archives

The FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, on Aug. 8, 2022, has sparked a vigorous outcry from Trump and his allies. The details of the search are not clear, but reporting by The New York Times confirms that the search was “at least in part” for presidential records that Trump had taken from the White House and which were being sought by the National Archives and Records Administration. We asked Shannon Bow O'Brien, a scholar of the presidency at the University of Texas, Austin College of Liberal Arts, to discuss the history, law and customs associated with presidential archives. How do the archivists actually know what’s missing? Isn’t that hard to figure out? The archivists probably have a really keen idea of what is and what isn’t missing, based upon t...

The consequences of 400 years of the Atlantic slave trade are still felt today. Untangling the power structures and systemic racism that came with slavery is ongoing, with police brutality, memorials to slave owners and reparations forming part of the discussion. Statue of the Berbice slave revolt leader Kofi in Georgetown, Guyana. David Stanley - Flickr/WikiMedia, CC BY-SA But as the United Nations marks Dec. 2 as the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, a practice it notes “is not merely a historic relic,” modern society also has to reckon with another question: Who has access to the records about slavery’s past? I was struck by this question recently as I gave a Zoom talk in Guyana on my new book Blood on the River: A Chronicle of Mutiny and Freedom on the Wild Coast about ...

Tag: archives

How The FBI Knew What To Search For At Mar-A-Lago – The Presidential Records Act An Essential Tool For The National Archives And Future Historians