The Dutch are missing in any U.S. history textbook, in the content standards, and in the nationally endorsed curriculum. Outside of New York State history classes, there is almost no mention of the Dutch influence in early 17th-century America. Fleeting references to the Netherlands as a staging area for the Pilgrims' famous "Mayflower"…

"Mr. President, It is my Desire to be free," wrote Annie Davis to Abraham Lincoln, 20 months after he issued the Emancipation Proclamation. The Emancipation Proclamation affected only those parts of the country that were in rebellion against the United States on the date it was issued, January 1, 1863. The slaveholding border states of…

When asked by Thurgood Marshall during the Brown v. Board of Education desegregation case to join a team of scholars to answer questions posed by the U.S. Supreme Court about the intent of the framers of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment, Dr. John Hope Franklin didn't hesitate to accept. This document contains personal accounts of the famous…

On May 17, 2004, the United States will observe the fiftieth anniversary of the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. By invalidating the doctrine of "separate but equal" in the field of public education, a doctrine that had been approved by the same court nearly sixty years earlier in Plessy…

In this article, the author discusses the 50th Anniversary Commission of the "Brown v. Board of Education" that draws both praise and criticism from nationally prominent figures in education, civil rights, and government--including its own commissioners. As the federal commission commemorates the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme…