Ada Ferrer

It was a real privilege to do a deep dive into the history of Indigenous slavery, through a new digital archive called @natboundunbound.bsky.social. It felt like a really important topic to me, and a really important project. Thank you for reading and sharing!

Historians’ Amicus Brief in Trump v. Barbara Two historians and professors of legal history represented by Kendall Brill & Kelly LLP have filed a brief supporting a challenge to President Trump’s executive order purporting to end birthright citi...

« The historians’ brief — authored by Professor Martha S. Jones and Professor Kate Masur — centers on the pre–Civil War advocacy of free Black Americans for a broad and inclusive principle of birthright citizenship. » www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...

Letter | No, Mellon Is Not Part of Some Woke Conspiracy Tyler Austin Harper mischaracterizes good grantmaking, writes Michael S. Roth.

THE PRESIDENT OF WESLEYAN ATE TYLER AUSTIN HARPER UP LOL

“Harper follows in the grand tradition of Senator Jesse Helms in mocking areas of research he expects will be unpopular with the general public.”

www.chronicle.com/blogs/letter...

Very sad news.

The universe genuinely is bigger than the bad things that are happening to us! So today is a good day to preorder my new book The Edge of Space-Time, which urges readers to see the cosmos through new eyes and in the process learn skills we use to resist authoritarianism. #BookSky

This is an awesome rule 👏🏽

Jim Bourg (@publicimpactnews) Excellent and impressive work, Pablo, as usual!

substack.com/@publicimpac...

I did the lawyers. I ain't got time for all these members of congress. <ducking>

Federal agent secured gun from Minn. man before fatal shooting, videos show A Post analysis of videos sheds light on the encounter that left 37-year-old Alex Pretti dead.

Federal agent secured gun from Minn. man before fatal shooting, videos show wapo.st/49Zqv1L

Philadelphia sues Trump administration over removal of slavery exhibit from public park Outraged critics accused President Donald Trump of “whitewashing history” on Friday after the National Park Service removed an exhibit on slavery at Philadelphia's Independence National Historical Par...

"Empty bolt holes and shadows are all that remains on the brick walls where explanatory panels were displayed . . . One woman cried silently at their absence. . . . A hand-lettered sign said 'Slavery was real.'" . . . It's all connected.
bit.ly/4q21GI9

"A litie gem of a book.... Sharp, brilliant, perfect, and created to last" -Inside Higher Ed The Allure of the Archives Arlette Farge Foreword by Natalie Zemon Davis

Sometimes you finally read a book you’ve been meaning to read for years, and it is just as good as you anticipated. “The Allure of the Archives” is such a gem! Beautiful read for those of us who love the archives.

It's King Day! Don't Allow Them to Memory Hole What It Means

My new piece is up!

open.substack.com/pub/sherrily...

KEEPER OF MY KIN | Kirkus Reviews A historian explores the toll of immigration on her Cuban American family.

www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews...

MY NEW BOOK’S FIRST REVIEW. And it has a star. #SoGrateful

Cuba (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize): An American History Cuba (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize): An American History: Ferrer, Dr. Ada: 9781501154553: Books - Amazon.ca

If you'd like some sort of historical context on why this Venezuela / Greenland stuff isn't at all surprising, 'Cuba: An American History' by @aditaferrer.bsky.social is an excellent read.

It details a lot regarding the Monroe Doctrine, the Platt Amendment, etc.

amzn.to/4sspojm

So happy and honored to see forthcoming book, Keeper of My Kin, on this list and among such company!

When the 18th-century writer Samuel Johnson asked why “we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes,” he was identifying no mere contradiction, but liberty as it was imagined by men who owned other human beings as property. Slaveholders such as John Calhoun saw slavery as inseparable from their own freedom, and they worried that the false doctrine of abolitionism would eliminate that freedom away. “Already it has taken possession of the pulpit, of the schools, and, to a considerable extent, of the press; those great instruments by which the mind of the rising generation will be formed,” Calhoun said. (It seems the “woke mind virus” was telling lies about the great and benevolent institution of American slavery as far back as two centuries ago.) Defending slavery, however, required invasive uses of power, such as banning antislavery literature and returning escaped Black people to bondage. Many white Americans in the 19th century began to understand that the “Slave Power” curtailed their freedoms as well. And this is what many people forget: Systems of domination rarely spread their blessings widely. The Redemption-era revocation of Black freedoms didn’t result in prosperity for white people writ large, but a Gilded Age in which the upper classes gained unfathomable wealth and economic crises left millions destitute. The nation may have held on to white supremacy, but it also got low wages, a threadbare welfare state, and a society dominated by the rich. Everyone else was too divided by race and class to challenge them.

The right, along the Roberts Court, is trying to nullify the Reconstruction amendments guaranteeing equality under the law, in order to restore the Antebellum Constitution, which envisions “liberty” as an eternal aristocracy of race and class (gift link) www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

News Team, Thank you for the notes and texts. I apologize for not reaching out earlier. I learned on Saturday that Bari Weiss spiked our story, INSIDE CECOT, which was supposed to air tonight. We (Ori and I) asked for a call to discuss her decision. She did not afford us that courtesy/opportunity. Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now-after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one. We requested responses to questions and/or interviews with DHS, the White House, and the State Department. Government silence is a statement, not a VETO. Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story. If the administration's refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we

have effectively handed them a "kill switch" for any reporting they find inconvenient. If the standard for airing a story becomes "the government must agree to be interviewed," then the government effectively gains control over the 60 Minutes broadcast. We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state. These men risked their lives to speak with us. We have a moral and professional obligation to the sources who entrusted us with their stories. Abandoning them now is a betrayal of the most basic tenet of journalism: giving voice to the voiceless. CBS spiked the Jeffrey Wigand interview due to legal concerns, nearly destroying the credibility of this broadcast. It took years to recover from that "low point." By pulling this story to shield an administration, we are repeating that history, but for political optics rather than legal ones.

We have been promoting this story on social media for days. Our viewers are expecting it. When it fails to air without a credible explanation, the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship. We are trading 50 years of "Gold Standard" reputation for a single week of political quiet. I care too much about this broadcast to watch it be dismantled without a fight. Sharyn

Per NY Times’s Michael Grynbaum on X, this is Sharyn Alfonsi’s email to her “60 Minutes” colleagues in full:

There is no law that requires US citizens to carry ID. To ask someone on the street to prove US citizenship is to demand to see a passport or birth certificate, something many people don’t have or don’t carry. The masked men targeting people of color know that.

The 85-Year-Old Activist Trying to Block the Trump Presidential Library Plan

The 85-Year-Old Activist Trying to Block the Trump Presidential Library Plan www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/u...

My big news: coming May 19 from @scribnerbooks.bsky.social the book I always knew I would have to write. More info and pre-order links here:

www.simonandschuster.com/books/Keeper...

He Raised Three Marines. His Wife Is American. The U.S. Wants to Deport Him.

#LatinoHeritageMonth #HispanicHeritageMonth.

He Raised Three Marines. His Wife Is American. The U.S. Wants to Deport Him. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/17/u...

My home Internet went kersplat, and I raced to the library for its wifi and ample table outlets for my work laptop. I worked for five hours straight.
LIBRARIES.
They have been there for me all my life.

The New Yorker…

This is fantastic!

Thank you! And happy birthday to him!

Erasing History: Project 2025's Vision for Tribal Nations The implementation of Project 2025 isn’t just reshaping policy—it’s erasing history. From the Pentagon’s removal of Navajo Code Talkers to the deletion of federal reports on missing Indigenous women, ...

Navajo Code Talkers erased from Pentagon records. Tribal flags stripped from public buildings. Reports on missing Indigenous women deleted. Under Project 2025, the U.S. is reclassifying Native sovereignty as “DEI”—a calculated strategy to enable cultural erasure.

Read more:

Spectacular view of 100,000 people attending the #HandsOff march in NYC

The White House Frames the Past by Erasing Parts of It As the Trump administration pulls government websites and data offline, it is selectively stripping away the public record, letting the president declare his own version of history, archivists and his...

www.nytimes.com/2025/04/05/t...