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Today, controversies on public campuses often pit champions of freedom of expression against champions of racial justice—but what is the history behind this tension? Courts initially recognized First Amendment protections for students in the Deep South during the 1950s and ’60s in order to protect black students fighting against Jim Crow regimes. Constitutional scholar Randall Kennedy revisits the origins of federal constitutional rights for students.

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Distinguished historian Stephen Kotkin discusses the Soviet Union’s famed 20th-century leader Joseph Stalin, exploring the dictator’s brutal forced industrialization of the region and assessing his relationship with Hitler’s Nazi Germany during World War II.

Stephen Kotkin is John P. Birkelund '52 Professor in History and International Affairs at Princeton University and the author of Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929–1941.

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The epic battlefield encounters in Virginia between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee from 1864 to 1865 constitute one the fiercest and bloodiest military rivalries in American history. The contrasting leadership styles of these starkly different commanders—Grant the relentless attacker, and Lee the risk-taking defender, one a plain-born westerner, the other an aristocratic Southerner—have inspired fierce debate for a century and a half.

Note: This event is sold out

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Amid the global crises of the Cold War, domestic riots, and the tragic assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, the 1968 election became chaotic, featuring politicians from Richard Nixon to Lyndon B. Johnson. In conjunction with the exhibition The Vietnam War, Lawrence O’Donnell unpacks one of the most tumultuous elections in American history.

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Explore how modernism, an architectural and decorative style defined by its simplicity and efficiency, emerged during the Victorian Era, a time when ornamentation and intricate design reigned.

Barry Lewis, an architectural historian who teaches at Cooper Union Forum, is the former co-host of a popular walking tour series on PBS. 

LOCATION

The Robert H. Smith Auditorium at the New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, New York, NY 10024

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“The power to wage war is the power to wage war successfully…” U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles Evan Hughes famously proclaimed a century ago in a statement that continues to echo in the ongoing legal debate over presidential powers during wartime.

PROGRAM CANCELLATION: This program has been canceled due to unforeseen circumstances.

Thank you very much for your interest in the New-York Historical Society and its public programs.

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9–9:30 am: Registration and Continental Breakfast
9:30–11 am: Program

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A radical social movement with roots as far back as the nation’s founding, abolitionism became a cause around which Americans of many backgrounds—men and women, black and white, free and enslaved—found common ground. Join leading Civil War historians Manisha Sinha and Eric Foner as they trace the history of the abolition movement from the Revolutionary Era through the passage of the 13th Amendment.

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The American Revolution reached a terrifying peak when British forces encroached on the young, embattled nation’s seat of government in Philadelphia. Follow General George Washington’s fight to save the capital, including the Battle of Brandywine—the Revolution’s largest and longest single-day conflict—and discover what forced the Continental Army to encamp at Valley Forge.

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Acclaimed historian Russell Shorto uncovers the diverse stories of six historical figures on the eve of the Revolution—a Native American warrior, a British aristocrat, a woman, a slave, a laborer, and George Washington himself—shedding new light on the meaning of freedom and describing how the struggle to uphold Revolutionary ideals remains to this day.