On May 23, 2017 I visited the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the newest part of the Smithsonian Museums in Washington, DC. https://nmaahc.si.edu/
Despite what I had heard about the impossibility of getting admission tickets for less than three months in advance, I was able to get a same-day ticket online at 6:30 AM that morning. They were all gone by 8:30 that morning. There are also “walk up tickets” available at 1:00 PM until they are gone. Continue reading
Not surprising, I was never invited to give a real, official commencement address on the Quad or in the basketball arena, so I wrote my own for my capstone seminars in 2002, 2007, and 2010.
Congratulations on completing your college education. You might not think graduating from college is a big deal, I didn’t think so in 1973 either, but your parents and society thinks so. So do I. You are among the top quarter of American society who have either been given, or made the opportunity for, at least four years of post-high school study.
May 4, 1970 is a under- appreciated date in American history, but a pivotal date in my own development. It is the day of the Kent State shootings, of course, that changed the tone of anti-Vietnam protests by broadening political concern and, most likely, by reducing protestors willingness to encourage violent protests. Continue reading
