Category Archives: Civil Rights Movement

From those wonderful folks at WordPress.com, a look back at 2014.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 3,500 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it … Continue reading

Posted in "The Race Beat", Age of Jim Crow, American History, Civil Rights Movement, Current Events, Dr. Martin Luther King, Education, Episcopal Church, Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff, Historical Reflection, History, Martin Luther King, Popular Culture, Prep School, prep school teaching with a PhD, Research, Retirement, Southern (Georgia) History, Southern History, Taylor Branch, Teaching, The Blues, Uncategorized, WP Long Read | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Secondary School Students and The Changing Face of the South (History Lesson Plans, 5)

[NOTE: One of the most popular posts at this blog is “Teaching History Backwards,” probably more for the provocative title than for the course it describes, The History of the Modern American Civil Rights Movement.  And yet, I believe that … Continue reading

Posted in "Education Courses", American History, Books, Civil Rights Movement, Education, Historical Reflection, History, History Curriculum, Popular Culture, Prep School, prep school teaching with a PhD, Research, Retirement, Southern History, Teaching, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Is Wolf Hatred Really “Wolfism”? by Rick Lamplugh and George Lamplugh (Adventures in Interdisciplinary Land, 8)

[NOTE: The following, a collaborative (or even interdisciplinary!) effort by my brother and me, is cross-posted from “Rick Lamplugh’s Blog.” I hope you enjoy this very different post on “Retired But Not Shy.”] * * * * * For the … Continue reading

Posted in "In The Temple of Wolves", Age of Jim Crow, American History, Books, Civil Rights Movement, Current Events, Historical Reflection, History, Interdisciplinary Work, Popular Culture, Research, Rick Lamplugh, Southern History, Uncategorized, Wolves, WP Long Form | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Evolution of a Blog: “Retired But Not Shy” at Four

[NOTE: If I had not edited my school’s “History Department Newsletter” over the last few years of my teaching career, I might never have become a blogger. Using a template provided by Microsoft, I planned each bi-monthly issue, parceled out … Continue reading

Posted in "Lincoln"--the movie, "The Race Beat", American History, Blues Women, Books, Civil Rights Movement, Civil War, Current Events, Delta Blues, Dr. Martin Luther King, George R. Gilmer, Georgia History, Historical Reflection, History, History Curriculum, Interdisciplinary Work, James Gunn, Martin Luther King, Popular Culture, prep school teaching with a PhD, Research, Retirement, Southern (Georgia) History, Southern History, Teaching, The Blues, Vietnam War, Wilson Lumpkin | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

The South on the Nation’s Psychiatric Couch, Again

A Review of Tracy Thompson, The New Mind of the South. New York and London: The Free Press, 2013. [NOTE:  I became a historian of the South not by birth, but because a southern grad school to which I’d applied … Continue reading

Posted in Age of Jim Crow, American History, Books, Civil Rights Movement, Civil War, Current Events, Georgia History, Historical Reflection, History, History graduate school, Popular Culture, Southern (Georgia) History, Southern History, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Early Blues–Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Everything (Blues Stories, 17)

A Review of R.A. Lawson, Jim Crow’s Counterculture: The Blues and Black Southerners, 1890-1945. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2010. [NOTE: As I’ve explained elsewhere, my initial interest in the Blues developed because my older son and I were … Continue reading

Posted in Age of Jim Crow, Alan Lomax, American History, Big Bill Broonzy, Chicago Blues, Civil Rights Movement, Delta Blues, Historical Reflection, History, History Curriculum, History of Rock and Roll, Interdisciplinary Work, Leadbelly, Popular Culture, Robert Johnson, Southern History, Teaching, The Blues, Uncategorized, Urban Blues | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

The Voice of the Urban Blues–Bobby “Blue” Bland,1930-2013 (Blues Stories, 13)

A Review of Charles Farley, Soul of the Man: Bobby “Blue” Bland. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2011. Throughout his long career, Bobby Bland was introduced as “the world’s greatest blues singer,” and, according to biographer Charles Farley, this was … Continue reading

Posted in Age of Jim Crow, B.B. King, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Civil Rights Movement, Delta Blues, History, Research, Retirement, Southern History, The Blues, Uncategorized, Urban Blues | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

Reflecting in History’s Mirror (History Lesson Plans, 3)

[NOTE: In a previous post, I introduced the “Lecture-Discussion” conundrum, the pedagogical approach favored by the prep school history department that had hired me. What did “Lecture-Discussion” mean, as a way to impart information to adolescents? I firmly believed, as … Continue reading

Posted in American History, Civil Rights Movement, Historical Reflection, History, History Curriculum, Interdisciplinary Work, prep school teaching with a PhD, Retirement, Southern History, Teaching, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

B.B. King, “King of the Blues” (Blues Stories, 12)

[NOTE:  There is a generic career arc for many twentieth-century Blues performers: a poverty-stricken background in the Jim Crow South, especially the Mississippi Delta; “escape” to the “land of opportunity” somewhere in the North or Midwest; early career success, followed … Continue reading

Posted in American History, B.B. King, Books, Civil Rights Movement, Delta Blues, Historical Reflection, History, Interdisciplinary Work, John Lee Hooker, Research, Retirement, Southern (Georgia) History, Southern History, Teaching, The Blues, Urban Blues | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mississippi John Hurt, The Yoda of the Blues (Blues Stories, 11)

A Review of Philip R. Ratcliffe, Mississippi John Hurt: His Life, His Times, His Blues. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2011. This entry in the University Press of Mississippi’s “American Made Music” series is very interesting, for several reasons. The … Continue reading

Posted in Age of Jim Crow, Big Bill Broonzy, Civil Rights Movement, Delta Blues, History, John Lee Hooker, Mississippi John Hurt, Muddy Waters, Son House, Southern History, The Blues | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments