| By J. Robert Parks | In the 1950s and early 1960s, most of the advances in civil rights for Black people occurred because of the tireless efforts of activists and the decisions of the Supreme Court. Actual legislative changes were few and far between. That was particularly true at the federal level, where many … Read more
| By J. Robert Parks | Martin Luther King Jr. famously said that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” In our world today, which expects instant results for anything we do, that message can seem out of touch, but the civil rights movement was an example of that … Read more
| By J. Robert Parks | Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, which was decided seventy years ago this week on May 17, 1954, might be one of the most famous Supreme Court decisions of the twentieth century, but it’s also one of the more misunderstood. Although it’s widely hailed today as the … Read more
| By J. Robert Parks | It’s difficult for most people, much less young people, to imagine a time before cars, but the rise of the automobile is only about 100 years old. In fact, it was 100 years ago this week, on April 15, 1924, that the first Rand McNally Road Atlas was published … Read more
| By J. Robert Parks | There are certain public figures who are seen as embodying their generation, and if they die before they reach old age, especially in tragic ways, their deaths can be seen as the end of an era. So it was with President John F. Kennedy in 1963, with John Lennon … Read more
| By J. Robert Parks | A Raisin in the Sun was one of the most significant American plays of the twentieth century. Written by Lorraine Hansberry, it portrays a multigenerational, working-class Black family living in a cramped home in Chicago, Illinois, but dreaming of something more. It received its Broadway premiere 65 years ago … Read more
| By J. Robert Parks | Television commercials that have resonated with the U.S. public have historically relied on jingles, catchphrases, or quirky humor. Yet one of the most famous ads in television history had none of those. Instead, it featured a dystopic vision based on George Orwell’s book 1984 and didn’t even show the … Read more
| By J. Robert Parks | The place of women in society—and especially women in sports—has changed so much in the last 50 years that most students today couldn’t imagine what passed for normal in 1973. Today, women athletes have fought for the right to be paid the same as male athletes; many female athletes … Read more
| By J. Robert Parks | Phillis Wheatley was born in West Africa in the mid-eighteenth century and sold into slavery when she was a young girl. She was enslaved by the Wheatley family. John Wheatley was a wealthy Boston merchant, and his wife, Susanna, exchanged money for the young girl, who was named after … Read more
| By J. Robert Parks | It may strike readers of a certain age as almost impossible that we could be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the birth of hip-hop music this month. “It hasn’t been around that long, has it?” is not too far off from the reflection “I’m not that old, am I?” … Read more