1920s Culture Wars – An Angry Backlash to Social Change?

If you’ve been reading along in my series of posts about the 1920s, you’ve realized that a great deal happened in America. (This link will take you to the first post.) Between automobiles, the revolution in consumer goods, Prohibition, and changes to pop culture, the 1920s were busy. One thing I’ve not discussed yet, however, […]

The Clinton Massacre of 1875 – A Bloody Key to American History

A few events in history are so emblematic of their times that we rightly call them keys to understanding something larger. The Clinton Massacre of 1875 is one such event. Clinton was a small town in Mississippi in 1875. In September of that year, Republican supporters organized a large rally in support of their candidates […]

The Bloody Sunday Attack at Pettus Bridge – Who Was Edmund Pettus?

The Bloody Sunday Attack at Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, is a signature event from the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. It proved important enough to feature in a Hollywood movie, Selma, that appeared over the winter of 2014-15. While the Bloody Sunday attack at Pettus Bridge is famous, the person for whom […]

Thaddeus Stevens, the Man Who Should be an Icon

It’s unlikely you know much about Thaddeus Stevens. Unless you enjoyed his portrayal by Tommy Lee Jones in the 2012 movie Lincoln, you may not recognize his name at all. This is unfortunate and deserves to be rectified. Thaddeus Stevens is, in fact, one of the great American statesman of the mid-19th century. Before the […]

Robert Moses and the Civil Rights Movement

Most movements have a moral philosophy that motivates participants, and the Civil Rights Movement was no exception. The idea of nonviolence espoused so eloquently by Martin Luther King, Jr., was the ethos underpinning much of the Black struggle of the 1950s and 1960s. Along with King, one of the movement’s best philosophical minds belonged to […]