What does web savvy have to do with historical thinking? Lots. Here's a meme that came across one of my social media feeds. 1/8 
I have innumerable gaps in my historical understanding, but 20,000 free Black people who died in a Union guarded "concentration camp" after the war? That's serious. How come I've never heard of it? 2/8
Interestingly, it's listed on a site, blackmainstreet.net 3/8
Even more interesting is that it is also listed on Southern heritage, Lost Causer sites. So, strange bedfellows--sites on Black history, and sites of Lost Causers that as a bonus offer memes on the "War of Northern Aggression." Hmm... 4/8
No Wikipedia entry; nothing on Google Scholar. (The 1st places I'd tell students to look if they came across something of this magnitude they'd never heard of.) Yet . . . it appeared on the news! WJTV, the CBS affiliate in Jackson Mississippi. 5/8
It turns out that it rests on the historical sleuthing of a researcher named Paula Westbrook. She can be found at this organization: 6/8
There you have it: How History is invented & spread in the digital age. Memes scream "This is Fact." Improbable bedfellows pick it up and spread it further. Instead of teaching kids how to check this stuff out, we're keeping their eyes glued to print textbooks. 7/8
Today's students are becoming historicized by what they see on their screens. Want to make history class relevant again? Teach them how to separate digital fact from fiction. You might even save democracy in the process. 8/8
