Sputnik
FORTY YEARS AGO THIS MONTH the Soviet Union orbited a “man-made moon” whose derisive chirp persuaded Americans they’d already lost a race that had barely begunStephen BatesOctober 1997 IT WASN’T THE...
View ArticleBack To The Barricades
For the first time in a generation, student activism is on the rise. Do these new protesters have anything like the zeal, the conviction, and the clout of their famous 1960s predecessors?Joshua...
View ArticleAre Our Liberties In Peril?
Facing a nearly invisible enemy, we all may be subjected to new kinds of government scrutiny. But past wars suggest the final result may be greater freedom.Joshua ZeitzNovember/December 2001Almost as...
View ArticleThe Postwar Years 1945 To 1974
Douglas BrinkleyNovember/December 2004In his kaleidoscopic novel U.S.A., a trilogy published between 1930 and 1936, John Dos Passos offered a descriptive line that has always stayed with me. America,...
View ArticleModern Times From 1974
Richard ReevesNovember/December 2004This is a journalist’s list. My reading (and knowledge) is greatly influenced by the events of the day, the time, the era. My reading and my work are often one and...
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Boomer Century
What’s going to happen when the most prosperous, best-educated generation in history finally grows up? (And just how special are the baby boomers?)Joshua ZeitzOctober 2005Just a matter of weeks from...
View Article“Tired Of Giving In”
The Montgomery Bus Boycott and its legacyNovember/December 2005December 1, 1955, was a cool, drizzly night in Montgomery. James F. Blake, a veteran of World War II and a veteran bus driver, was...
View Article1964 - The Year The Sixties Began
Viewing a transformation that still affects all of us—through the prism of a single yearJoshua ZeitzOctober 2006It has been called the “burned-over decade,” a “dream and a nightmare,” the “definitive...
View Article1964 The Year At A Glance
October 2006 January 11 Surgeon General Luther L. Terry releases his report on cigarette smoking. January 16 Hello, Dolly! opens at the St. James Theater in New York City. January 23 The Twenty-fourth...
View ArticleKing, Obama, And The Great American Dialogue
What would Martin Luther King Jr.—had he been alive today—thought of our latest president’s oratory?Clayborne CarsonSpring 2009Standing in the cold with 2 million others near the Capitol as Barack...
View ArticleThe Summer Of Our Discontent
Although marred by the grisly murders of three young activists, the Freedom Summer of 1964 brought revolutionary changes to Mississippi and the nationBruce WatsonSummer 2010On the first day of summer...
View ArticleKing Maker
During demonstrations in Birmingham, Martin Luther King Jr. took perhaps the most fateful decision made during the civil rights eraClayborne CarsonWinter 2010On April 12, 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama,...
View ArticleSit-in At The Woolworth’s
A new Greensboro museum celebrates the courage of four young black men 50 years agoPhilip KopperSpring 2010Winter weather canceled the sold-out gala banquet to celebrate the opening of the...
View ArticleFrom Civil War to Civil Rights
J.R. Clifford fought his real battles in the courtroomHenry Louis Gates Jr.Summer 2010My paternal grandfather, Edward St. Lawrence Gates, was buried on July 2, 1960. After the burial my father showed...
View ArticleGrowing Up Colored
The noted writer and educator tells of his boyhood in the West Virginia town of Piedmont, where African Americans were second-class citizens but family pride ran deep.Henry Louis Gates Jr.Summer...
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