Historians/History

The Delicious Irony of the Federal Government Memorializing MLK

by Jo Freedman

In all the celebrations going on this week over the (now-delayed) dedication of the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial, few have noted the irony that Dr. King was often at odds with the federal government, as well as a lot of state governments.  Only fifteen months after Dr. King’s famous speech at the August 28, 1963 march and rally, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover told a group of women reporters that Dr. King was "the most notorious liar in the country."  This came in reaction to newspaper reports of a mild criticism by Dr. King of the FBI’s handling of civil rights complaints in the South.Indeed it was that very march that convinced Hoover that Dr. King and the civil rights movement were serious threats to his America.  He shifted the Bureau’s policy from observing the movement, while providing information on it to local law enforcement in the South, into actively undermining it.  Dr. King was his primary target.  At Hoover’s direction, the FBI not only harassed Dr. King, but did not even warn him when it knew of threats on his life.

MLK Would Be Against the Wars Today

by William Loren Katz

It has taken a hurricane to postpone the dedication of the long-awaited monument to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington over the weekend—the first time a man who is not a president, not awhite man and not a war leader has been so honored on the Mall.   But how will Dr. King be presented to the American public and remembered by children?  One clear viewpoint was offered this January 13 when the Pentagon commemorated Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day with an address by Jeh C. Johnson, the Defense Department’s general counsel.In the final year of his life King became an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War, Johnson frankly told a packed auditorium of Defense Department officials.  However, Johnson hastily added, today’s wars are not out of line with the iconic Nobel Peace Prize winner’s teachings.  “I believe that if Dr. King were alive today, he would recognize that we live in a complicated world, and that our nation's military should not and cannot lay down its arms and leave the American people vulnerable to terrorist attack.”Really?

Is an Apology Enough for Genocide?

by Edwin Black

Everyone knows that Nazi Germany designated Jews and others for mass murder. Some know that Hitler's racial ideas were inspired by the early twentieth-century pseudo-scientific American eugenic concepts he studied and adopted.  But few are aware that long before Jews and blacks were targeted by eugenicists, white Virginian Appalachians with dark hair were chosen for extinction.  They were not only targeted by academics, but by Virginia's own state government.  The state perniciously traced their ancestry and, periodically, agents rounded them up and dispatched them to sterilization mills.More than twenty-seven states joined the shameful decades-long campaign.  Virginia led in developing the legal concepts and merciless enforcement that propelled eugenics into the annals of genocide.

American Historical Association:  Pacific Coast Branch (Videos)

This conference was held in Seattle in August 2011.Mom:  The Transformation of MotherhoodRebecca Jo PlantBush's Wars:  Roundtable on Terry Anderson's BookTerry AndersonDavid SchmitzKyle LongleyVietnam

Vietnam: Jessica Elkind

The History News Network recorded this video of Jessica Elkind speaking at the annual meeting of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association on August 13, 2011. In her talk Ms. Elkind discusses recent Vietnamese interpretations of the Vietnam war. She spoke at session 30: "Roundtable: The Never Ending Question: Understanding the Origins of U.S. Intervention in Vietnam."

Vietnam: Matthew Masur

The History News Network recorded this video of Matthew Masur speaking at the annual meeting of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association on August 13, 2011. In his talk he discusses recent changes in interpretations of the Vietnam war. He spoke at session 30: "Roundtable: The Never Ending Question: Understanding the Origins of U.S. Intervention in Vietnam."

Vietnam: David Schmitz

The History News Network recorded this video of David Schmitz speaking at the annual meeting of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association on August 13, 2011. In his talk he discusses recent changes in interpretations of the Vietnam war, focusing on Richard Nixon's war. He spoke at session 30: "Roundtable: The Never Ending Question: Understanding the Origins of U.S. Intervention in Vietnam."

Vietnam: David Anderson

The History News Network recorded this video of David Anderson speaking at the annual meeting of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association on August 13, 2011. In his talk he discusses recent changes in interpretations of the Vietnam war. He spoke at session 30: "Roundtable: The Never Ending Question: Understanding the Origins of U.S. Intervention in Vietnam."

Bush's Wars: Kyle Longley

The History News Network recorded this video of Kyle Longley speaking at the annual meeting of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association on August 13, 2011. He spoke at a roundtable devoted to the discussion of Terry Anderson's book, Bush's Wars (Oxford University Press).

Bush's Wars: David Schmitz

The History News Network recorded this video of David Schmitz speaking at the annual meeting of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association on August 13, 2011. He spoke at a roundtable devoted to the discussion of Terry Anderson's book, Bush's Wars (Oxford University Press).

Bush's Wars: Terry Anderson

The History News Network recorded this video of Terry Anderson speaking at the annual meeting of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association on August 13, 2011.He spoke at a roundtable devoted to the discussion of his book, Bush's Wars (Oxford University Press).

Bill Moyers and Robin Lindley: Continuing the Conversation—The Renowned Journalist on His New Book, His Career, His Brushes with History, and Where We Stand Now

by Robin Lindley

Related Links:  HNN Exclusive: Bill Moyers to Return to TV with a New Series Bill Moyers has been my North Star, in his eloquence, his quiet passion and courage,  and in the way he presents me and millions of others with the ideals of our nation, from our past to our present to our uncertain future.  Always he offers the gift of thoughtfulness and of hope. —Studs Terkel

J.H. Plumb Would Be Aghast at Today's Distorted History

by John Willingham

 Born a century ago this month, the late Cambridge historian J. H. Plumb would be dismayed were he alive today to see how a heavily distorted “past” has assumed center stage in American public life in the decade since his death, at the expense of what Plumb characterized as “history.”The influence of the anti-historical past is evident.  The most recent example comes in the person of Texas Governor Rick Perry, now a presidential candidate.  Perry not only comes from a state where the past still dominates history in the public memory, but he is the unabashed champion of the same discredited past that Plumb hoped was indeed passing more than forty years ago, when he wrote one of his most influential books, The Death of the Past, in 1969.

Hiroshima & Nagasaki: 66 Years Later

by Murray Polner

The 66th anniversary of the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was approaching and a neighbor, a retired fireman and WWII veteran, asked if I thought the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified. He said he did because many American soldiers and marines might have been killed in a land invasion of Japan’s main islands. Okinawa, he said, was bad enough. Invading Japan would have been far worse. In no way was he dismissing the killing of so many civilians but like virtually all Americans at the time he unquestioningly believed the Government’s assertions –obviously not stated in this precise way—that because of Pearl Harbor and the many American deaths occurred while hopskotching across the islands of the Pacific, it was perfectly alright to kill enemy civilians in a war. President Truman’s announcement at the time avoided dealing with the issue when he emphasized that Hiroshima was a military base. Ergo, the city was a legitimate wartime target. He never sought to explain Nagasaki.

"Witness to an Extreme Century": An Interview with Robert Jay Lifton

by Robin Lindley

Darkness is only driven out with light, not more darkness. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.Eminent psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, M.D., now age 85, has spent his life at the often dark and bloody confluence of psychology and human history.   He is perhaps most well known for his research on the character and human consequences of historic mass traumas such as the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the Holocaust, and the counterinsurgency wars of the past half-century.

The Great Hiroshima Cover-Up—And the Greatest Movie Never Made

by Greg Mitchell

In the northwestern corner of the Hiroshima Peace Park, amid a quiet grove of trees, the earth suddenly swells. It is not much of a mound—only about ten feet high and sixty feet across.  Unlike most mounds, however, this one is hollow, and within it rests perhaps the greatest concentration of human residue in the world.Grey clouds rising from sticks of incense hang in the air, spookily.  Tourists do not dawdle here.  Visitors searching for the Peace Bell, directly ahead, or the Children’s Monument, down the path to the right, hurry past it without so much as a sideways glance.  Still, it has a strange beauty: a lump of earth (not quite lush) topped by a small monument that resembles the tip of a pagoda.  On one side of the Memorial Mound the gray wooden fence has a gate, and down five steps from the gate is a door.  Visitors are usually not allowed through that door, but occasionally the city of Hiroshima honors a request from a foreign journalist.

Wait, The Berlin Wall's Already Been Down for Twenty Years?

by Brian Ladd

Fifty years ago this week, the world was shocked by the sight of a barrier being built across the center of Berlin.  The Cold War was at its height in 1961, but the Berlin Wall quickly became its icon. Long after its demise, the Wall can still help us sort out the contradictions of a bygone age.

Why Stephen Ambrose's World War II and Mine Are So Different

by Bernard A. Weisberger

Editor's Note: Bernard A. Weisberger, now in his eighties, has lived a rich life as a teacher, historian, and writer of books and documentaries. For many years he wrote a column for American Heritage, where he was a contributing editor. What follows is the opening from Mr. Weisberger's unpublished memoir, My Personal War: 1942-1946. The memoir recounts his adventures as a young soldier assigned to a unit responsible for translating Japanese documents and messages. In this excerpt he recounts how different the war seemed to him than to Stephen Ambrose. One, don't romanticize my service, such as it was. It's understandable that two generations or more after 1945, young people assume that any veteran was a "warrior" like those who populate the TV screens. I had the same feeling myself about the white-haired Civil War vet who, dressed in a splendid uniform, was paraded in an open car down the main thoroughfare of Hudson, New York, every Memorial Day in the early nineteen-thirties, though I have no idea of what he actually did. I want to make it clear at the start that I was never anywhere near an armed enemy. I performed my duties at a minimum of several hundred miles away from the front lines, sitting at a desk in a clean uniform, and each night slept safely in a clean bed.

Barry Landau Isn't an Historian, He's an Antiquarian—So Let's Stop Calling Him One

by Samuel J. Redman

Recently, the New York Times, Washington Post, and Baltimore Sun have reported on the strange case of Barry H. Landau. Landau, a presidential memorabilia collector, has been indicted on federal charges of stealing documents from the Maryland Historical Society. His activities at the National Archives are also under investigation by an Archival Recovery Team. Numerous other archives across the United States are now reviewing their records for Landau’s name – then reviewing the material he requested for inconsistencies. The documents in question include, notably, letters signed by Abraham Lincoln and Benjamin Franklin as well copies of presidential speeches made by Franklin D. Roosevelt.

America Fought Hunger as Well as Communists in Korea

by William Lambers

 It is June, 1950, and North Korean troops have crossed over the border to attack South Korea. Heavy artillery and tanks have moved in.  A war has erupted that would soon involve U.S. forces coming to the aid of the South, and the Communist Chinese army joining with the North.If you were a civilian trapped in between this conflict, you would be in shock. You could try to outrun the enemy and flee to safer ground.  Maybe you could escape.  Maybe not.A Reuters article described the mass exodus of Korean civilians in the summer of 1950 as a blanket of dust "raised by the trudging feet of thousands of refugees trekking south."But when war comes, there is always more than one enemy.  With the chaos of armed conflict comes hunger.  This foe can be the most relentless and hardest to escape.  And so it was for Koreans.