A regular Avocado feature chronicling how historical events shaped our current political and cultural climates
A few weeks ago I devoted a History Thread to the Kent State shootings of May 4, 1970. Just eleven days later, on May 15th, another campus shooting shocked the nation. While Kent State remains widely known (enough to inspire … Continue reading The Jackson State History Thread
Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the Kent State shooting, one of the most traumatic moments of the Vietnam War era. I’ve previously written around it (writing articles on Nixon’s decision to invade Cambodia and the backlash to the shooting … Continue reading The Kent State History Thread
In 1849, rumors of untold riches across the ocean reached China. In California, or Gold Mountain as the Chinese knew it, the discovery of gold initiated a massive influx of settlers from across the globe. “Good many Americans speak of … Continue reading How We Got Here: Chinese America’s Fight for “Simple Justice”
Sixth in a series of articles on McCarthyism and the Red Scare; see Parts One, Two, Three, Four and Five. By any standards, Ruth A. M. Schmidt was a remarkable woman. Born in Brooklyn in April 1916, Schmidt became interested … Continue reading How We Got Here: Ruth Schmidt Browses the Washington Bookshop
Of all of Richard Nixon’s men, Tom Charles Huston remains the most elusive. The lanky, bespectacled ideologue from Logansport, Indiana entered politics at an early age. At age 24, he chaired America’s largest conservative organization; at age 28, he became … Continue reading How We Got Here: The Education of Tom Charles Huston
Part Five in a series: see parts one, two, three and four. On March 7, 1949 the biggest trial of the Red Scare began. Four hundred New York City policemen formed a barricade around the Foley Square courthouse, where eleven … Continue reading How We Got Here: Blacklisting Was Our Business
Part Three in a series; see parts one and two. Robert Stripling was concerned. HUAC’s chief investigator didn’t trust Whittaker Chambers, their star witness in the case against Alger Hiss, feeling that even now he’d withheld some crucial evidence, for … Continue reading How We Got Here: The Fall of Alger Hiss
Part two in a series on McCarthyism and the Red Scare; part one here. Ironically, the House Committee on Un-American Activities owed its existence to a congressman who spent years on the Soviet payroll. Samuel Dickstein, known to the NKVD … Continue reading How We Got Here: The Passion of Whittaker Chambers
In August 1945, a nondescript thirty-seven year old woman entered the FBI office in New Haven, Connecticut. It was, or should have been, a momentous occasion. The Second World War was finally ending, with Germany obliterated and occupied and Imperial … Continue reading How We Got Here: Elizabeth Bentley, Queen of the Red Scare
On February 4, 1919 the Seattle Union Record, a union publication printed by Harry Ault, issued an explosive call to Seattle’s workers. After months of agitation and tensions, it summoned the city’s workers to perform something virtually unknown in the … Continue reading How We Got Here: Revolution Comes to Seattle
Like most politicians, William Warren Scranton disclaimed interest in politics. “I never intended to make public political life a career,” he said, shortly after stepping down as Governor of Pennsylvania in 1967. But Scranton was that rare politician whose reluctance … Continue reading How We Got Here: William Warren Scranton and the Principled Timidity of Moderate Republicans
When Orlando Letelier awoke on September 11, 1973, he was Minister of Defense in a democratic Chile. By nightfall, he was a prisoner and his country a dictatorship. A red-haired, chain-smoking economist and diplomat who’d spent two years as Ambassador … Continue reading How We Got Here: The Wrath of Pinochet
Hi, everyone. Sam here. Chris didn’t put up a HWGH this week, and in light of recent events, y’all clearly need a pick-me-up, so here’s part of a never-published manuscript I wrote many years ago called The Night Was Spent that suddenly seems … Continue reading How We Got Here: “A Nonexistent Piece of the Future”
Hi, everyone. Sam here. Chris didn’t put up a HWGH this week, and in light of recent events, y’all clearly need a pick-me-up, so here’s part of a never-published manuscript I wrote many years ago called The Night Was Spent that suddenly seems … Continue reading How We Got Here: “Change We Can Believe In”
Hi, everyone. Sam here. Chris didn’t put up a HWGH this week, and in light of recent events, y’all clearly need a pick-me-up, so here’s part of a never-published manuscript I wrote many years ago called The Night Was Spent that suddenly seems … Continue reading How We Got Here: “The Revolution Starts Now”
On April 30, 1973, Richard Nixon announced a shocking political purge. As the Watergate scandal spiraled beyond Nixon’s control, he forced the resignations of his two closest aides, H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, beleaguered Attorney General Richard Kleindienst, and (less … Continue reading How We Got Here: The Saturday Night Massacre
Part Six in a series; see Parts One, Two, Three, Four and Five Franklin Roosevelt fumbled his reelection mandate with a disastrous second term. Starting in 1935, the Supreme Court struck down many of his programs, particularly the National Recovery … Continue reading How We Got Here: The Trials of Sedition
Part Five in a series; see Parts One, Two, Three and Four. Meyer Lansky had every reason to despise fascism. His family had survived pogroms in Tsarist Russia before emigrating to America; Lansky, as a youth in Manhattan, earned his … Continue reading How We Got Here: The Gentle Art of Nazi Punching
Part Four in a series; see Parts One, Two and Three. After Franklin Roosevelt’s reelection, his opponents grew more hysterical and conspiracy-minded. Father Coughlin, abandoning most pretenses of progressivism, now branded Roosevelt’s programs the “Jew Deal,” reproduced Joseph Goebbels’ propaganda … Continue reading How We Got Here: The Mad Legions of America
Part Three in a series; see Parts One and Two. During the 1932 election, Franklin Roosevelt ranked Huey Long as one of the two most dangerous men in America (the other being Douglas MacArthur). As Governor, then Senator from Louisiana, … Continue reading How We Got Here: Little Foxes in Search of a Führer
Part Two in a series; see Part One here. Throughout Herbert Hoover’s reign, corporate America constantly assured the public that economic recovery lay right around the corner. “The fact that we have let nature take its course may augur well … Continue reading How We Got Here: Business Plots
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