Associate editor and professor of history at Indiana University, John Nieto-Phillips speaks with Professor James Meriwether about his article, "'Worth a Lot of Negro Votes': Black Voters, Africa, and the 1960 Presidential Campaign." When John F. Kennedy telephoned Coretta Scott King to express sympathy for her jailed husband, he had little idea that his two-minute call would move to center stage in the 1960 presidential election. That call, James H. Meriwether argues, has obscured Kennedy's broader efforts to secure the support of black voters while not alienating white voters in the no longer "solid South." Kennedy drew on the growing transnational relationship black Americans had with an ancestral continent undergoing its own freedom struggles, revealing that he was more interested in Africa than in civil rights. Africa, the newest frontier for Kennedy, became a place where he could show his Cold War credentials, find common ground with black American voters, and strengthen his chances to win the presidency.

Julie Novkov, Associate Professor of Political Science and Women's Studies at the University of Albany, SUNY, provides an overview of 230 years of struggles for equality, focusing on the role of the Constitution and the courts in movements for African American and women's rights.

Audio and video options are available.

Julie Novkov, Associate Professor of Political Science and Women's Studies at the University of Albany, SUNY, provides an overview of 230 years of struggles for equality, focusing on the role of the Constitution and the courts in movements for African American and women's rights.

Audio and video options are available.

Michael Willrich of Brandeis University investigates the birth of the modern welfare state, exploring a time when so many ideas we now regard as "common sense" found their origins. Willrich pays special attention to two court cases: Lochner v. New York (1905) and Muller v. Oregon (1908).

Audio and video options are available.

Michael Willrich of Brandeis University investigates the birth of the modern welfare state, exploring a time when so many ideas we now regard as "common sense" found their origins. Willrich pays special attention to two court cases: Lochner v. New York (1905) and Muller v. Oregon (1908).

Audio and video options are available.

Eric Arnesen, Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Chicago addresses the interplay between the African-American experience between Reconstruction and the Great Migration, the U.S. Constitution, and shifting democratic ideals.

Video and audio options are available.

John Lloyd of California State Polytechnic University looks at the transition of the ideological and political conflicts that led to the Civil War and that continued during the war from conflict over the maintenance of the Union to conflict over the existence and continuation of slavery.

John Lloyd of California State Polytechnic University looks at the political and ideological conflicts between the North and South that led up to the Civil War, including the extension of slavery into the territories and debate over the Fugitive Slave Law.

According to Constitutional Connections, "On March 14, Liz Borgwardt examines a multilateralist moment in U.S. history, considering the seminal role the Atlantic Charter (1941) played in developing modern institutions of human rights and international justice. In exploring the "constitutionalization" of these rights, Dr. Borgwardt helped looks at how the Bretton Woods Charter (1944), the UN Charter (1945), and the Nuremberg Charter (1945) emerged from Roosevelt and Churchill's earlier proclamation much as the Constitution evolved from the Declaration of Independence."

According to Constitutional Connections, "On March 14, Liz Borgwardt examines a multilateralist moment in U.S. history, considering the seminal role the Atlantic Charter (1941) played in developing modern institutions of human rights and international justice. In exploring the "constitutionalization" of these rights, Dr. Borgwardt helped looks at how the Bretton Woods Charter (1944), the UN Charter (1945), and the Nuremberg Charter (1945) emerged from Roosevelt and Churchill's earlier proclamation much as the Constitution evolved from the Declaration of Independence."