Ian W. Toll, Twilight of the Gods

At Amazon, Ian W. Toll, Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945 (Pacific War Trilogy, 3).

Charles Payne, I've Got the Light of Freedom

At Amazon, Charles M. Payne, I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle.

Home Portable Counter-Top Ice Machine -- Great for Mixed Drinks and Holiday Parties

At Amazon, Prime Home Portable Ice Machine for Countertop - Ice Maker Great for Mixed Drinks & Parties - Electric Ice Making Machine with Ice Scoop and Basket.

BONUS: Victor Davis Hanson, Mexifornia: A State of Becoming. 

David Blight, Frederick Douglass

At Amazon, David Blight, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom.

Cornelius Ryan, The Longest Day

At Amazon, Cornelius Ryan, The Longest Day: The Classic Epic of D-Day.

Seventy-Seventh Anniversary of the D-Day Nomandy Invasion

It's a long time ago. But we should never forget what they did there so that the world might be free. 

At Fox News, 77th D-Day anniversary serves as a reminder of American greatness."

This Day in #ArmyHistory

June 6, 1944, Allied troops landed along the heavily-fortified French coastline, to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of #Normandy. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower called the operation a crusade in which “we will accept nothing less than full victory.”#DDAY pic.twitter.com/7kB5W7rkmP

— U.S. Army (@USArmy) June 6, 2021

Alan Taylor, William Cooper's Town

At Amazon, Alan Taylor, William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic.

After the Massacre: Black Property Owners Leveraged Land to Bring Businesses Back

I don't think I've ever read so much about the Tulsa race massacre. Leftist media folks didn't seem to care so much about Tulsa before the 100th anniversary. Didn't see nothin' about it on the 75th anniversary, or the 80th or 90th. That's not usually how these things work when remember big, important historical events. But it's all race all the time now, so perhaps diabolical race-baiters are making up for lost time.

That said, this is good, at WSJ, "Black Land Ownership Primed Greenwood’s Rebound After Massacre":

For the past 17 months, a group of WSJ's Black journalists, along with other journalists of color worked on a series of 9 stories examining the economic ramifications of the Tulsa Race Massacre.
I'm extremely proud to share our work. (outside the paywall) https://t.co/oujuQb1r5i

— Kimberly S. Johnson (@KimberlyReports) May 29, 2021

TULSA, Okla.—After all the destruction and loss of life, what survived the 1921 attack in the Greenwood district proved the most valuable and enduring in the neighborhood’s midcentury recovery: the ambition of Black entrepreneurs and landowners.

The ability of property owners to raise money by leveraging the land beneath the rubble helped seed a local economy of Black-owned businesses for the next decades, according to interviews, court filings, newspaper articles and an analysis of Tulsa County real-estate records by The Wall Street Journal.

Rebuilding Greenwood after the massacre had seemed a long shot. There was little or no government assistance. Insurers largely denied claims from people who had lost their homes and didn’t compensate business owners for lost inventory. Many residents instead used their property as collateral to secure short-term mortgages from financial institutions, more affluent individuals and community lending pools, records show.

The loans helped the neighborhood flourish in the 1940s and 1950s, residents and historians said. In 1940, the homeownership rate among Black residents in Tulsa was 49%, surpassing the rate of 45% among white residents, U.S. Census data show. In those decades, grocery stores lined the commercial spine of North Greenwood Avenue, and the district featured chili parlors, movie theaters, barbecue restaurants, drugstores, pool halls and doctors’ offices. By 1942, Greenwood was home to more than 240 businesses, according to Hannibal B. Johnson’s “Black Wall Street: From Riot to Renaissance in Tulsa’s Greenwood District.”

“All the odds were against us, and we survived anyway,” said James O. Goodwin, publisher of the Oklahoma Eagle, Greenwood’s century-old Black newspaper. Yet, this second renaissance would, too, meet its own calamity.

The story of Black property ownership in Oklahoma began well before the 1921 massacre. Many of the territory’s early Black residents were descendants of those formerly enslaved by Native Americans who had been pushed west by the U.S. government in the 19th century, according to Larry O’Dell, director of development and special projects at the Oklahoma Historical Society. In later agreements with the U.S., these Native Americans and the more than 23,000 formerly enslaved Black men and women of the tribes—known as freedmen—became eligible for allotments of as much as 160 acres in Oklahoma, Mr. O’Dell said. Many formed all-black towns in Oklahoma, largely in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

The opportunity to own land drew Black migrants from other states to Tulsa. Many found work as skilled laborers and in service jobs in an economy buoyed by agriculture and, later, the oil industry. Some who settled in Greenwood started businesses and bought property.

P.S. Thompson was among the Greenwood residents who mortgaged property to rebuild after the massacre. He filed a claim against the city for failing to protect his house and drugstore from destruction, fires and looting, according to documents with the Tulsa Historical Society & Museum and research compiled by the Oklahoma Historical Society. The following year, Mr. Thompson and his wife, E.B. Thompson, used their property as collateral to obtain a $750 loan from L.S. Cogswell Lumber Co., about $12,000 when adjusted for inflation. The loan was for 15 months at an annual interest rate of 10%, according to records from the Tulsa County Clerk. The average U.S. mortgage rate was around 6% at the time. The couple paid off the loan and obtained several more short-term mortgages in amounts from $500 to $1,500.

Well-to-do Greenwood residents made loans to other members of the community. In the 1920s and 1930s, James Henri Goodwin, a businessman and real-estate investor, extended mortgage loans to local residents, according to county clerk documents, and borrowed himself. Some Greenwood property owners were able to borrow from savings-and-loan associations.

Restrictive real-estate covenants limited the mobility of Black residents and property owners beyond Greenwood’s boundaries. Private-lending practices, common across the U.S., rated the presence of Blacks in a neighborhood as an elevated property risk, historians said, and blocked many Black home buyers from getting mortgages.

By 1958, the proportion of white home buyers had grown dramatically. Black residents made up 10% of Tulsa’s population but only 3% of buyers of new housing in the city, according to a Tulsa Urban League report issued that year.

Even with new homes being built, very few Black buyers could qualify for financing, according to the report, provided by the University of Tulsa’s Department of Special Collections. The passage of civil-rights legislation in the 1960s began to open up opportunities for some residents to move out of Greenwood amid efforts to desegregate communities, a move that cut into business owners’ clientele...

Still more.

 

Robert Woodson, Ed., Red, White and Black

At Amazon, Robert Woodson, Ed., Red, White, and Black: Rescuing American History from Revisionists and Race Hustlers.

David S. Reynolds, John Brown, Abolitionist

David S. Reynolds, John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights.

Professor Danielle Allen on 'A More Resilient Union' (VIDEO)

I assigned Ms. Allen's piece in my introduction to American government classes just last week, and it's interesting to see her now interviewed with Judy Woodruff at the PBS News Hour.

Ms Allen's article is here, "A More Resilient Union: How Federalism Can Protect Democracy From Pandemics."

The main thing that struck me about the piece is that she doesn't rag on former President Trump, except to argue that he failed to educate the public on the full nature of the virus, not to mention his failure to better delineate the respective roles of the federal government vis-a-vis the states. 

What I did appreciate is her discussion on the American public's widespread ignorance on how the U.S. governmental system operates. That was a key theme I wanted students to discuss, and she make a pretty shocking case to abolish school football programs, even though she apparently loves football: 

If the country’s constitutional democracy is to have a healthy future, Americans should finish this crisis intending not only to invest in health infrastructure but also to revive civics education. Schools need more time for history, civics, and social studies. What should go to make room? Sports, for one thing. Compared with other countries, the United States invests a disproportionate amount of time and money in sports. Americans appear to prefer football to democracy. It’s time to cut back—and I say this as someone whose first professional ambition in life was to be a running back. The United States has made such sacrifices before. World War II saw the suspension of football and soccer seasons the world over. Sporting events may be the last things Americans get back as they reopen their economy. They should use the extra time to double down on civics education.

This crisis has laid bare just how fragile and unsteady the United States’ constitutional democracy is. Now, the country must get its house in order and prioritize its farthest-reaching hopes and aspirations. Americans had all the tools needed to respond to this crisis, except for the very thing that would have given them reason to use them: a common purpose. Let the search for one begin.

Most students weren't thrilled with the idea, but some thought it not a bad notion. As a professor, I just like Ms. Allen's focus on improving civic education, especially for young people, which, as a professor of political science, and I can attest first hand, is dismal.

Watch:

 

Fergus M. Bordewich, Congress at War

At Amazon, Fergus M. Bordewich, Congress at War: How Republican Reformers Fought the Civil War, Defied Lincoln, Ended Slavery, and Remade America. 

James Oakes, The Crooked Path to Abolition

 At Amazon, James Oakes, The Crooked Path to Abolition: Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution.

How San Francisco Renamed Its Schools

Well, I meant to blog this story a couple of weeks ago, but no matter, because it just keeps getting worse.

Check out this interview with Gabriela López, of the San Francisco Board of Education, who's been in charge of the board's decision-making for the local school name changes (the "cancelling) at schools named after President Lincoln and Senator Feinstein, among others. *SMH.*

Here.

Baseball Legend Hank Aaron Has Died

I was just a kid, and Willie Mays was my favorite at the time (after leaving the S.F. Giants, he had just one more year or so with the N.Y. Mets before retiring), so I can't say I'm a "Henry Aaron" fanatic. I also wasn't watching that day, at Dodger Stadium, when he hit #715.

But Aaron's story is absolutely phenomenal and historic. Just reading his obit, I've been literally shaking my head at what the man dealt with in his life and career.

In any case, here's his NYT obituary (I know, I know, but FWIW), "Hank Aaron, Home Run King Who Defied Racism, Dies at 86":

Hank Aaron, who faced down racism as he eclipsed Babe Ruth as baseball’s home run king, hitting 755 homers and holding the most celebrated record in sports for more than 30 years, has died. He was 86.

The Atlanta Braves, his team for many years, confirmed the death on Friday in a message from its chairman, Terry McGuirk. No other details were provided.

Playing for 23 seasons, all but his final two years with the Braves in Milwaukee and then Atlanta, Aaron was among the greatest all-around players in baseball history and one of the last major league stars to have played in the Negro leagues.

But his pursuit of Ruth’s record of 714 home runs proved a deeply troubling affair beyond the pressures of the ball field. When he hit his 715th home run, on the evening of April 8, 1974, against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, he prevailed in the face of hate mail and even death threats spewing outrage that a Black man could supplant a white baseball icon.

Aaron was routinely brilliant, performing with seemingly effortless grace, but he had little flash, notwithstanding his nickname in the sports pages, Hammerin’ Hank. He long felt that he had not been accorded the recognition he deserved.

He played for teams far beyond the news media centers of New York and the West Coast, and his Braves won only two pennants and a single World Series championship, those coming long before he approached Ruth’s record.

Aaron did not enjoy the idolatry accorded the Yankees’ Mickey Mantle or match the exuberance and electric presence of the Giants’ Willie Mays, his outfield contemporaries and rivals for acclamation as the greatest ballplayer in major league history.

But when he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982, his first year of eligibility, Aaron received 97.8 percent of the vote from baseball writers, second at the time only to Ty Cobb, who was inducted in 1936.

Aaron grew up in Alabama amid rigid segregation and its humiliations, and he faced abuse from the stands while playing in the South as a minor leaguer. Years later, he felt that Braves fans were largely indifferent or hostile to him as he chased Ruth’s record. And the baseball commissioner at the time, Bowie Kuhn, was not present when he hit his historic 715th home run.

All that, and especially the hate mail that besieged him, seared Aaron for years to come.

As the 20th anniversary of his home run feat approached in the early 1990s, he told the sports columnist William C. Rhoden of The New York Times, “April 8, 1974, really led up to turning me off on baseball.”

“It really made me see for the first time a clear picture of what this country is about,” he said. “My kids had to live like they were in prison because of kidnap threats, and I had to live like a pig in a slaughter camp. I had to duck. I had to go out the back door of the ball parks. I had to have a police escort with me all the time. I was getting threatening letters every single day. All of these things have put a bad taste in my mouth, and it won’t go away. They carved a piece of my heart away.”

Aaron’s achievements went well beyond his home run prowess. In fact, he never hit as many as 50 homers in a single season.

He was a two-time National League batting champion and had a career batting average of .305. He was the league’s most valuable player in 1957, when the Milwaukee Braves won their only World Series championship. He was voted an All-Star in all but his first and last seasons, and he won three Gold Glove awards for his play in right field.

Aaron combined with the Hall of Fame third baseman Eddie Mathews for 863 home runs during their 13 years together on the Braves, the most ever for two teammates.

Aaron remains No. 1 in the major leagues in total bases (6,856) and runs batted in (2,297); No. 2 in at-bats (12,364), behind Pete Rose; and No. 3 in hits (3,771), behind Rose and Cobb. He won the National League’s single-season home run title four times, though his highest total was only 47, in 1971. Matching his jersey number, he hit exactly 44 home runs in four different seasons.

At six feet tall and 180 pounds, Aaron was hardly the picture of a slugger, but he had thick, powerful wrists, enabling him to whip the bat out of his right-handed stance with uncommon speed.

“He had great forearms and wrists,” Lew Burdette, the outstanding Braves pitcher, recalled in Danny Peary’s oral history “We Played the Game” (1994). “He could be fooled completely and be way out on his front foot, and the bat would still be back, and he’d just roll his wrists and hit the ball out of the ballpark.”

Aaron was quick on the bases and in the outfield...

More at the link.

Cancel Abraham Lincoln?

Following-up, "The Canceling: America's Growing Political Crisis."

At LAT, "Cancel Abraham Lincoln? San Francisco grapples with the president’s legacy":

The statue sat like a red stain on the lawn in front of San Francisco City Hall. Abraham Lincoln’s chiseled face was covered in paint, his etched name highlighted in the bloody color at the base of the monument.

As San Francisco, like many parts of the country, grapples with how best to memorialize historic figures, the statue of the 16th president sat red-faced — literally — in front of the government building the day after Christmas.

City workers cleaned the sculpted artwork on Monday, said San Francisco County sheriff’s director of communications Nancy Hayden Crowley.

“The damage to the statue was superficial,” Crowley wrote in an email. “President Lincoln has been restored.”

But questions about a San Francisco-sized blot on Lincoln’s legacy remain.

Some social media users opined that the vandalism intentionally coincided with the 158th anniversary of the Dec. 26, 1862, hanging of 38 Native Americans on the president’s watch. According to the Associated Press, a U.S. military commission sentenced 303 Sioux fighters to execution, following the 1862 Dakota War, also known as the Sioux Uprising. Lincoln reportedly reviewed each case and decided there was evidence to convict 38 of them. The sentences of the remaining 265 were commuted.

Regina Brave, an elder in the Oglala Sioux Tribe, said the event’s history had been handed down among her people for generations. Living in South Dakota as an activist, the 79-year-old said she once supported the idea of tearing down Mt. Rushmore. But ultimately she concluded that monuments ought to remain intact, saying they are a useful way to remember bygone leaders — and their faults, including Lincoln’s.

“Hey, he’s dead,” Brave said. “But it’s worth remembering. That’s part of our history — to remember these events...

Well, at least somebody on the left has some common sense, but Ms. Regina really is brave!

Still more.

The Canceling: America's Growing Political Crisis

At the Other McCain, "Skepticism and Silence: ‘Cancel Culture’ and America’s Growing Political Crisis.

One of the things that separates 21st-century Americans from previous generations is a loss of liberty that few acknowledge. In particular, Americans have abandoned their First Amendment right to express their opinions, due to fear of what has become known as “cancel culture.”

Consider, for example, how one-sided the public discussion has been about removing Confederate monuments. In Virginia, for example, a number of communities — including the former Confederate capital of Richmond — have voted to rename Jefferson Davis Highway. What is remarkable about this is the near-total lack of vocal opposition to such projects. Arguments against this destructive iconoclasm are not difficult to make, but people are so afraid of being called “racist” that they are silent; this silence creates the false impression of a unanimous consensus in support of the radical “Black Lives Matter” agenda.

Fear of reprisal — indeed, mob violence — has introduced into our public discourse an element of dishonesty and hypocrisy. The consequence is a loss of trust. When people are compelled to endorse beliefs that they do not actually believe, they become suspicious and skeptical about the sincerity of others. One reason the news media are so widely despised in America is because partisan prejudice so controls what is reported in the media that every intelligent person recognizes their dishonesty...

Keep reading.

 

Post-George Floyd, Wave of 'Anti-Racist' Teaching Sweeps K-12 Schools Targeting 'Whiteness'

Colleges too, and big time. 

And as you know, I'll be writing quite a bit about this topic of "anti-racist" teaching indoctrination in the weeks and months to come, but unfortunately, it has to be done. 

At RCP Investigations. 

Also, "The Totalitarian Tendencies of the Woke."

BONUS: At the Other McCain, "The Anti-Anti-Racist Professor."

Harry Turtledove, Guns of the South

At Amazon, Harry Turtledove, Guns of the South.

Ward Moore, Bring the Jubilee

At Amazon,Ward Moore, Bring the Jubilee.