To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. She became known as the little girl who seemed to be carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. For the better part of a year, six-year-old Ruby Bridges walked to school in the company of armed federal marshals who were assigned to protect her. William Frantz Elementary in New Orleans, like many… Read more »
There is general consensus that the finest ceramics Western artisans have ever produced came from the workshop of Josiah Wedgwood. Wedgwood (1730-1795) was either the 11th or 13th child born into his middle class British family – historians still debate the point. What no one debates is that his artistic gifts and entrepreneurial spirit became powerful drivers in the Industrial… Read more »
One of the most significant calls to social transformation in American history sprang from a mood of deep frustration. It was also written in a jail cell. Martin Luther King, Jr., a young Baptist pastor from Atlanta, had come to Birmingham, Alabama in April 1963 to help coordinate non-violent marches and sit-ins to protest racism in the city known as… Read more »
Today marks the first celebration of America’s twelfth federal holiday. On June 18, 1865, Union soldiers under the command of Major General Gordon Granger landed at Galveston, Texas. He brought news of something that had happened more than two months earlier: Confederate General Robert E. Lee had surrendered his Army of Virginia at Appomattox. The Civil War had officially ended…. Read more »
The year 1968 had already been traumatic. In January, the Tet Offensive had awakened America to the hopelessness of Vietnam. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were felled by assassins’ bullets during the spring. The summer was racked by rioting and protests, Czechoslovakia’s futile revolt against the Soviet Union, and the chaos of the Democratic National Convention in… Read more »
