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Republican debate.

What the Republican Debates Get Wrong About the Puritans

Pence invoked them at the Republican debates, but a true reckoning with their history provides a different vision of the nation’s future.

Martin Luther King’s Dream at 60

King offered Americans the choice between acting in accordance with the Constitution and resistance to change.  In many ways, we face the same choice today.
An overhead view of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

An Oral History of the March on Washington, 60 Years After MLK’s Dream

The Post interviewed March on Washington participants and voices from younger generations to tell the story of Aug. 28, 1963 and what it means now.
Harry Truman speaking at the 1948 Democratic National Convention.

The 1948 Democratic National Convention Is the Missing Link in Civil Rights History

Civil rights activists failed to expel an all-white, segregationist delegation. But their efforts foreshadowed later milestones in the fight for equality
Frederick Douglass.

Frederick Douglass and the “Faithful Little Band of Abolitionists” in Uxbridge, Massachusetts

This is the story of how a visit by Frederick Douglass to south-central Massachusetts, epitomizes the movement’s ability to spread in the region.
Jimmy Carter at a podium against the backdrop of an American flag.

Is Jimmy Carter Where Environmentalism Went Wrong?

Carter’s austerity was part of a bigger project. It didn’t really have much to do with environmentalism.
Women's rights activists Lucy Stone, Sojourner Truth, Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis, Lucretia Mott, Harriot Kezia Hunt, and Harriet Martineau.

Why the 1850 Worcester Women's Rights Convention Is a Vital Part of History

Women’s rights activism has shaped America for the better throughout our history, so why should colleges be banned from teaching it?
"Sinners In The Hands of an Angry God" title page.

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God: Annotated

Jonathan Edwards’s sermon reflects the complicated religious culture of eighteenth-century America, influenced not just by Calvinism, but Newtonian physics as well.
Illustration of William and Florence Kelley

The Father-Daughter Team Who Reformed America

Meet the duo who helped achieve the most important labor and civil rights victories of their age.
John F. Kennedy standing at a microphone, holding notes.

The Warning About Trump That JFK Never Got to Deliver

In his undelivered final speech, Kennedy warned the world against ‘voices preaching doctrines wholly unrelated to reality.’
The Lincoln Memorial with a crowd of people in front attending its dedication.

A Century Ago, the Lincoln Memorial's Dedication Underscored the Nation's Racial Divide

Seating was segregated, and the ceremony's only Black speaker was forced to drastically revise his speech to avoid spreading "propaganda."
The First Presbyterian Church at 48 Fifth Avenue, Greenwich Village, New York City.

The Sermon That Divided America

Harry Emerson Fosdick's ‘Shall the Fundamentalists Win?’
MLK giving his Vietnam speech

“Somehow This Madness Must Cease.”

Revisiting MLK Jr.’s sermon against the Vietnam War.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King, and Harry Belafonte near the podium at Montgomery March in 1965.

The “Radical” King and a Usable Past

On Martin Luther King's use of radical ideas to create an understanding of the history of America.
Collage of nature images and transcendentalists' faces, with flowers in Emerson's eyes.

Emerson and Thoreau’s Fanatical Freedom

Why do the Transcendentalists still have an outsize influence on American culture?
Cartoon of a large Ronald Reagan leaning on a small Jimmy Carter.

The Surprising Greatness of Jimmy Carter

A conversation with presidential biographers Jonathan Alter and Kai Bird.
A blurry pixilated image of Jimmy Carter on a television screen.

How the Ghost of Jimmy Carter’s Presidency Haunts Everything Biden Says About Supply Shortages

The last from-the-top critique of American overconsumption generated a massive backlash.
Men looking at conservative publications spread across a table

My Father and the Birth of Modern Conservatism

The inspiration for the 1964 “Extremism in the defense of liberty” speech he wrote for Barry Goldwater.
Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass and the Trouble with Critical Race Theory

A favorite icon of critical race theory proponents doesn’t say what they want him to say.
Oscar Wilde

How Oscar Wilde Won Over the American Press

When the U.S. first encountered the “Aesthetic Apostle."
Embarkation of the Pilgrims.

Puritanism as a State of Mind

Whatever the “City on a Hill” is, the phrase was not discovered by Kennedy or Reagan.
Stokely Charmichael with microphone, speaking to crowd. Supporters are standing behind him on stage.

The Birth of Black Power

Stokely Carmichael and the speech that changed the course of the civil rights movement.
Black and white photo of Barbara Bush, Lady Bird Johnson, Betty Ford, and Nancy Reagan, in 1994.

What Do We Want in a First Lady?

Lady Bird Johnson and Nancy Reagan grappled with the contradictions of a role that is at once public and private, superficial and serious.
Headshot of Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass and the American Project

It would be hard to blame him if he had lost faith in the republic.
A negative from a photo of Abraham Lincoln

How Historians Say Abraham Lincoln Is Quoted and Misquoted

As Presidents' Day approaches, historians look back at the most notable recent uses and misuses of "the Great Emancipator's" words.
African American men who escaped slavery at a US Army Camp.

John Wolcott Phelps’ Emancipation Proclamation

The story of John Wolcott Phelps and his push for Lincoln to emancipate all slaves.
Profile portrait of Zitkala-Sa, a Native American woman, with long hair and beaded necklaces

Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (Zitkala-Ša): Advocate for the "Indian Vote"

The story of Indigenous women’s participation in the struggle for women’s suffrage is highly complex, and Zitkala-Ša’s story provides an illuminating example.

Republicans Rediscover the Dangers of Selling Bunk to Their Constituents

Cynical public speech aimed at winning political power has consequences.

The Douglass Republic

How today's protests are struggling to reclaim the vision of the great abolitionist leader.
Bella Abzug with a group of women with strike signs.

'In a Perfectly Just Republic,' Bella Abzug – Born a Century Ago – Would Have Been President

Before presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, before Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, there was Congresswoman and firebrand Bella Abzug.

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