Professor Frank Deale (CUNY School of Law) gave opening keynote remarks at the CUNY and Race Forum sponsored by the Professional Staff Congress. Providing social, political, and legal historical context for affirmative action, he broached two themes. First, the difference between anti-discrimination and affirmative action policies and second, voluntary affirmative action versus change that occurs through legislative decisions. In this 17 minute talk, Frank Deale analyzes the periods of Reconstruction and the Civil War, including the effects of the Freedmen’s Bureau, to the Civil Rights movement, and CUNY’s policies of the 1970s and 80s up to  the present.

Professor Hodges delivered this talk to a group of New York City public school teachers at the New York Public Library.

Gregory Downs, City College of New York, CUNY
“Ballots and Blood: The Grassroots Struggle for the Future of Reconstruction”
The Graduate Center, CUNY
July 19, 2010

The Reconstruction era was marked by both triumph and defeat as the newly emancipated slaves and their allies attempted to establish full political and economic freedoms in the face of violent opposition. While planters were initially successful in limiting the rights that accompanied emancipation, by the late 1860s freedpeople responded by asserting their claims to land, voting, and equal access. In the 1870s, former Confederates mobilized their own local political movements, using violent intimidation to quell gains in black voting and economic advancement.

In Part 1 of this podcast, Downs explores the main themes of Reconstruction through the story of Henry Adams, a remarkable former slave, Union army veteran, and successful businessman who organized freedpeople in the South to emigrate to Kansas. In Part 2, he describes the twists and turns in the Reconstruction struggle over what rights and protections would come with emancipation. He also discusses two primary documents (see below).

Wood engraving, Harper's Weekly, 26 September 1874

Southern Democrats Declare “a Dead Radical Is Very Harmless” document

The images that Professor Orleck discusses during the talk are available below.

Welfare Rights Images

Historian and educator Barbara Winslow (Brooklyn College) discusses the life and times of Shirley Chisholm, the legendary African-American activist, Congresswoman, and presidential candidate. Winslow places Chisholm’s legacy in the context of the feminist movement and the struggle for civil rights, putting special emphasis on the Brooklyn-born politician’s local roots.

This talk was given as part of A Catalyst for Change, an exhibit celebrating Chisholm’s trailblazing political career, sponsored by the Brooklyn College Women’s Studies Program and the Shirley Chisholm Center for Research on Women.

Early twentieth-century progressivism was a constellation of efforts undertaken by a wide range of people whose perspectives on reform were rooted in their race, class, region, and religion. In this talk to New York City teachers, Nancy Hewitt weaves together the “big P” progressivism of major reform campaigns, which are well represented in most history textbooks, with stories of the “little p” progressivism of workers, immigrants, women, and African Americans.

In the first part of this podcast, Hewitt describes some major progressive reform campaigns and highlights the role of Atlanta, Georgia, female activists in conservation and civic reform, known as municipal housekeeping. In the second part, she continues her discussion of municipal housekeeping by focusing on northern cities and also offers several examples of reform efforts involving both middle-class and working-class women.

Images Used in this presentation:

Christian G. Appy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
“The Vietnam War: What Are We Fighting For?”
The Paley Center for Media
May 14, 2008

Christian G. Appy (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), historian and author of Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides, shares the historical insights gleaned from his investigation of the Vietnam War from American and Vietnamese perspectives. His extensive research, which involved hundreds of oral history interviews with American veterans as well as Vietnamese civilians and soldiers from both sides of the conflict, adds an important dimension to the staggering human cost of the war. In this lecture to New York City teachers, he relates some of the stories he heard in the course of his research, and provides evidence for his conclusion that the outcome of the war was determined largely by the political will of the Vietnamese people.

In this presentation to New York City teachers, historian Gerald Markowitz discusses Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. He begins by focusing on what was new about the New Deal, including the government’s response to the Great Depression, the relationship of the government to the people, and changes in the definition of freedom. Markowitz continues by discussing the limitations of the New Deal, which he describes as an innovative and unstable reform coalition that faced constraints when confronting agricultural, southern, and civil rights policies. Limitation, Markowitz concludes, is a consistent theme in U.S. history, and what is left undone in one era is often the basis for change and reform in the next.

Images used in this presentation: