Can we get an accurate account of American history just by examining its laws? In this audio story, a professor of economics examines the effectiveness of patent laws. As a Black graduate student, she questioned the theory that innovation is driven mainly by strong patent laws, and she discovered periods in American history in which Black innovation declined despite those laws. Listen to hear how her research connects this decline with racist and violent historical events and reveals what has been lost as a result.
Story Length: 5:15
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Racial segregation in the United States was challenged in two landmark Supreme Court cases. The first, Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) involved a Louisiana law segregating railroad cars. The second, and more famous, Brown vs. Board of Education (1954), centered on segregation in public schools, but both centered on whether or not segregation was constitutional. In Plessy, the court ruled that segregation was constitutional. However, nearly 60 years later, the court came to the opposite conclusion. This audio story includes interview clips with descendants of three of the important people from these two cases. Listen to hear how they learned about their connection to these historic cases and how their lives have been impacted.
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Higher Education in the United States is largely independent from the government, and provides value in the form of knowledge, degrees, and increased earnings. College campuses are known for being at the forefront of progressivism and the fight for racial equality, but this wasn’t always the case. In the early days of the American colonies, academic institutions were closely involved in the development of slavery. Listen to hear how one history professor explored the complicated legacy of slavery in American higher education.
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“Birthright” citizenship has been a very controversial subject in the United States for quite some time. The 14th Amendment guarantees automatic citizenship to any person born on US soil, but as the immigration debate has escalated over the past decade, there’s been a growing movement to change that provision. Listen to hear how other countries deal with birthright citizenship, and what one sociologist thinks will happen if the US removes that provision.
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Certain events in U.S. history are recognized by some and unknown to others. June 19th, also known as Juneteenth, commemorates the anniversary of federal troops arriving in Galveston, Texas, in 1865 to ensure that all enslaved people were freed, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. Tulsa, Oklahoma, was the location of a violent 1921 race massacre that destroyed an entire prosperous Black community overnight. Listen to historians explain how they learned about these historical events as adults and why they believe many Americans do not know much about them.
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