On April 2nd, Virginia Governor Robert F. McDonnell declared April “Confederate History Month.” His proclamation did not mention slavery. Anita Kumar of The Washington Post writes that “McDonnell said he left out any reference to slavery . . . because he wanted to include issues he thought were most ‘significant’ to Virginia. He also said the document was designed to promote tourism in the state.” The original proclamation, which Washington Post writer Robert McCartney describes as “effectively endors[ing] the South’s cause in the Civil War, . . . said ‘the people of Virginia’ joined the Confederacy in a war ‘for independence.’ . . . It urged reflection on their ‘sacrifices.’ ” Sheila Johnson, co-founder of Black Entertainment Television, “condemned the proclamation, calling it ‘insensitive’ to Virginia’s complicated and painful history. ‘If Virginians are to celebrate their ‘shared history,’ as this proclamation suggests, then the whole truth of this history must be recognized and not evaded,’ ” Kumar reports. On April 7th, after receiving an enormous amount of criticism, McDonnell apologized, conceding that he made “ ‘a major omission.’ ” McDonnell has added language to the proclamation that says “slavery ‘was an evil and inhumane practice that deprived people of their God-given inalienable rights and all Virginians are thankful for its permanent eradication from our borders.’ ” As Frederick Douglass said in 1878, “there was a right side and a wrong side in the late war, which no sentiment ought to cause us to forget.”
Facing Today
Facing Today helps educators connect the study of history to issues in our world today. We select current websites, articles, films and blogs that reflect universal themes, such as identity, membership and participation, represented in our scope and sequence. Each media resource is linked to related Facing History materials, including study guides, videos and lessons.
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April 9, 2010
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April 6, 2010
The week of April 6th begins a period of mourning in Rwanda. Sixteen years ago, on April 6, 1994, the genocide began. The immediate catalyst for the genocide was the shooting down of a plane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi. The genocide would rage for 100 days from 8:23 pm on April 6 when the plane was shot down.
Over the past sixteen years, more information has emerged about the genocide itself as well as the international community's failure to respond. One of the people at the forefront of that work was the late Alison Des Forges. Des Forges knew the Great Lakes region for decades, having lived there as a graduate student and then written her dissertation on the region. Prior to the genocide she was working as a consultant for Human Rights Watch, an international non-governmental organization. She had been paying close attention to the warning signs prior to April and tried desperately to stir the international community. It was to Des Forges that the then National Security Advisor to President Clinton said "to make more noise."
In this clip from "Confronting Evil" Des Forges discusses the genocide, the events leading to it, the international failure to respond as well as the implications of the genocide on Rwandans and on Rwanda today.
Des Forges reminds us that what happened in Rwanda was a genocide, "...fully as modern as the Holocaust in the sense that it was state organized and state driven." She then goes on to ask why the numbers of people killed matter, "...must there be a million to cross a threshold of terror?"
If you have more time to explore the genocide in Rwanda, please consider using Greg Barker's documentary "Ghosts of Rwanda" which you can borrow from our resource library. You can also link to clips and transcripts from the website.
The "Confronting Evil" clip also provides context for the role of propaganda and particularly the use of radio prior and during the genocide.
Finally, on April 14, PBS will air the documentary "Worse Than War." The film will provide substantial opportunities to understand genocide more deeply as well as scholar Daniel Goldhagen's analysis of how to stop it. -
March 29, 2010
A mob, by definition, is different from a crowd. According to Random House Dictionary, a mob is “a disorderly or riotous crowd of people” or “a crowd bent on or engaged in lawless violence.” Despite the definition of a mob, Bill Wasik did not foresee flash mobs turning into crowds bent on lawless violence when he introduced the notion seven years ago. The New York Times quotes Wasik as saying that “the mobs started as a kind of playful social experiment meant to encourage spontaneity and big gatherings to temporarily take over commercial and public areas simply to show that they could.” Individuals in contact via text messaging and social networking sites like Twitter would suddenly gather in large groups for “impromptu pillow fights in New York, group disco routines in London, and even a huge snowball fight in Washington.” But flash mobs have since become more aggressive and violent. In Philadelphia, “hundreds of teenagers have been converging downtown for a ritual that is part bullying, part running of the bulls: sprinting down the block, the teenagers sometimes pause to brawl with one another, assault pedestrians or vandalize property.” Last weekend another flash mob hit—“ ‘It was like a tsunami of kids,’ said Seth Kaufman,” a pizza delivery man who sustained gashes on his arm and back, and bruises from being punched and kicked while trying to prevent a rowdy crowd from entering the restaurant. According to The New York Times, “the ad hoc gangs have scared many pedestrians off the streets.” Responding to the incidents, Mayor Michael A. Nutter said, “ ‘This is bad decision making by a small group of young people who are doing silly but dangerous stuff. . . . We intend to do something about it immediately.’ ”
