VIDEO: The Election of 1860 & the Road to Disunion: Crash Course US History #18

In which John Green teaches you about the election of 1860. As you may remember from last week, things were not great at this time in US history. The tensions between the North and South were rising, ultimately due to the single issue of slavery. The North wanted to abolish slavery, and the South wanted

Richard Slotkin on Guns and Violence – Moyers & Company

Ahead of the one year anniversary of the massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, in which Adam Lanza took the lives of 20 school children and six educators, Bill speaks with cultural historian and scholar Richard Slotkin about the role of guns in America’s national psyche. Slotkin has spent his life studying and

Let’s talk about Fred Gray, Alabama, and a new south – Beau of the Fifth Column

Alabama city told to keep Confederate street name or face $25,000 fine

The Republican attorney general is threatening Montgomery after the city renamed Jeff Davis Avenue Alabama’s capital city of Montgomery is facing legal action or a $25,000 fine for changing the name of a street bearing the name of a Confederate president for a prominent civil rights lawyer. The state’s Republican attorney general acted after Montgomery

Reconstruction: Crash Course Black American History #19

At the end of the Civil War, the United States was still a very divided place. 700,000 people had died in a bitter fight over slavery. Reconstruction was the political process meant to bring the country back together. It was also the mechanism by which the country would extend the rights of citizenship to Black

Why Are There SO Many Confederate Monuments? – Origin of Everything

Origin of Everything takes a field trip to Washington, D.C. and explores the painful history and legacy of America’s Civil War. Danielle looks at Confederate and Union Civil War monuments and what spurred their construction after the war.

Black Americans in the Civil War: Crash Course Black American History #18

The American Civil War is one of the deadliest in US History, and let’s just get this out of the way: it was about slavery. In the more than 150 years since the end of the Civil War, there have been many attempts to litigate the reasons for the war, but the reality is that

Frederick Douglass: Crash Course Black American History #17

Clint Smith teaches you about one of the most famous writers, orators, and advocates of the 19th century, Frederick Douglass. Douglass was born in slavery, escaped to the North, and became one of the most influential people of his time. Douglass wrote about the experience of slavery in a way that captured the attention of

Inside America’s “militias”: from the KKK to the Oath Keepers – CNN

America’s self-styled militias have roots dating back to the KKK’s formation during Reconstruction. In the latest “Reality Check with John Avlon: Extremist Beat,” CNN’s Sara Sidner joins Avlon as they trace this history, from the Minutemen of the 1960’s to the deadly Oklahoma City bombing to today’s Oath Keepers, some of whom face charges of

NC GOP lawmaker on Oath Keepers roster says it’s none of the public’s business

A North Carolina state lawmaker appears on the membership roster of the Oath Keepers, a far-right paramilitary organization that played a prominent role in the Jan. 6 assault on the US Capitol. Rep. Keith Kidwell, who serves on the Republican leadership team as a deputy whip in the NC House, is among some 38,000 people