Author: Emily Schramm

In Honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.

On this day, we are pleased to post this essay by Lucas Morel, Class of 1960 Professor of Ethics and Politics at Washington and Lee University and long time former faculty member at Teaching American History, who considers the lasting legacy of King’s great speech:

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The Bill of Rights

For Bill of Rights Day (December 15), we offer an explanation of how these first ten amendments came to be added to the Constitution. The first Congress drafted the Bill of Rights, and presented them for ratification to the states, for both principled and prudential reasons. Many of those who opposed ratification of the Constitution complained that it did not protect the rights of individual citizens and the prerogatives of the states.

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The Many Lives of Sojourner Truth

Sojourner Truth died on November 26, 1883, aged 86. Yet reports of her death began circulating decades earlier. Abolitionists and women’s rights advocates had built Truth into a prophetic figure,

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