Trump Betrays His Promise to Protect and Fight for American Workers
By Lawrence Wittner
The Latest 
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HNN Introduces Classroom Activity Kits
Chelsea Connolly and Kyla Sommers
Combining the fields of journalism and history, these activity kits provide educators with complete downloadable lesson plans.
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Commemorating the 150th Anniversary of the 15th Amendment
Alan Singer
February 2020 is the 150th anniversary of the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution declaring “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
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Abolishing the Electoral College Requires the Unanimous Consent of Every State in the Union
Robert Hardaway
The Founders were right: the Electoral College ensures small states and minority groups matter in our democracy.
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Bernie Sanders, Social Democracy, and Democratic Socialism
Gary Dorrien
Sanders conceives democratic socialism as the fitting name for his belief that a living wage, universal healthcare, a complete education, affordable housing, a clean environment, and a secure retirement are economic rights. These six economic rights come from Franklin Roosevelt’s 1944 Economic Bill of Rights.
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New, Experimental West Side Story Is an Experiment that Goes Awry
Bruce Chadwick
The play has lost its focus and sense of history.
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Is Bernie the New George McGovern?
Michel A. Genovese
One can see close parallels between the 1972 presidential contest and that of 2020. Those parallels do not bode well for Bernie Sanders or the Democrats.
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The Seen and the Unseen: Queer Lives 1914-1945
T. Frohock
Records generally show us the experiences of either the most privileged members of a society, who often escaped prosecution unharmed, or the most underprivileged, who suffered from laws designed to criminalize their behavior.
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He said, She said: In the Matter of Nat Turner
Christopher Tomlins
Nat Turner spoke while black and asks us all to listen. If we are to understand him – to understand what sort of man he was, by whom he was charged to act, on whose behalf he acted, and why – we have to begin by listening.
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Who Can be An American?
Donald J. Fraser
The challenge of our times, especially in the upcoming 2020 election, is to continue our commitment to a creedal vision of America. We need to make a reality of the opening words of our Constitution, that “We the People” means all people who share the American Creed.
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Deep Division: Comparing Today and the 1960s
Donne Levy
America is a deeply divided nation. That fact may be the only thing that Americans of all racial, ethnic, and political groups can agree about.
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The Myth of Thomas Jefferson’s Inscrutability
M. Andrew Holowchak
Political discrepancies between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton centered on contradictory interpretations of the U.S. Constitution.
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How Can Historians Serve and Learn From the Public?
Erik Moshe
Annette Joseph-Gabriel hopes public conversations about the United States’ foundations will continue and will be undergirded by intellectual honesty and rigor.
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A Conversation with the Eastham Historical Society
Jonathan Montano
The Eastham Historical Society, a small institution on Cape Cod, discusses their archives and the importance of preserving local history.
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In Defense of Public Institutions
Elizabeth Stice
While the generations of the past sought to establish public institutions, in our era, there is a relentless push for more privatization, far beyond the postal service.
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“Patriotic” Veterans Only, Please
Gregory A. Daddis
While perhaps an indication of our current toxic political environment, the attacks on “unpatriotic” veterans like U.S. Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman actually have a long and checkered history in post-World War II America.
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75 Years After the Dresden Bombings
Sinclair McKay
History in Dresen is not an abstract academic pursuit; instead, it is palpable and passionate. It matters enormously. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the horror that made Dresden – deep in eastern Germany - a by-word for annihilation.
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Racist Bullying in My Small Town Made National News. Here's What We Can Learn From How the Town Responded.
Claudia Moscovici
Even if only a small minority of Salinians hold racist and xenophobic views, this community will do its best to make sure these discriminatory views are no longer swept under the rug, but faced, combatted and discouraged.
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A Tale of the Great Migration
Bruce Chadwick
Blues for an Alabama Sky, a new play by Pearl Cleage, tells the story of a handful of those people. It is a deep, rich play in which their stories are carried out against the cultural backdrop of the Harlem Renaissance.
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Roundup Top 10!
This week's broad sampling of opinion pieces found on the Internet, as selected by the editor of HNN.
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Blog
"Keep American Beautiful" and Personal Vs Corporate Environmental Responsibility
(R)evolutionary Biology
What we can learn from how mid-century Americans concerned about litter were conned and co-opted by forces larger and more guilty than they.
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Blog
Trump the Great and Powerful
Steve Hochstadt
It is not surprising that a president so unconcerned about Constitutional norms would try to add to his powers. It is disturbing and dangerous that the Republican Party as a body supports Trump goi...
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Happy 200th Birthday to Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906)
Sandra Weber
In commemorating Anthony’s birthday, women have examined the past, celebrated their progress, and looked to the future.
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“Free College” in Historical Perspective
John R. Thelin
“Free college” is a visible and volatile issue in the Democrat candidates’ presidential campaign platforms. No Democratic candidate today can afford to ignore the issue, even if it means taking time to impose strict limits.
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A Gallon of Talk and a Teaspoon of Action, Then Label the Problem "Insolvable" and Plan Another Conference
Robert Scott Kellner
What shall it avail, the latest speech-laden conference on this topic, when seventy-five years of intensive Holocaust education had no effect on Holocaust deniers and could not stop the resurgence of the virulent anti-Semitism that had infected Germany one hundred years ago?
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Jimmy Carter: The Last of the Fiscally Responsible Presidents
Joe Renouard
Jimmy Carter’s Economy Was Better than You Think
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New Evidence from the Clinton Presidential Library on Bill Clinton and Helmut Kohl's Diplomatic Relationship
Stephan Kieninger
The Clinton-Kohl documents shed new light on their efforts to facilitate the emergence of an interdependent and transnational world based on freedom, peace, security and prosperity.
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Why Trump Is Different than Reagan, Either Bush, Dole, McCain, or Romney—He’s Evil
Water G. Moss
Like Trump’s six previous Republican presidential candidates (and like many Trump supporters), all of the major 2020 Democratic candidates are decent human beings. Trump is evil.
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Remembering Soldier's Bravery at Iwo Jima, 75 Years Later
Jack H. Lucas
"I had no way of knowing that in a matter of a few short hours I would make the most important decision of my life and in the lives of three members of my fire team. The choice would be mine: either I could die alone or all of us would die together."
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An Interview with Historian Dr. David Dzurec of the University of Scranton
Jared Levinson
The University of Scranton's History Department Chair, Dr. David Szurec discusses the ways students engage with local history through service-learning.
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"We Can Always Learn More History:" An Interview with Historian Seth Center
Samantha Benthien
Dr. Seth Center, the Senior Fellow and Director of Brzezinski Institute's Project on History and Strategy, provides unique insight on how a deeper knowledge of history is valuable when facing the challenges of today.
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Trump's Acquittal and the History of the Intentionally Undemocratic Senate
Ed Simon
What can and must be learned from the impeachment affair isn’t that resistance to Trump has to be fruitless, but rather that we can’t expect institutions and procedures to be that which saves us.
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Was Nixon Really Better Than Trump?
James Robenalt
Nixon’s tapes show an embattled president acting the same way, only behind closed doors.
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Re-Animating the 1619 Project: Teachable Moments Not Turf Wars
James Brewer Stewart
Those of us who value the 1619 Project can reclaim our “teachable moment” by excavating beneath the heated rhetoric. There we will discover that the journalists and the historians embrace conflicting but equally valuable historical truths regarding slavery’s power to shape our nations past and present.
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The Travesty of the Century
Alon Ben-Meir
Whereas the US has over the years played a central role in the effort to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, no American administration has provided such a detailed proposal, certainly not one that grants Israel all of its wish list.
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The Dramatic Relationship Between Black America and the Academy Awards
Elwood Watson
From Hattie McDaniel to #OscarsSoWhite.
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Should the Democratic Presidential Candidates Announce Their VP Picks Now?
Joel K. Goldstein
History suggests that these well-intended proposals rest on mistaken judgments about the way the vice-presidential selection system now operates, exaggerate the benefits of the proposed reforms, and underestimate the difficulty of implementing those remedies.
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Roundup Top 10!
This week's broad sampling of opinion pieces found on the Internet, as selected by the editor of HNN.
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The Communist Manifesto Turns 172
Sam Ben-Meir
This is a moment that we should not allow to pass without some reflection on the meaning to us today of Marx and Engels’ pamphlet.
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How Somalis Use Theatre to Rebuild Culturally
Farah M. Omer
Modern Somali theatre rose to prominence in the 1960s, the period following the independence and the subsequent unification of Somaliland and Somalia. By the 1970s, there were multiple shows a night in any given city and the average Somali adult was considered a regular theatre goer regardless of socioeconomic status.
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Blog
Who Deserves the Credit for a Good Economy?
Ronald L. Feinman
Clearly, Donald Trump has benefited from what is now the longest economic expansion in American history. The unemployment rate has dropped to as low as 3.4 percent. The question that lingers is who...
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Remembrances, Race, and Role Models: The Renaming of a Middle School
Frank P. Barajas
The new name of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, whatever it will be, should have a recognizable footnote so people can learn not only about the totality of Oxnard’s history but also its relationship with larger national currents.
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The Erasure of the History of Slavery at Sullivan’s Island
Roy E. Finkenbine
Some 40% of the nearly 400,000 Africans imported into British North America and the young United States passed through this place. It has been termed the “Ellis Island” of African Americans.
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The Making of a Periphery
Ulbe Bosma
How did the once-prosperous islands of Southeast Asia transform into a “peripheral” region?
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The 1619 Project Debate with History of Slavery in New York City
Alan Singer
Slavery and its legacies in New York City.
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The Cold War New and Old: Architectural Exchanges Beyond the West
Łukasz Stanek
Until today, many urban landscapes in West Africa bear witness to how local authorities and professionals drew on Soviet prefabrication technology, Hungarian and Polish planning methods, Yugoslav and Bulgarian construction materials, Romanian and East German standard designs, and manual laborers from across Eastern Europe.
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Frank Ramsey: A Genius By All Tests for Genius
Cheryl Misak
Unlike his friends Russell and Wittgenstein who focused on the vastness and the unknowability of the world, Ramsey believed it was more important to concentrate on what is admirable and conducive to living a good life.
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How Religious History Helps Us Understand Russia's War Against Ukrainian Independence
Khrystyna Karelska and Andreas Umland
In recent months, the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian multidimensional military, political, economic and cultural conflict has made international news. What is less well known beyond Eastern Europe is the important religious aspect of Moscow’s “hybrid war” against Ukrainian national independence.
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JFK's New Hampshire Primary Hope Resonates Today
William Lambers
The day before the 1960 New Hampshire presidential primary, candidate John F. Kennedy talked about America's great hope for disarmament. Speaking at the University of New Hampshire, JFK said "No hope is more basic to our aspirations as a nation" than disarmament.
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The Unique Struggles of Women and Native Americans to Vote
Thom Hartmann
And how efforts to surpress certain voters continue.
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Manipulation of Spanish History Has Manufactured A Constitutional Crisis
Christopher Binetti
The history of Spain does not support the Spanish nationalist claim that Castilian is the natural language and culture for all people of the Peninsula.
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