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What a wonderful column, Dr Richardson. I hold an MA in History, and 42 years ago I taught college history in NH for 17 years as an adjunct. I moved south 25 years ago, but I still lecture at senior centers and to senior groups here in South Florida. I recently came upon your magnificent work, "How the South Won the Civil War", and I had an epiphany. I knew facts -- the war, its aftermath, the end of Reconstruction, the lost cause, and the rise of post-bellum Jim Crow -- but I never "heard" them expressed so cogently as an argument that explained our political malaise in our day. It all fell into place. I now read your column with great interest and marvel at your ability to marshal facts, weave narratives, and present powerful insights. Thank you so much for your ongoing work.

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Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less. -C. S. Lewis

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And a president who did not want retribution for the South, but a chance to rebuild. Strong and wise leadership is never to be taken for granted.

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Thank you Heather for that important history. I have had some difficult mornings getting up for work but keep moving forward. That being said I have clean clothes, a shower and usually not a migraine. It is so impressive and amazing what we can do when we know what is right and persevere.

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As much as I love tonight's story and hope we gave people of that ilk in this time, I wanted to talk about the trial today. The pulmonologist was riveting in his clear expert testimony. It was amazing what he could conclude from the videos even the exact moment when George Floyd's life left him. And, how Chauvin pinned him down for another three minutes. He totally debunked any theory that there were drugs involved. He was amazing. I'm sure the defense is re-formating their defense strategy. I questioned MSNBC running the entire trial and I wasn't going to watch it but this caught my attention.

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Tears! This is what I wish I knew when I taught in public schools. Textbook companies gave us scooting little flecks of history very selectively. Contents were driven by the states that would purchase the largest number of books. When I retired , angry parents who listened to early Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck were pressuring building Principals to transfer sharp young Social Studies teachers into other subject matter for fear they were being too truthful with their students. If only there were more hours in the day, I wish I could have been personally more well-read. Between writing lesson plans, prepping to guide my students, grade their work, cook, clean and raise my family, personal reading time was a dream reserved for retirement. But now, I bet there are many young teachers reading Dr. Richardson's Letters. What a gift!

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Tell the rest of the story. Grant insisted Northern troops treat Lee and his troops with dignity and respect during the official surrender. No jeering or whooping and hollering. Lincoln and Grant fought to keep the country together so at the end of the war they wanted to build unity - not more division.

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Even though Lee signed the articles of surrender in April 1865, there are STILL some folks down here fightin' the damn Civil War...or War of Yankee Aggression...or The Late Unpleasantness. THEY didn't surrender and are still just basically "waiting for ammunition". If you've never read it, I HIGHLY recommend "Confederates in the Attic" by the late, and ever-so-great Tony Horwitz--though I would expect most of y'all have probably read it because this is a savvy group! He wanders all around the South exploring people's feelings on the war and what it means/meant to them. It's at times funny, poignant, and infuriating. But, he always manages to find some fascinating people and some interesting facts. His last book, "Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the American Divide" from 2019, the year of his death. In this book he retraces the epic 6,000 mile journey undertaken by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted across the South in 1850. He was traveling incognito and sending back dispatches to the NYT about various things going on in the South. Horwitz then compares the places Olmsted visited and wrote about to what they are now. It's quite a portrait of the contemporary American South. Though Lee surrendered, a lot of people for a long time afterward were still fighting the war figuratively, and some are to this day. I was brought up to not particularly like "Yankees", and I remember in grade school there was only maybe one kid from up north (Ohio) and he was pretty exotic to us--he talked funny, for starters! Ah, youth...of course by the time I hit high school kids from up north weren't so rare. I remember the first time I ventured north of the Ohio River to go to grad school in the Midwest, I thought I was in another country! Kind of odd, looking back...

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Sister Simone Campbell, an organizer of the famed Nuns on the Bus, is now featured on The Last Word w Lawrence O’Donell. This discussion, of two progressive and devout Catholics, reveals the social justice teachings also shared by President Biden. The friendship of the president and Sister Simone shines as O’Donell highlights a letter the president recently sent to the sister.

I feel if you are reading this, then you will appreciate this segment, at the very end of the program

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Awesome. I just joined, And I apologize for taking so long. I owe you more that I have given. Thank you so much Heather.

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As we deeply appreciate the comfortableness we can mostly take for granted--clean clothes, shoes that fit, food to eat, place to sleep, and basic safety--we are commemorating the Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust.

Survivors' memoirs document the horrors of grief, fear, the next Selection, chronic hunger, pain from beatings or torture, humiliation, fatigue, dysentery, typhus, itching from lice, hypervigilance, succumbing to deteriorate as a Muselmann who'd given up the will to live. As they say, it started with words. Then restrictions posted in the public square. Then more and more new laws. Fear of getting reported by your neighbor, or your own children.

Survivors' memoirs document perseverance of the human spirit, and the willingness to call upon incredible courage when a moment presented itself--be that moment stealing a potato, lying about your work skill, forging a work permit or identity paper or travel document, giving up your child to be smuggled to safety, hiding in a cellar or attic or literally underground in the forest, jumping off a train. Survivors' memoirs document the necessity of hope and faith in humanity, and forgiveness. Survivors' testimony supported accountability, prosecution, and culture change. L'Chaim.

https://www.archives.gov/news/topics/holocaust-remembrance-day

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Yesterday's and today's letters were history lessons. Thank you!

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My apologies if someone has already mentioned this. After reading Heather’s essays I find her words need to percolate in my brain for a while before I begin to draw connections. Thinking of Grant willing to feed 25,000 Confederate soldiers makes me think of Biden, willing to feed, wanting to feed, reaching out his hand to help all citizens of the United States in this time of need.

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In my personal view of our history, the American Century begins that day, April 8, 1865, at Appomattox Courthouse, and ends 99+ yrs later with the Gulf of Tonkin Incident; Aug. 4, 1964, the first great shining lie of the Vietnam War, with many more lies to follow.

It's sad to think how much greater we might have become had Lincoln lived through his second term and really ended the Civil War.

The optimist in me hopes we are beginning a new era, and finally ending the Civil War, with the Biden Administration, BLM, etc., and marked by the death rattles of the Republican Party; the party of Lincoln. A monumental irony there.

If we can really beat the pandemic, and Biden can get his infrastructure legislation through Congress more or less intact resulting in a burst of high-paying construction/manufacturing jobs that gains support from the white working class, (and the Republicans continue to let the public face of their party be clowns like Matt Gaetz,) the Democrats maybe can build on their congressional majority in the 2022 mid-term elections, bucking the historic trend. If this happens, I may start to believe a new era has started for our nation.

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The Civil War, our bloodiest, was won by abolitionist white and Negro Northerners, and lost by slave owning white Southerners, won by those with the belief that all men are created equal, and lost by those content to buy and sell human beings because they were Negro...

White history by white historians offers the big lie of omission to a collection of boring whites in comfortable denial... that’s playing out till this day and here by Dear Heather of white Maine.

That whites can talk about history without a word about Lee’s people’s banality in slavery ... is the insanity of racism today with a sanctimonious smile playing out daily in our still racist nation.

The greatest curse upon this nation is ignored, that curse is driving a just trial in Minneapolis and the unjust laws in Georgia and coming in 40 odd state legislatures packed with white racists, nation wide... all pandering to active white suprematists oblivious to the history of “Wilmington’s Lie, The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy” by David Zucchino, 2020, Atlantic Monthly Press.. white history by white historians recording color blind for whites to read that ignores justice on white campuses across the nation, ignoring white cops suffocating Black men, ignored by whites, everywhere... unless filmed by a Black teen girl...

Stay tuned, dear whites, one white racist in denial on that Minneapolis jury can destroy the nation’s inner cities... much like Flint, Michigan and dozens of others are destroying the Black minds of those crammed into our slums, liberally ignored by today’s whites.. white governors, white campus historians babysitting the whites of our still sick nation... content to read substack... not Wilmington’s Lie...

What will it take? We know the answer.. it’s 2021 and we are reverting to segregation and tokenism...with sanctimonious whites patting themselves on the back for nothing.

Reading this sanctimonious drivel that fusses over Dear Heather’s long nights is as sweet as it is revolting. Dear white as white can be Heather is in business to entertain the vestigial organ of her readership: the conscience, America’s endowed sleepwalkers..

Why not. FOX is our most popular and Tucker of St. George’s whore house is preeminent ... let’s hear it for America, land of the free.

Children in our slums are hungry tonight. Many are brain damaged.

Slavery ended... and never stopped.

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I read the Professor’s letter tonight after getting home early for once and, rather than walking the dogs or doing one of the nine loads of laundry that piled up while we waited for a new drain pump for our washing machine to be delivered, I poured myself a glass of wine and fell asleep at 5:15pm watching Blue Bloods. I want one ounce of Grant’s courage, to persevere, to keep going. Thank goodness I am part of so many communities: my school (employer), my extended family, my friends, the liberal leaders in my city, in Minnesota and those representing us in Washington D. C, this group of readers on substack. My communities have people with Grant’s tenacity and commitment. Those people lead those of us with less readiness. I am less ready, less tenacious, but oh so grateful for good, ethical, courageous leaders.

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