Janney (University of Virginia) presiding. Comments were provided by Michael T. Bernath (University of Miami) ad Paul A. Cimbala (Fordham University).

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Reporting from the SHA: Defining Defeat—Three Approaches to Making Sense of Loss and the Confederate Experience

Reporting from the SHA: Defining Defeat—Three Approaches to Making Sense of Loss and the Confederate Experience

Historians had long analyzed the context of Confederate defeat during Reconstruction and the creation of the Lost Cause in the years after Reconstruction ended. This panel at the 2018 Southern Historical Association demonstrated that there are more avenues for historians to unpack the meanings of Confederate defeat and the building of the Lost Cause. The panelists were Amy L. Fluker (University of Mississippi), Ann L. Tucker (University of North Georgia), and Sarah K. Bowman (Columbus State University).

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Reporting from the SHA: Animal Studies in the Civil War Era

Reporting from the SHA: Animal Studies in the Civil War Era

As moderator Megan Kate Nelson (Writer) suggested, there are many ways to utilize animal studies to further the study of the Civil War Era, including as means of transportation, food, and on the battlefields of the war. In fact, any historians that starts to look at the logistics of the conflict automatically needs to be interested in animals. This session was set up as a roundtable with Joan E. Cashin (Ohio State University), Kenneth Noe (Auburn University), and Paula Tarankow (Indiana University) as panelists.

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Reporting from the Southern Historical Association: The Boundaries of Reconstruction

Reporting from the Southern Historical Association: The Boundaries of Reconstruction

What are the boundaries of Reconstruction and how can historians redefine them? This was the subject of a roundtable session at the Southern featuring Stephen Hahn, Stacy L. Smith, Elliott West, and Heather C. Richardson as panelists. Historians usually define the period of Reconstruction as 1865-1877 where Americans rebuilt the country and racial relations after the Civil War and most equate the end of Reconstruction with the destruction of black civil rights in the south. These historians challenged the audience to rethink the meanings of Reconstruction. 

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Reporting from the Southern Historical Association: Teaching Civil Rights

Reporting from the Southern Historical Association: Teaching Civil Rights

The Southern hosted a very unique type of session this year. Participants went to Little Rock Central High School, famous for the Little Rock Nine, to hear a panel on how to teach civil rights. I think most of us expected a panel presentation and discussion on teaching civil rights in high school and college history classes, but instead we participated in a workshop and presentation led by students of Central High School’s Memory Project. 

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