March 2021

Images of the Civil Rights Movement

calvert mcann lunch counter — Women sat-in at a lunch counter in Lexington, Kentucky in 1960. Photo by Calvert McCann and courtesy of the University of Kentucky Archives. © Calvert McCann.

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march on washington view — Protesters gathered at the civil rights March on Washington, DC, as seen from the Lincoln Memorial towards Washington Monument in 1963. Photo by Warren Leffler and courtesy of Wikimedia.

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Chief Seattle Speaks to the Ages

Chief Seattle gave a famous speech telling the new white settlers that “we are brothers, after all” after the Squamish people were told their land would be sold. — *Chief Seattle gave a famous speech telling the new White settlers that “we are brothers, after all” after the Suquamish people were told they would have to sell their land.*

Frances Perkins Brought You the Weekend

Editor's Note: Bruce Watson is a writer, historian, and contributing editor at American Heritage. You can read more of his work on his blog, The Attic.

time cover perkins — *Perkins made the cover of Time Magazine in 1933.*

They Persisted for Suffrage

Editor's Note: Ellen Carol DuBois is a professor in the history department at UCLA and the author of numerous books on women’s suffrage including the recent, authoritative survey, Suffrage: Women’s Long Battle for the Vote, from which she adapted the following essay.

B.B. Was King of the Blues

Editor's Note: William Ferris is the former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities and founding director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture.

*B.B. King played in Hamburg, Germany in 1971. Photo courtesy of Heinrich Klaffs.*

Wrapped in Glory: Black Troops of the Civil War

Editor's Note: Douglas R. Egerton is Professor of History at LeMoyne College. The following essay was adapted from his Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize-winning book, Thunder at the Gates: The Black Civil War Regiments That Redeemed America, published by Basic Books.

"You're the Media and You're Going to Die"

Editor's Note: Have your own letter to the editor? Send it to editor@americanheritage.com!

To the editors,

Congratulations on your special issue on Presidential Misdeeds and the numerous essays, especially those by journalists David Schribman, Curtis Wilkie, and Ed Yoder.

Which is Our Song, Our "Shenandoah?"

Editor's Note: Bruce Watson is a writer, historian, and contributing editor at American Heritage. You can read more of his work on his blog, The Attic.

trader shanendoah — *The earliest versions of "Oh Shenandoah" describe a fur trapper on the Missouri River who steals away the daughter of an Indian chief named Shenandoah.*

Remembering Vernon Jordan

Editor's Note: Peter Osnos was a reporter at the Washington Post and a prominent book editor and publisher in New York. He founded PublicAffairs Books in 1997 and served as its Publisher and CEO until 2005. Mr. Osnos worked with Vernon Jordan while at PublicAffairs, and adapted the following essay for American Heritage from Especially Good View: Watching History Happen, his memoirs being published in June.

"Freedom is a Constant Struggle"

Editor's Note: Thomas C. Holt is the James Westfall Thompson Professor of American and African American History at the University of Chicago and a preeminent scholar of black heritage and descendants of the African diaspora in America. He adapted the following essay from his most recent book, The Movement: The African America Struggle for Civil Rights, published by Oxford University Press.

March 2021

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