This June marks the 50th Anniversary of two of President John F. Kennedy’s most memorable speeches. On June 10th 1963, JFK delivered the commencement address at American University known as his “Peace Speech.” He called for high-level negotiations with the Soviet Union, a nuclear test ban treaty and an end to the Cold War.  On June 26th 1963, President Kennedy took a harder line in West Berlin, famously stating that as a free man he took pride in the words “Ich bin ein Berliner.” This is a discussion from the Kennedy Presidential Library about the significance and lasting influence of these two addresses.

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Virginia Commonwealth University professor Deirdre Condit teaches a class on the history of reproductive law in the U.S. Professor Condit touches on the 1965 U.S. Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut, about the prohibited use of contraceptives and the right to marital privacy. The class also examines rights and access to abortion, looking at the 1962 story of actress Sherri Finkbine, who had taken medication she later discovered causes birth defects, prompting her to fly to Sweden for an abortion. Also discussed is the historic 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion case.

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Discussion on foreign policy during the Eisenhower years, with a special look at the Middle East including: The Eisenhower Doctrine that Ike articulated in a 1957 special message to Congress. To hold off any communist threats, he declared the sovereignty of Middle Eastern nations and declared, as he put it, America’s “deep respect for the rights and independence of every nation . . . “  This was part of a conference titled, “Ike Reconsidered: Lessons from the Eisenhower Legacy for the 21st Century,” co-hosted by Hunter College, CUNY, the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute & the Eisenhower Foundation.

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Florida Atlantic University professor Stephen Engle teaches a class on the evolving nature of the Civil War. Among the issues discussed: President Lincoln’s decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation in the middle of the war -- and to use former slaves as troops – and how these ideas changed the Civil War from a fight to preserve the Union, to one about abolishing slavery, thus altering the nation forever. Florida Atlantic University is in Boca Raton. 
 

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University of Kansas professor Shawn Leigh Alexander teaches a class on the period following the end of slavery to the beginning of segregation. Professor Alexander discusses the failed Civil Rights Act of 1875, the Supreme Court ‘s 1896 “separate but equal” ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson, and African American journalist Ida B. Wells work to expose the horrors of lynching in the United States. The University of Kansas is in Lawrence.
 

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President Kennedy’s commencement address at American University when he called for high-level negotiations with the Soviet Union, a nuclear test ban treaty and an end to the Cold War.  June 10th marks the 50th anniversary of his “Peace Speech” in 1963.

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June 10th marks the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s commencement address at American University, when he called for high-level negotiations with the Soviet Union, a nuclear test ban treaty and an end to the Cold War.  This is a conversation with two veteran journalists, Tom Brokaw and Nick Clooney, on the Kennedy presidency and the significance of his “Peace Speech.”  This program was hosted by American University’s School of Communication and the Newseum.

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Oregon State University professor Christopher McKnight Nichols teaches a class on Post-Cold War U.S. Foreign Policy, focusing on the period between 1989 and 2001. The class looks at military engagements by the United States during the George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations, including Sierra Leone, Bosnia, Haiti and Serbia -- as well as the Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia and Operation Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf. Oregon State University is in Corvallis.

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Jeffrey Engel – director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas – discusses President George H.W. Bush’s motivations behind his enthusiastic push for German reunification in 1990.  Southern Methodist University hosted this event.

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Goucher College professor Jean Baker teaches a class on the Civil Right Movement, from Rosa Parks refusal to move to the back of the bus in 1955, to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. The class also engages in a discussion on a book of oral histories by journalist Howell Raines titled, “My Soul is Rested: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement in the Deep South.” Goucher College is in Baltimore, Maryland. This class is an hour and 15 minutes. 

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