In May of 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education, finding segregated schools “inherently unequal.” One year later, the Court issued its “Ruling on Relief,” mandating that desegregation proceed “with all deliberate speed.” Given the deliberate vagueness of the instruction, Southern school authorities delayed compliance.
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:
For the past year, Teaching American History’s webinars have been about the presidential election. Last spring, we broke down the presidential election cycle. We spent this fall diving into the rhetorical traditions of American politics.
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.
Teaching American History is excited to announce the release of our latest core document volume, the second edition of Free Speech. Edited by Joseph Fornieri, this reader contains a collection
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,
“To be a good member of your community, you really have to understand why people do the things that they do,” says Bryan Little, who teaches both on-level Government and
When Deputy Provost Marshall Silas Soule left his home late in the evening of April 23, 1865, to investigate reports of gunfire, he did not know it would be his
Every presidential election year revives questions about our system of voting through the Electoral College. Teachers tell us that students find this the most perplexing feature of our constitutional system.
The polls and pundits say this presidential election will be a close one, perhaps decided by a few thousand voters in a handful of states. Both the pollsters and pundits
