Carlos Sanabria, Hostos Community College, CUNY
“Demographic Revolutions: Hispanic Migration to the United States”
Hostos Community College, CUNY
April 24, 2009

Why did we come here? And why are we so poor? Historian Carlos Sanabria discusses migration and the situation of the U.S. Hispanic population in the post-World War Two period. He outlines areas of study such as the demographic revolutions which led to the growth, dispersal, and diversity of the Hispanic population in the U.S.; migration stories from locations such as Cuba, Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Puerto Rico; and the causes, successes, and shortcomings of Hispanic migration among the different groups. Dr. Sanabria is coordinator of Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Hostos Community College, City University of New York.

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.

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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.

Educator Roscoe C. Brown, Jr. shares his personal history of race in the United States as seen through the perspective of World War II. Dr. Brown describes incidents of discrimination and social injustice that propelled him into a life of activist politics. Brown recounts his upbringing in black middle-class Washington in the 1920s and 30s, and his involvement in anti-lynching campaigns and demonstrations in the years leading up to World War II. Locating his experience in the context of the struggle to attain equality for African Americans in the military, he describes the lasting accomplishments of the Tuskegee Airmen—America’s first African-American military flying unit—for which Brown served as commander of the 100th Fighter Squadron of the 332nd Fighter Group.

Historian Jeanie Attie examines the significance of slavery to the people who fought in and lived during the American Civil War. Slaves, as constant observers of the lives of free men, clearly understood the value of freedom. Free whites in the antebellum South had a stake in preserving a state of “un-freedom” within their society because “un-freedom” ultimately defined their own state of freedom. White northern Republicans viewed the future of the nation, and their own freedom, as bound by whether new territories entered the Union as free or slave states. In this podcast Attie discusses the issues central to the sectional conflict that led to civil war and provides a close reading of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address for New York City social studies teachers.

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.

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