AHA in the News: 2020 Archive
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AHA Executive Director Writes Op-Ed on Preserving Presidential Records (December 2020)
Dec 23, 2020 -James Grossman, AHA executive director, and Richard Immerman, chair of the AHA’s NARA Review Committee, wrote an op-ed in The Hill regarding AHA-endorsed legislation introduced by Sen. Christopher Murphy (D-CT) that would define what constitutes a presidential record, as well as bolster the oversight role of the Archivist of the United States. “Access to presidential records is essential to our basic understanding of who we are, and how our government works,” wrote Grossman and Immerman. “Transparency and accountability are core values of a thriving democracy, and the ample access to its government records ... is a hallmark of its political culture.”
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AHA Executive Director Featured in Diverse: Issues in Higher Education (December 2020)
Dec 14, 2020 -AHA executive director Jim Grossman was interviewed for an article in Diverse: Issues in Higher Education regarding the Virginia Military Institute’s decision to relocate a General “Stonewall” Jackson statue to the Virginia Museum of the Civil War.
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AHA’s Lawsuit Covered by News Organizations (December 2020)
Dec 10, 2020 -The AHA’s participation as plaintiffs in a lawsuit regarding the Presidential Records Act has received coverage from Bloomberg, CBS News, The Hill, Salon, Washington Post, Axios, and the Associated Press. The AHA and other plaintiffs seek to ensure that the current administration complies with, and the National Archives provides oversight for, the charge of the Presidential Records Act to preserve “complete copies” of presidential records, including relevant metadata of digital materials.
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AHA Executive Director Featured in Montgomery Advertiser (December 2020)
Dec 08, 2020 -AHA executive director Jim Grossman was recently interviewed in the Montgomery Advertiser. Grossman discussed the history of Confederate monuments and their origins in the 1890s as monuments to white supremacy.
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AHA Executive Director and Teaching Division Vice President Encourage a “GI Bill” for Essential Workers (November 2020)
Nov 16, 2020 -On Veterans Day, in an article in the Washington Post’s Made By History section, AHA executive director Jim Grossman and AHA Teaching Division vice president Laura McEnaney (Whittier Coll.) encouraged lawmakers to support the equivalent of a “GI Bill” for front-line COVID-19 workers. “To express national gratitude,” they wrote, “requires rewarding national service as part of the social contract in exchange for sacrifice.”
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AHA Executive Director Writes Editorial in The Hill (November 2020)
Nov 10, 2020 -AHA executive director Jim Grossman recently wrote an editorial in The Hill discussing the November 2 executive order, “On Establishing the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission.” Grossman argues that the order “rests on caricatures of history education and remarkable ignorance about how historical knowledge evolves and finds its way into classrooms.”
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AHA Executive Director Featured in Article on Renaming Public Places (October 2020)
Oct 27, 2020 -AHA executive director Jim Grossman was recently featured in an article on renaming public places written for Stateline, the online news service for the Pew Charitable Trusts. “We are learning the history we thought happened didn’t happen the way we thought. That happens all the time,” Grossman said. “Revisionism isn’t lying or making it up. There’s new evidence.“
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AHA Leadership Featured in Chicago Tribune (October 2020)
Oct 05, 2020 -AHA executive director James Grossman and former AHA Teaching Division vice president Elaine Carey (Purdue Univ. Northwest) were featured in a Chicago Tribune article regarding the September 17 “White House Conference on American History.” Grossman remarked that "history is not there to make people feel good-history is there to make people understand where we are and how we got here.” Carey articulated the challenges of defining “patriotic education” and noted, “history is complex and messy, and there isn't one story.” The AHA’s Statement on the Recent “White House Conference on American History” can be viewed here.
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AHA Executive Director Publishes Editorial in New York Daily News (October 2020)
Oct 01, 2020 -AHA executive director Jim Grossman recently published a New York Daily News editorial commenting on the recent “White House Conference on American History.” “Genuinely patriotic history education is not cheerleading or nationalist propaganda,” Grossman writes. “A meaningful commitment to the greatness of our nation requires honesty about the past, distant and recent.” The AHA's Statement on the Recent "White House Conference on American History" can be viewed here.
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AHA Participates in Civil War History “Call to Action” (September 2020)
Sep 30, 2020 -The AHA’s Statement on the “White House Conference for American History” was recently featured in a New York Times piece covering the important “Call to Action” event organized by the Journal of the Civil War Era and supported by the AHA. This event saw historians go to “a dozen Civil War-related sites across the country, from New York to Nashville to St. Louis,” where they “simultaneously gathered with signs highlighting distortions in existing plaques and memorials, or things that simply weren't being spoken of at all.”
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AHA Executive Director Quoted in Star Tribune (September 2020)
Sep 09, 2020 -AHA executive director Jim Grossman was recently quoted in a Star Tribune article, “George Floyd? Donald Trump? Hero statue nominations are in,” by Ellen Knickmeyer, Alan Suderman, and Jim Anderson (August 31, 2020).
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AHA Executive Director Interviewed in The Tennessean (July 2020)
Jul 30, 2020 -AHA executive director Jim Grossman was interviewed in The Tennessean's web segment on “The Confederate Reckoning: Why monuments and symbols are being removed,” by Mike Fant (July 30, 2020).
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AHA Executive Director Quoted in Washington Post (July 2020)
Jul 20, 2020 -AHA executive director Jim Grossman was quoted in three Washington Post articles in July 2020.
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AHA Executive Director Quoted on Removal of Monuments and Statues (July 2020)
Jul 14, 2020 -AHA executive director Jim Grossman was quoted in a number of recent media articles on the debate over removing Confederate monuments and statues of Christopher Columbus. The articles include:
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AHA Executive Director Appeared on Wisconsin Institute for Public Policy and Service's Web Series (July 2020)
Jul 13, 2020 -AHA executive director Jim Grossman appeared in the Wisconsin Institute for Public Policy and Service's web series “Two Bald Guys” on the episode discussing “Rethinking Statues and the Meaning of American History.”
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AHA Executive Director Quoted on Proposed National Garden Monument (July 2020)
Jul 06, 2020 -AHA executive director Jim Grossman was quoted in several recent articles on President Trump's proposal to create a National Garden Monument.
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AHA Executive Director Quoted in TIME (June 2020)
Jun 15, 2020 -AHA executive director Jim Grossman was quoted in TIME magazine's "Confederate Statues Are Being Removed Amid Protests Over George Floyd's Death. Here's What to Know." Grossman contextualized the call for Confederate monuments to be removed from public spaces and discussed the history of such monuments as symbols of white supremacy.
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AHA Past President John McNeill Discusses Future of Historical Research (May 2020)
May 29, 2020 -Former AHA president John R. McNeill (Georgetown Univ.) was recently interviewed by the University of Manchester. In this interview, he discussed the future of the historical field and called for new interdisciplinary collaborations between historians and scientists.