The historic centers of most American cities disappeared long ago. Boston and Philadelphia saved some of their most important monuments, and Richmond, Charleston and Savannah have lovely historic districts. But only in New Orleans are you able to stroll block by block through an assortment of buildings more a century old, with many structures still standing from the 1700s and early 1800s.
Editor’s Note: Elizabeth R. Varon is a professor of American History at the University of Virginia. She recently published a landmark biography of one of the Confederacy’s most intriguing military leaders, Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied the South, from which portions of this essay were adapted.
Photographs by the author
“But what about Castro?” someone asked. “Didn’t he lead a double life, with secret mistresses, luxurious yacht, private island, multiple mansions, private security teams, secret cash accounts …?”
“Who told you that?” Jorge shot back. “Nonsense. Propaganda. What I know is this: Fidel stood for the common man!”
It all started with a Robert F. Kennedy presidential campaign button.
What grew into the largest private collection of American presidential election memorabilia was the outgrowth of a happenstance visit by 10-year-old Jordan M. Wright to Kennedy’s Manhattan headquarters in 1968.
The button that the volunteers gave to the inquisitive kid was the seed for a collection that decades later would become the nonprofit organization named the Museum of Democracy.
Editor's Note: Eugene Meyer is a veteran journalist who writes about history, lifestyles, and travel. He is the author of three books of history, including Five for Freedom. The African American Soldiers in John Brown's Army. He publishes a blog at eugenelmeyer.com, where a version of this essay appeared.
It was a time of relative comity, when Senate Republicans joined with the Democratic majority to overcome a filibuster and pass the most significant civil rights legislation in a century. Segregation had prevailed throughout the South and even in border states like Maryland ever since the end of Reconstruction with the corrupt bargain of 1877 that restored white supremacy to the defeated Confederate states in a contested presidential election.
This time the country was still reeling from the Nov. 22, 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, but the reaction to that terrible tragedy propelled his successor, a Texan, to seek and achieve what the martyred Kennedy sought to do but could not. When LBJ signed the bill, I was there.