Author: TheConversation

By Joshua F.J. Inwood, Associate Professor of Geography Senior Research Associate in the Rock Ethics Institute, Penn State; and Anna Livia Brand, Assistant Professor, University of California, Berkeley American cities from Atlanta to New York City still use buildings, roads, ports and rail lines built by enslaved people. The fact that centuries-old relics of slavery still support the economy of the United States suggests that reparations for slavery would need to go beyond government payments to the ancestors of enslaved people to account for profit-generating, slave-built infrastructure. Debates about compensating Black Americans for slavery began soon after the Civil...

By Douglas R. Hess, Assistant Professor of Political Science/Policy Studies, Grinnell College As state legislators consider hundreds of bills on election policies this spring, false claims of voter fraud are being repeated as justification for proposals to claw back recent advances that have made voting easier for Americans. In debates about election policy, making it easier to vote and election integrity are frequently presented as opposing goals. Increasing one, it is argued, means decreasing the other. The 2020 elections saw many states expand voting by mail, the use of ballot drop-off boxes and other procedures. In the end, turnout...

By Joanne M. Pierce, Professor of Religious Studies, College of the Holy Cross At the end of a small cemetery on the campus of the College of the Holy Cross, the Jesuit college where I teach, is the grave of Joseph O’Callahan, former professor of mathematics. O’Callahan is one of the few Catholic military chaplains to have been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, for his heroic actions during World War II. Only five Catholic priests have received this highest American military honor. Two of them are in the process of being considered for the highest honor recognized in...

By Robert McKee Irwin, Deputy Director, Global Migration Center, University of California, Davis Hundreds of thousands of immigrant families have been separated by deportation from the United States, in many cases with a parent on one side of the border and children on the other, according to estimates by the Urban Policy Institute and Migration Policy Institute. Reunification is a priority in President Joe Biden’s proposed immigration overhaul and in bills that both the House and Senate will debate in coming weeks. Both bills have provisions to preserve “family unity.” These include giving immigration judges increased discretion in deportation...

By Samantha Hill, 2019 – 2021 Joyce Bock Fellow at the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan and current graduate student at U-M School of Information, University of Michigan; and Janette Greenwood, Professor of History, Clark University Frederick Douglass is perhaps best known as an abolitionist and intellectual. But he was also the most photographed American of the 19th century. And he encouraged the use of photography to promote social change for Black equality. In that spirit, this article examines different ways Black Americans from the 19th century used photography as a tool for self-empowerment and...

By Maurizio Valsania, Professor of American History, Università di Torino Pessimism looms large in America today. It is not just because of Donald Trump’s legacy as the vicar of fear and violence. It is COVID-19, a faltering economy, racial tensions, the growing power of Russia and China, massive fires, and climate change – you name it. Journalists and analysts have launched warnings: American democracy is about to end; the American century is about to end; the American era is about to end. This is not the first time in American history that writers and intellectuals in general have cast...