Tag: Virginia

Northam, Racism, & Infanticide

Prior to this past week, most people outside of Virginia wouldn’t have been able to identify Ralph Northam, the current governor of that state. He’s now made sure that everyone who pays any attention at all to politics knows who he is. Name recognition, though, is not always a plus. When a photo surfaced from a yearbook from back in 1984 presumably showing Northam as either the person wearing a KKK robe or in blackface, the alarms went up all… Read more »

Historic Virginia

I just finished eight days of showing students around some of the most important historical sites in Virginia, specifically those related to the founding of the nation. Where did we go and what did we see? Here’s an overview. We began in Jamestown, where all things British America began. An excellent guide explained not only the history of the founding of the colony, but also took us to where the archaeological digs continue, while discussing the significance of the ongoing… Read more »

The Productive Year Ahead

Later this week, I’ll begin showing students around some of Virginia’s best historic sites. I’ll be staying in Williamsburg, one of my favorite places on the planet. The historic colonial area always attracts me. We’ll also tour Jamestown’s original site, the re-created Jamestown settlement, Yorktown, Monticello (Jefferson’s home), Mt. Vernon (Washington’s home), and sites in Richmond (Virginia capitol, John Marshall’s house, St. John’s church, where Patrick Henry delivered his “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” oration). That’s just the… Read more »

Making Life Difficult: It’s Disgusting

“It’s disgusting.” Who said that? A National Parks ranger when asked to comment on the directives the National Park Service has received from the Obama administration with respect to shutting down national monuments and parks and closing off access to the public. Here’s his full quote: It’s a cheap way to deal with the situation. We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting. I commented last week on the shutdown of the WWII… Read more »

Virginia’s Historic State House

Over the past week, I’ve been chronicling my visit back to Virginia, where I’ve spent most of my adult life, and the tour I led for students. One more post about that, then I’ll get back to some commentary on the latest developments causing agitation in the nation’s capital. For today, I’d like to focus on Virginia’s capital, Richmond, and the Capitol at its center. I didn’t take this photo, obviously, and was kept from taking any on the outside… Read more »

The Pocahontas Moment

Most of my posts deal with current events, but as a historian, I want to highlight key moments in history. Today, for instance, is the anniversary of a special moment in American colonial history: the Powhatan princess Pocahontas married English settler John Rolfe in 1614. Why is this so important? Pocahontas’s father, Chief Powhatan, had tried to wipe out the Jamestown settlement by starvation just four years earlier. The two cultures weren’t meshing well at all. But when Rolfe and… Read more »