Peter Kastor, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis
Politics, age and gender combine to shape the understanding of presidents’ families – and the presidents themselves.
Harvard students protesting on July 1, 2023, after the Supreme Court’s ruling against affirmative action.
Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
The Supreme Court’s decision to ban affirmative action programs reverses nearly 50 years of its own decisions that ruled diversity was of vital national importance.
The New York Times resumed publication of its series of articles based on the Pentagon Papers in its July 1, 1971, edition, after it was given the green light by the Supreme Court.
AP Photo/Jim Wells
The New York Times’ publication of the Pentagon Papers showed the paper was willing to jeopardize connections to other powerful institutions, including the government, to serve the public interest.
President Lyndon Johnson delivers the commencement address at Howard University on June 4, 1965.
Travis Knoll, University of North Carolina – Charlotte
President Lyndon Johnson’s commencement address at Howard University in 1965 offered a compelling argument on the need for affirmative action. His policies have been challenged ever since.
Andrew Brimmer gets sworn in as a member of the Federal Reserve Board. President Lyndon Johnson, right, Brimmer’s wife and daughter look on.
Robert L. Knudsen via Wikimedia Commons
Andrew Brimmer, the first African American on the Board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve, helped develop the blueprint for the Central Bank of Sudan.
U.S. President Joe Biden walks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy near a Kyiv cathedral during Biden’s surprise visit in February 2023.
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Henry Kissinger’s influence on US foreign policy was profound. His transactional approach – avowedly values free – included support of murderous and genocidal foreign leaders.
A 1973 photo shows an estimated 5,000 people, women and men, marching around the Minnesota Capitol building protesting the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision.
AP Photo
A historian explains why the pre-Roe anti-abortion movement was filled with liberal Democrats who opposed the Vietnam War and supported the expansion of the welfare state.
U.S. soldiers stand guard along the perimeter of the international airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. Hundreds of Western nationals and Afghan workers have been flown to safety since the Taliban reasserted control over the country, but still in hiding are Afghans who tried to build a fledgling democracy.
(AP Photo/Shekib Rahmani)
The Vietnam War was the defining issue for Joe Biden’s generation. His botched withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan could be the defining act of his presidency.
Poverty in America has changed since the 1960s.
Morton Broffman/Getty Images
Newer measures of poverty may do a better job of counting America’s poor, which is necessary to helping them.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, standing at center and facing left just above the eagle, takes the presidential oath of office for the third time in 1941.
FDR Presidential Library and Museum via Flickr
Nicholas G. Napolio, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences e Christian Grose, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
With several senators testing positive for the coronavirus, and many older than 65, political scientists look at 1954, when senators’ deaths changed control of the chamber.
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows speaks to reporters about President Trump’s positive coronavirus test outside the White House on Oct. 2, 2020.
Drew Angerer/Getty
President Trump was direct in announcing he had COVID-19. But presidents in the past have been very good at deceiving the public about the state of their health. Which direction will Trump go now?
A protester raises a fist in New York’s Washington Square Park during a June 2, 2020 demonstration.
Ira L. Black/Corbis via Getty Images
Sweeping changes were possible in the past because black leaders were willing to risk their lives and call out problems before they became crises.
President Donald Trump holds up a newspaper to show a headline that reads, ‘Acquitted,’ at the 68th annual National Prayer Breakfast, in Washington D.C..
AP Photo/ Evan Vucci
Diane Winston, USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism
The National Prayer Breakfast has been a time to forge friendships. But, as a scholar says, Trump used it to praise his accomplishments, malign his enemies, and thank God for being on his side.
JFK shaking hands with one of the first Peace Corps volunteers in 1961.
P Photo/William J. Smith
No matter how well-intentioned, volunteers who may be inexperienced can’t solve the entrenched and complex social problems low-income communities endure.
Anti-Vietnam War protesters march from the US Consulate to Hyde Park in Sydney in 1966.
State Library of New South Wales/Wikimedia Commons
Labor Leader Arthur Calwell tried to leverage public opposition to conscription to gain support during the 1966 election, calling it a “sinister word” for Australians. The tactic failed.
Richard Nixon flashes the victory sign on the night he received the Republican nomination for president Aug. 9, 1968 in Miami.
AP File/AP Photo
Some cite mental illness, or at least instability, as a basis to remove Pres. Trump from office. A doctor and a lawyer use a 1965 novel, ‘Night of Camp David,’ to explain why that’s unlikely.