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Poll: 4 in 10 Southerners Still Side With Confederacy
By Lauren Frayer - AOL NewsA century and a half after the opening shots of the U.S. Civil War, nearly four in 10 Southerners say they still sympathize with the Confederacy. That's according to a new CNN poll released on the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, when Union soldiers raised a U.S. flag over Fort Sumter in South Carolina and the opening shots of the war rang out. The poll's results reveal that the war that divided the nation for four years still divides American public opinion today. In the South, 38 percent of respondents said they sympathize with the Confederacy, which lost the bloody war. ...
School District Apologizes for Mock Slave Auction in Class
By David Moye - AOL NewsA school district in central Ohio is apologizing for using a mock slave auction to teach social studies to elementary school students. During an American history lesson at Chapelfield Elementary School in Gahanna, Ohio, the class was divided into slaves and masters. Nikko Burton, an African-American student who was assigned to the role of the slave, told WBNS-TV that while being a slave didn't bother him at first, he soon became offended. WBNS Nikko Burton, 10, told WBNS-TV he was upset over being made to play a slave for a class at Chapelfield Elementary School in Gahanna, ...
Slaves Hid African Talismans at Maryland Plantation
By Mara Gay - AOL NewsThe greenhouse built on a storied Maryland plantation where Frederick Douglass once lived as a boy has long been celebrated as a shining example of European-style architecture. But the slaves who built it left their mark on the greenhouse as well, hiding African talismans in the structure to defend against evil spirits. The talismans were found at the Wye House Farm on Maryland's Eastern Shore, unearthed as part of a years-long dig by University of Maryland researchers that has found remarkable traces of the lives of the hundreds of slaves who once worked the plantation in ...
Tea Party Hero Rand Paul Favors Compromise But on His Terms
By Tom Diemer - Politics DailyFreshman Sen. Rand Paul, an advocate for the conservative tea party movement, waxed eloquent in his maiden Senate speech about the perilous nature of compromise, the national debt and the historic argument over slavery. Though he said there was no "moral equivalency," Paul compared the current debt debate to the 19th century slavery dispute between free states and slaves states. Paul (R-Ky.) has been assigned the Senate desk of Sen. Henry Clay, who also represented Kentucky and was known as the "Great Compromiser," in part for his efforts to settle the nation's differences over slavery ...
Michele Bachmann is a 'Balloon Head' in Chris Matthews' Book
By Joanne Bamberger - Politics Daily"Balloon Head" isn't the name of the upcoming Seth Rogen movie. But that's really what MSNBC's Chris Matthews called Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann for comments in a recent speech about when slavery ended in America. I don't disagree with Matthews' decision to call Bachmann out on her remarks that slavery was ended by the tireless efforts of the Founding Fathers. It's fair game to question elected representatives about whether they have a grasp on our country's history, as well as current events, to decide whether they're really qualified to represent their constituents. Bring on ...
Michele Bachmann Schooled by Anderson Cooper on Eve of Her State of the Union Rebuttal [VIDEO]
By Mary Phillips-Sandy - AOL NewsMinnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann has strong views on U.S. history. And according to CNN's Anderson Cooper, many of them are factually incorrect. On his Monday broadcast, Cooper zeroed in on Bachmann's recent remarks about diversity in America, in which she claimed that language differences and skin color "didn't matter" in the early days of our democracy and that America's founding fathers -- many of whom were slave Related Stories State of the Union Address [LIVE FEED] owners -- "worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States." "As good as that ...
Confronting Civil Rights History, Face to Face
By Mary C. Curtis - Politics DailyIn one of comedian's Louis C.K.'s routines, he jokes that even well-educated whites tend to indulge in a little wishful thinking when it comes to recalling our country's history. Each year, he says, they "add 100 years to how long ago slavery was," guessing the number at maybe 400, instead of realizing it's closer to 140 -- "two 70-year-old ladies living and dying back-to-back." And, he adds, it's not as though it's been "parades and presents ever since." It's funny, as most of the best jokes are, because it's rooted in truth. His words crossed my mind when I came face to face with B.B. ...
Human Trafficking Awareness Day: Millions Held in Forced Labor, US Says
By Torie Bosch - AOL NewsToday is national Human Trafficking Awareness Day, the annual calendar date meant to bring attention to the fact that human trafficking remains a serious problem both in the United States and abroad. According to Change.org, "Slavery is more affordable, more widespread and more entrenched in 2011 than it was in ancient Rome or the antebellum South of America. Modern-day slaves, also called human trafficking victims, can be male or female, from any country or representing any ethnicity." In the United States, human trafficking victims are forced to work in the sex trade, as domestic servants, ...
Secessionist Gala Opens Old Civil War Wounds
By Mara Gay - AOL NewsA "Secession Ball" marking the 150th anniversary of the moment South Carolina chose to secede from the United States drew protesters along with ballroom dancers in the latest episode of America's festering conflict over race and the history of the Civil War. About 300 South Carolinians, the vast majority of them white, gathered in hoop skirts and white gloves in Charleston where the ball took place Monday evening. The group, which included two state legislators, re-enacted the 1860 secession convention and sang "Dixie." They insisted that the event was meant to celebrate their ancestors, not ...
Hitchcock House: The Spirits of Abolition Live On
By Betty L. Derry - Politics DailyThe George B. Hitchcock House near the small farming community of Lewis in southwest Iowa has always been a subject of curiosity and intrigue. As late as 1983, the house was literally falling in upon itself, but more than a century earlier, during the mid-1800s, it was a station on the historic Underground Railroad -- a safe haven for fugitive slaves crossing into Iowa from the Kansas Territory. While the Hitchcock House meant sanctuary for many desperate black families seeking freedom in states to the north, it signaled danger to many residents of Cass County. Anyone shielding or aiding ...
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