American history
A Republic, if we can keep it: Now is not the time for despair, but renewed and relentless action
Most of us have heard the tale: As Benjamin Franklin walked out of Independence Hall after the Constitutional Convention in 1787, someone shouted out, “Doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?” Franklin is said to have responded, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” This Independence Day, many Americans feel betrayed and […]
We have the tools to build an extraordinary civilization. We ought to use them
Too often sharing the news feels like being a messenger of madness. Every day, foundational democratic institutions suffer sustained assault while a corrupt, extremist right-wing tyranny over Ohio politics and policy reigns. As important as it is to chronicle the “first draft of history” by finding the facts and holding power to account, the American […]
Putin rewrote Ukraine’s history. Ohio Republicans are rewriting American history
Americans are united in denouncing Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, including how he has justified it with a warped view of Ukrainian history and has crushed Russian dissent. Meanwhile, in Ohio, Republicans recently held hearings on legislation promoting a warped view of American history while crushing potential dissent. Unlike Ukrainians, we’re not under deadly assault, […]
How the Vietnam War pushed MLK to embrace global justice, not only civil rights at home
By Anthony Siracusa, University of Colorado Boulder On July 2, 1964, Martin Luther King Jr. stood behind President Lyndon Baines Johnson as the Texan signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Although not the first civil rights bill passed by Congress, it was the most comprehensive. King called the law’s passage “a great […]
History Thursday: 1619
You’d have to be completely out of the political loop — and I suspect you aren’t, if you are reading this — to not have heard of “The 1619 Project” and the brouhaha surrounding it. A publication of journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones and The New York Times, “1619” first appeared in an August 2019 issue of […]
As American independence rang, a sweeping lockdown and mass inoculations fought off smallpox
By Woody Holton, University of South Carolina Many Americans of the founding era denounced government tyranny, celebrated the Declaration of Independence – and favored lockdowns and mass inoculations to combat a viciously contagious disease. Unchecked, smallpox kills more than one in 10 of its victims, leaving many of the rest blind, disfigured and sometimes sterile. […]
Critical race theory: What it is and what it isn’t
By David Miguel Gray, University of Memphis U.S. Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana sent a letter to fellow Republicans on June 24, 2021, stating: “As Republicans, we reject the racial essentialism that critical race theory teaches … that our institutions are racist and need to be destroyed from the ground up.” Kimberlé Crenshaw, a law […]