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Bill Black

Bill Black is a history teacher in Houston and an editor for Contingent. He holds a PhD in history from Rice University, where he studied religion, nationalism, and slavery in the 19th-century Ohio Valley.

Features

Blood on Our Hands

By Bill Black | December 7, 2023

What did Truman and Oppenheimer actually say in that room?

Features

Ain’t I Some Pumpkins?

By Bill Black | February 26, 2023

Soon after he was elected, Abraham Lincoln received a rather bizarre letter.

Features

When Christmas Started Creeping

By Bill Black | November 7, 2022

Christmas starts earlier every year — or does it?

Features

The Strange Case of Booker T. Washington’s Birthday

By Bill Black | April 5, 2021

If Booker T. Washington never knew when he was born, how are we so sure about it now?

Shorts

A Frontier Preacher

By Bill Black | February 29, 2020

They understand not, mistake it all for some vulgar buckskin jaunt.

What is Contingent?

Stuck

By Bill Black | September 7, 2019

Why did we become historians? Well what if we hadn’t?

Postcards

A Postcard From Philadelphia

By Bill Black | June 7, 2019

It was a family trip.

Features

From #TakeEmDown to #TakeEmOn

By Bill Black | May 27, 2019

She led the movement against Memphis’s Confederate monuments, and now she’s running for mayor. An interview with Tami Sawyer.

Shorts

“No One’s Ever Really Gone”

By Bill Black | April 17, 2019

It is easy to forget, even for historians, that the future does not exist.

Mailbag

What Are the Different Kinds of College Faculty?

By Bill Black | March 9, 2019

Their jobs and salaries may differ, but you should still call them “Professor.”

Mailbag

What Does “Contingency” Mean?

By Bill Black | March 9, 2019

When are you supposed to call your instructor a professor?

Features

Did the Left Think Watergate Was a Distraction?

By Bill Black | March 6, 2019

Was the Left as skeptical about Watergate as it is today about the Trump-Russia story?

Updates

Bill’s Contingent Story

By Bill Black | January 14, 2019

No one’s going to do it for us.

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