From Boomers to Millennials: A Modern US History Podcast

By 1963, Rev. Martin Luther King Junior was concerned that the progress of the civil rights movement was losing momentum. So, he launched the Birmingham Campaign in Alabama, betting that the local segregationist sheriff Bull Connor would overreact. MLK was arrested during the protests he was leading, and he then wrote his famed "Letter from Birmingham Jail." In May, Sheriff Connor allowed Birmingham cops to behave brutally toward women & children who were protesting, leading to scenes that shocked the nation. Shortly afterward, Attorney General Bobby Kennedy had a meeting with Black leaders that gave him a new appreciation of their militant determination. Meanwhile, the inflammatory rhetoric of Dixiecrat politicians like Alabama Governor George Wallace disturbed people in the North. President John F. Kennedy assessed the national mood & decided it was time for his administration to back a federal Civil Rights Act. The night Kennedy announced this bill, an NAACP leader in Mississippi named Medgar Evers was murdered in cold blood. Jim Crow supporters in Congress used procedural tactics in Congress to block the civil rights bill during the summer, so civil rights leaders responded by holding the legendary March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom to press for its passage. This massive Washington DC rally featured King's "I Have a Dream" speech. The Civil Rights Act nevertheless remained stalled in Congress, but advocates of gender equality had more legislative success in Summer 1963, as Assistant Secretary of Labor Esther Peterson shepherded through the passage of the Equal Pay Act. Activists' hopeful mood would soon be shaken by the unsettling events of Fall 1963, however.
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By the time he attended New Jersey's Rutgers University, it was clear that Paul Robeson was an academic, athletic, and artistic prodigy. He also had the misfortune of having been born of African ancestry in the USA during 1898, at the low point of American race relations. After his aspiring legal career was scuttled by racism, Robeson participated in the Harlem Renaissance of Black culture, and he went into show business. He made his fame singing "Old Man River" in the musical "Show Boat," and went on to become a star of stage and screen. He also became a left-wing political activist, promoting labor militancy and wealth redistribution in pursuit of global human equality. This got him into trouble by the time of the Red Scare. Although he was not a card-carrying Communist, unlike many other leftists of the era, Paul Robeson never stopped defending the Soviet Union. He did not accept reports that the USSR had fallen far short of its stated egalitarian ideals and had engaged in bloody repression of political dissidents. His views on this topic were criticized by both liberals and conservatives, and his once-thriving career suffered greatly as a result. By the end of a life spent dealing with both racial and political persecution, Robeson suffered poor mental & physical health, but his iconic acting and singing performances have left an indelible mark on American culture.
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The fifth episode in our series on the rise of the Kennedy family as a political dynasty begins by contrasting the anti-expert populist image of current HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. with the ethos of the mid-20th Century Kennedys, who were striving to be accepted by the Establishment. We then do a deep dive into the presidency of John F. Kennedy, discussing behind-the-scenes dramas, including: the president's marginalization of VP Lyndon B. Johnson; his attempts to manipulate and pressure the news media; his efforts to present an image of tough-minded pragmatism rather than sentimental idealism; his management of his hidden health problems; his reckless womanizing, including a likely affair with troubled actress Marilyn Monroe; and his schemes to ensure his brother Ted was elected to the US Senate during 1962. We conclude with a discussion of the fact that, although JFK & his administration had many positive accomplishments & legacies, the idealized "Camelot" image that some Baby Boomers maintain about his presidency is unrealistic, as Pres. Kennedy shared many of the flaws & hypocrisies common to other prominent politicians of this era.
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This end-of-year episode examines key US news events from the year 2025 and tries to put them into historical context. Issues discussed include: tariffs & their economic impact, mass deportations by ICE, the DOGE budget cuts, the "MAHA" movement, the Trump Administration's foreign policy, the aggressive use of executive power (including the pardoning of the J6ers), the Fall 2025 government shutdown, political violence (including the killing of Charlie Kirk), the partisan gerrymandering wars, and the Epstein files. We conclude by noting that the year 2025 has been largely a negative one for American society, but there are still a few reasons to keep hope alive.
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Michael Harrington was a writer and scholar primarily concerned with the problem of poverty within the otherwise affluent postwar 20th Century USA. He grew up in a Midwestern Irish-American family, and he attended parochial schools, where he excelled academically. Harrington moved to New York & became involved in the Catholic Worker movement, before he lost his faith and turned to more secular political organizations. He considered himself a socialist, but he downplayed those beliefs when he wrote a bestselling book aimed at liberal reformers entitled "The Other America: Poverty in the United States." That 1962 work became a bestseller that helped to inspire Pres. Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs. Harrington continued to speak out against economic inequality throughout his life. He founded Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) during the 1980s and remained its leader until his 1989 death from esophageal cancer at age 61. During the 21st Century, DSA experienced a boom in membership, but it also began taking controversial positions that some original members questioned. We conclude the episode by noting that Harrington's work exposing the neglected issue of American poverty remains relevant today, as the USA's unusual gap between relatively high average incomes & relatively low life expectancy continues to grow.
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