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After 1 Year of Trump, America Is Losing Its Soul
When former President Barack Obama concluded his farewell address on Jan. 11, 2017, Bruce Springsteen’s anthem, “Land of Hope and Dreams,” played for the 18,000 supporters who had crowded into McCormick Place in Chicago. Obama’s soaring speech, followed by Springsteen’s song, offered a momentary respite from the grief, dread and shock many Americans experienced after…
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On Philando Castile, Terror and the Trauma That Remains
In Toni Morrison’s 1987 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Beloved, the character Baby Suggs has survived more than 60 years in slavery and has lost eight children. She preaches a sermon to a group of formerly enslaved people and beseeches her audience to love themselves—their hands, their backs, their hearts, their laughter, their dances, their very flesh—because…
Allyson Hobbs is an Associate Professor of American History and Director of African and African American Studies at Stanford University.