Kenneth C. Davis's Blog, page 90

Who Said It” (10/3/2013)

President Abraham Lincoln, “Proclamation of Thanksgiving” (October 3, 1863)

And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.

Source: Abraham Lincoln Online  (Complete text here)

Announced 150 years ago on October 3, 1863, this presidential proclamation, widely believed to be written by Secretary of State William Seward, established the precedent for the first American national Thanksgiving Day.

Banned Books Week (2013): “Don’t Join the Book Burners”

(This video was made in 2010 but I re-post it for Banned Books Week)

To close out the 2013 edition of Banned Books Week, I offer the words of President Dwight D. Eisenhower in a commencement address delivered at Dartmouth in 1953:

Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don’t be afraid to go in your library and read every book, as long as that document does not offend our own ideas of decency. That should be the only censorship.

–President Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Remarks at Dartmouth College Commencement (June 14, 1953)

President Eisenhower (Courtesy: Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum)

 

(Source: Dwight D. Eisenhower: “Remarks at the Dartmouth College Commencement Exercises, Hanover, New Hampshire.,” June 14, 1953. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pi....)

While books are rarely actually “banned” in America, the concept of restricting access to some books is much more commonplace, usually in classrooms and school libraries. Typically , books are pulled from shelves and reading lists after the objection of a an individual or group. The American Library Association, which sponsors “Banned Books Week,” explains the difference between “banned” and “challenged.”

A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group.  A banning is the removal of those materials.  Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others.  Due to the commitment of librarians, teachers, parents, students and other concerned citizens, most challenges are unsuccessful and most materials are retained in the school curriculum or library collection.

As the nation debates “Common Core,” an educational approach that demands reading and responding to ideas, the importance of this reminder of the right to free expression and the value of THINKING in a free society is more urgent than ever.

You can find many more resources on the issue of “banned” and “challenged” books at the American Library Association.

The New York Times Learning Network also offers some good teaching resources on classroom discussion of “controversial” books.

“Don’t Join the Book Burners”-Banned Books Week (2013)

(This video was made in 2010 but I re-post it for Banned Books Week)

Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don’t be afraid to go in your library and read every book, as long as that document does not offend our own ideas of decency. That should be the only censorship.

–President Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Remarks at Dartmouth College Commencement (June 14, 1953)

(Source: Dwight D. Eisenhower: “Remarks at the Dartmouth College Commencement Exercises, Hanover, New Hampshire.,” June 14, 1953. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pi....)

This week from September 22-28, ,2013, the nation’s libraries mark Banned Books Week.

Rarely are books actually “banned” in America. More typically , they are pulled from libraries and classrooms after the objection of a an individual or group. The ALA explains the difference between “banned” and “challenged.”

A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group.  A banning is the removal of those materials.  Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others.  Due to the commitment of librarians, teachers, parents, students and other concerned citizens, most challenges are unsuccessful and most materials are retained in the school curriculum or library collection.

So  it is time to think about the “Book Wars” again. That often means rounding up the “usual suspects” like The Catcher in the Rye, Beloved, or To Kill a Mockingbird.

But it also means that new books come along all the time that many parents, school board members or other individuals find “offensive” or “inappropriate.”

As the nation debates “Common Core,” an educational approach that demands reading and responding to ideas, the importance of this reminder of the right to free expression and the value of THINKING in a free society is more urgent than ever.

You can find many more resources on the issue of “banned” and “challenged” books at the American Library Association.

“The World is a Pear”-Classroom Skype with Author Kenneth C. Davis

Don’t Know Much About® Geography (Revised & Updated from HarperCollins and Random House Audio)

Columbus Day is Monday October 14–Geography Awareness Week is NOVEMBER 17-23

Dear Teachers,

In a world of Google Maps, FourSquare, GPS and “Checking In” on smartphones- who needs Geography?

Of course, we all do. Geography isn’t just about dots on a map or a turn-by-turn list of driving directions. Geography is about asking questions, being curious about the world, and understanding that where things happen has everything to do with why they happen.

Tying in with Columbus Day on October 14, as well as with the release of the newly revised and updated edition of Don’t Know Much About Geography (Harper Collins and Random House Audio), bring author Kenneth C. Davis into your classroom to discuss the joys of Geography with your students as he poses and ponders such questions as:

*Why did Columbus think the world was shaped like a pear?

*What can you build with BRICS?

*Does the World Bank have ATMs?

*Is all the talk of global warming just hot air?

*And, that old standard, how many oceans are there? (Hint: More than before.)

Davis will discuss the central role geography plays in history, literature, world economics and religion –and all the other subjects we “need to know.”

He will do so in a LIMITED number of free SKYPE sessions offered to middle school and high school geography and social studies classes, based on his availability.

Each session will last about 30 to 45 minutes and include time for students to ask questions.

To inquire about booking a session, please go to this website’s Contact page

Be sure to include the name and full address of your school along with any school or class website if applicable.

These sessions will be offered from mid-October through Geography Awareness Week (Nov. 17-23), to a limited number of classes, subject to the author’s availability.

You can listen to an audio sample from Don’t Know Much About Geography here.

And remember, what you don’t know can be thrilling!

Who Said It? (9/24/13)

President Eisenhower (Courtesy: Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum)

President Dwight D. Eisenhower Address to the Nation on the Little Rock Integration Crisis (September 24, 1957)

Following the decision to desegregate public schools (Brown v Board of Education, 1954),  there was widespread resistance to the orders.  In 1957, the integration crisis came to a head in Little Rock, Arkansas, where  Governor Orval Faubus challenged efforts by the school board to institute a gradual school desegregation process. He ordered state National Guard troops to defy Federal law and stop nine African-American students from attending an all-white high school.

Images of the subsequent mob violence directed towards the “Little Rock Nine” were seen around the world. In response, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, on September 24, 1957, announced  he would send in federal troops to defend the court ruling and protect the children.

“In that city, under the leadership of demagogic extremists, disorderly mobs have deliberately prevented the carrying out of proper orders from a Federal Court. Local authorities have not eliminated that violent opposition and, under the law, I yesterday issued a Proclamation calling upon the mob to disperse.

This morning the mob again gathered in front of the Central High School of Little Rock, obviously for the purpose of again preventing the carrying out of the Court’s order relating to the admission of Negro children to that school.

Whenever normal agencies prove inadequate to the task and it becomes necessary for the Executive Branch of the Federal Government to use its powers and authority to uphold Federal Courts, the President’s responsibility is inescapable. In accordance with that responsibility, I have today issued an Executive Order directing the use of troops under Federal authority to aid in the execution of Federal law at Little Rock, Arkansas. This became necessary when my Proclamation of yesterday was not observed, and the obstruction of justice still continues.

….The interest of the nation in the proper fulfillment of the law’s requirements cannot yield to opposition and demonstrations by some few persons.

Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the decisions of our courts.”

Source: Eisenhower Presidential Library

Although the nine students enrolled, resistance to desegregation continued as Faubus closed Little Rock high schools the following year and the number of desegregated schools in the South dropped precipitously in the ensuing years.

Eisenhower later described this as the toughest decision he had made since D-Day. Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, usually an Ike supporter and powerful head of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, protested what he called:

“the high-handed and illegal methods being employed by the armed forces of the United States… who are carrying out your orders to mix the races in the public schools… by applying tactics which must have been copied from the manual issued [to] the officers of Hitler’s storm troopers.”

Source: Jean  Edward Smith, Eisenhower in War and Peace, pp. 716-727

The video of Eisenhower’s televised speech is available at C-Span Video Library. Transcript of address

More material on the crisis can be found at the Eisenhower Presidential Library archive.

Read more about Eisenhower, his administration and the Little Rock crisis in these books.

Don’t Know Much About® the American Presidents-now available in hardcover and eBook and audiobook

 

Don’t Know Much About History (Revised, Expanded and Updated Edition)

Who Said It (9/16/2013)

President George Washington,“Farewell Address to the Nation” (September 19, 1796)

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

 

Source: Avalon Project-Yale Law School

 

Published in a newspaper as an open letter to the American people on September 19, 1796, “Washington’s Farewell” was first drafted with the assistance of James Madison near the end of Washington’s first term in office. At the end of his second term, as he decided against a third term, it was redrafted by Alexander Hamilton, the now-disgraced former secretary of the Treasury. It is well-known for its warning againt “foreign entanglements” and the dangers of party factionalism. Although its warnings about party were unambiguous, Hamilton used the text to attack the rival Jeffersonian “Republicans.”

As Ron Chernow noted in his biography of Hamilton, “the Republican reaction was venomous and unwittingly underscored its urgent plea for unity.” (Chernow, Alexander Hamilton, p. 507)

 

 

Who Said It (9/9/2013)

 

Woodrow Wilson , 1919 (Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs digital ID cph.3f06247.)

President Woodrow Wilson “Fourteen Points” address to Congress (January 8, 1918)

What we demand in this war, therefore, is nothing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression. All the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest, and for our own part we see very clearly that unless justice be done to others it will not be done to us. The programme of the world’s peace, therefore, is our programme; and that programme, the only possible programme, as we see it, is this:

Source: Avalon Project-Yale law School

 

This speech outlining Wilson’s 14 point peace plan, was made after a Paris Peace Conference aimed at ending what would become known as World War I and introduced the idea of a League of Nations. (Point 14)

XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.

The Treaty of Versailles, ending the war, codified these points and would have crested the League. It was rejected by the United States Senate in 1919, shortly after Wilson suffered a debilitating stroke.

For his peace-making efforts, Wilson was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919.

 

“Study War No More”-Dr. King’s Other Speech

Martin Luther King Jr.Credit: United Press International telephoto,1965 Oct 11. Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress.

 

What a difference a week makes.

The wave of good feeling that flooded over the nation when President Obama marked the fiftieth anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream Speech” is a fleeting memory. This week, Syria, not Selma, is on the nation’s mind.

But as Congress debates the President’s call for military action against Assad’s Syria over its purported use of chemical weapons, it might be an apt moment to ask, “What would Dr. King say?”

Largely overlooked by the President’s impassioned and reverential remarks, and the nostalgic good feeling that the anniversary engendered, is the great central tenet of the King legacy. Of course Dr. King’s life was devoted to racial justice and economic equality –both duly noted last week. But the other thrust of Dr. King’s mission was his commitment to non-violence and his vocal opposition to the war in Vietnam. And it is that piece of the King legacy that has been missing from the conversation.

Now, with the full-throated debate over an attack on Syria, the President, the nation, and the world would do well to recall another speech Dr. King made in Washington.

Nearly five years after the celebrated 1963 rally, and just days before his death, Dr. King delivered his final Sunday sermon at National Cathedral on March 31, 1968.  King’s words that day may not have the familiar ring of “I have a dream.”

Preparing to lead the “Poor People’s Campaign” into Washington later that spring, he addressed three central issues.

He spoke first about racial equality, the glimmers of progress that had been made in five years, and the promises still to be kept. Then he turned to poverty, hunger and inadequate housing in what he called “the richest nation in the world.”  This was, after all, going to be the “Poor People’s Campaign.” King knew that economic injustice could be colorblind.

But there was a third piece of Dr. King’s vision. On that day in 1968, as the war in Vietnam raged and American opposition to that war mounted, Dr. King said,

“Anyone who feels, and there are still a lot of people who feel that way, that war can solve the social problems facing mankind is sleeping through a great revolution.”

Text Source: The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute (Retrieved September 2, 2013)

Guided by Thoreau, Gandhi and his own Christianity, King’s belief in nonviolence and the use of civil disobedience were central to his movement’s push for racial justice. But his unflinching opposition to the war in Vietnam tends to be shunted to the sidelines when discussing King’s legacy. Certainly when he first voiced his opposition to the war, his was not a popular stance. Accused of taking the “Commie” line, Dr. King acknowledged that his antiwar views were hurting the movement and his organization.

“There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular,” he told the thousands who packed the Cathedral. “… I believe today that there is a need for all people of goodwill to come with a massive act of conscience and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘We ain’t goin’ study war no more.’”

Source: The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute (Retrieved September 2, 2013)

Ironically, King’s “other speech” was overshadowed. Later that evening, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced to a national television audience that he was withdrawing from the presidential race. The weight of the war and the growing opposition to it had combined to force Johnson from his quest for another term. And a few days later, on April 4, 1968, King was assassinated in Memphis.

In his remarks last week, President Obama said,

“The March on Washington teaches us that we are not trapped by the mistakes of history.”

This is a moment to stop and consider whether we confront another of the “mistakes of history” –like the one that trapped Lyndon B. Johnson.

Those who wish to remember Dr. King’s impact and ideas must recall more than a gauzy, feel-good rendition of “We Shall Overcome.” It is mere lip service to trumpet King’s “Dream” without acknowledging the other piece of his call to conscience:

“Simply that we must find an alternative to war and bloodshed.”

(Source: The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute Retrieved September 2, 2013)

 

New Ted-Ed animated video-Labor Day

“Why do Americans and Canadians Celebrate Labor Day?” [image error]

This new Ted-Edd animated video explains the history of the holiday and why it still matters today.

You can also view it on YouTube:

 

 

Read more about the period of labor unrest in Don’t Know Much About® History.

Don’t Know Much About History (Revised, Expanded and Updated Edition)

 

Who Said It? (9/2/13)

 [image error]

Abraham Lincoln “First Annual Message,” December 3, 1861

 Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits. The error is in assuming that the whole labor of community exists within that relation. A few men own capital, and that few avoid labor themselves, and with their capital hire or buy another few to labor for them. A large majority belong to neither class–neither work for others nor have others working for them. In most of the Southern States a majority of the whole people of all colors are neither slaves nor masters, while in the Northern a large majority are neither hirers nor hired. Men, with their families–wives, sons, and daughters–work for themselves on their farms, in their houses, and in their shops, taking the whole product to themselves, and asking no favors of capital on the one hand nor of hired laborers or slaves on the other. It is not forgotten that a considerable number of persons mingle their own labor with capital; that is, they labor with their own hands and also buy or hire others to labor for them; but this is only a mixed and not a distinct class. No principle stated is disturbed by the existence of this mixed class.

 

Source: Abraham Lincoln: “First Annual Message,” December 3, 1861. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pi....

Here is my brief history of Labor Day  from Ted-Ed.