Dangerfield and Harriet Newby: Hidden Figures No More
In my book FIVE FOR FREEDOM: The African Americans in John Brown’s Army, I highlight the tragic love story of Harriet and Dangerfield Newby with a chapter titled “One Bright…
Read MoreFrom Passover to Holocaust Remembrance
How ironic it is that as we mark the end of Passover, celebrating the Jews’ exodus from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land, it is also the…
Read MoreRecalling “Jimmy’s World” at the Washington Post
Remarkably, it’s been 40 years since fabulist Janet Cooke was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for a story headlined “Jimmy’s World,” about an eight-year old heroin addict who did not exist.…
Read More“A Shameful Past”
For decades, it has been my mission as a journalist to give readers a sense of place about where they live, work and travel. It’s my strong sense that many…
Read MoreInaugurals Past and Present: Seeking Unity, Not Insurrection
It was less than six months after the infamous Watergate break-in when Richard Nixon, seeking his second presidential term, buried Democrat George McGovern in an electoral landslide and prepared to…
Read MoreDarkness at Dinner: Farewell to Mrs. K’s, Sergio’s and the rest
“Amidst all the vagaries of life, there’s death and taxes, and Mrs. K’s Toll House,” or so I wrote in a restaurant review for The Washington Post in August 1998.…
Read MoreA Plains Christmas and Pride in Charley, R.I.P.
A Plains Christmas It is so vivid in my mind, it seems like yesterday. But 40 years ago next week I boarded Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base…
Read MorePearl Harbor Day 2020
Dec. 7, 1941 – 79 years ago today – may indeed be a date that lives in infamy, even if barely remembered. A total of 2,403 died that day from…
Read MoreWe Gather Together–Apart
Happy Thanksgiving! (Or Happy Day After Thanksgiving, if you are seeing this on Friday) Today’s papers are filled with solemn holiday columns commenting on the sadness and irony we are…
Read MoreIn Praise of Chester A. Arthur
Let us now praise Chester Alan Arthur. The largely forgotten 21st president, a Republican vice president propelled into the office by the assassination of President John Garfield in 1881, Arthur served…
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