Interview
REV. DR. WILLIAM J. BARBER II: My father . . . said, “When you feel overwhelmed by your moment, go back and read the moments that people faced that are worse than yours. What courage and hope and truth did they find in that moment?” I go back and I read Henry McNeal Turner and »
Essay
It can be an odd undertaking to explore the meaning and mission of an American public university through the lens of history. The concept of a “university of the people”—especially for a southern state university—must begin with a great and unyielding asterisk. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was all male until 1897, »
Essay
On August 14, 1970, Richard Nixon treated New Orleans, a city keen on parades, to a campaign-style motorcade. With Nixon standing and waving through the sunroof, his limousine moved slowly down wide Canal Street, then through narrow Chartres Street. Thousands of people lined the sidewalks to cheer and be near the President of the United »
Essay
“Fifty air horns could help change the course of an election.” The first time we set off the air horns, several of us got frostbite. We didn’t expect it, because we were standing outside of the North Carolina Governor’s Mansion in short sleeves, already contending with the sticky warmth of springtime. Giddy and naive, we »
Essay
“With much on the line—but virtually nothing to lose—Ford undertook a halting, intermittently bold, and ultimately ill-fated campaign to undermine Carter’s regional credibility.” America’s bicentennial was supposed to be a year of triumphant celebration. Although the nation could look back proudly on its founding, the present looked grim. Americans, after all, were still reeling from »
Essay
Although other issues structure the party system in the southern United States, the dividing line of race, more than any other factor, accounts for the relative electoral strength of the Democratic and Republican parties. After the end of Reconstruction (circa 1877), the southern Democratic Party maintained the racial status quo through massive Black disfranchisement. But »
“Constituent case files provide important information on the effects of government on the populace and the manner in which government interacts with them.” Sir John Seeley, in his book The Growth of British Policy (1895), wrote, “History is past politics, and politics present history.” In their work to document recent history, archival, and special collections, »
“They were Republicans under the skin, but they could not join a party indentified with the destruction of the South.” The “rock” in this case is the Granite State of New Hampshire; the “hard place” is the South, where Republican candidates for any office have had a hard row to hoe over the last century. »
“The first thing we’ve got to do is use political campaigns again as the way to establish dialogue and a way to paint a view or a vision of where we ought to be.” Political campaigns happen to be the ideal place to talk about what your vision for a place ought to be. If, »
“Southern women still achieve firsts that have long been secured by women in other regions.” Ah, the flower of southern womanhood: gracious, lovely, and charming. Many features of southern culture have changed greatly over time. In one way, though, the South retains its distinctiveness: it remains the region of the country least hospitable to the »
“Alabama politics is not about Democrats and Republicans; it’s about plaintiff lawyers and big business.” The image of Alabama and its politics—from dogs and hoses in Birmingham, to George Wallace standing in the doorway of the university in Tuscaloosa, to a Gadsden judge who insists on hanging the Ten Commandments in his courtroom—is negative, primitive, and redneck. But »
“How is it that a state with a reputation for moderation, even progressivism, elects Jesse Helms?” January 11, 1997, was a frigid Saturday with the sort of clinging cold that stings the ears and numbs the toes. Still, about five thousand citizens of North Carolina gathered outdoors on the wide lawn in front of Broughton »