With politics as polarized and divisive as ever and the holiday season approaching, many of us will have difficult interactions with problematic family members. Does calling out your problematic family members benefit you or our political climate? Or does it do the opposite -- worsening familial relationships and political climate?
Site Navigation
Search
Latest Stories
Join a growing community committed to civic renewal.
Subscribe to The Fulcrum and be part of the conversation.
Top Stories
Latest news
Read More
Crowd throngs around Alex Haley, author of book, Roots, at the Broadway department store book department in Fox Hills Mall. Those waiting to have Haley autograph copies of his book formed a line a mile and a half long.
Bettmann/Getty Images
Roots at Fifty: Memory as Responsibility in an Unfinished America
Jul 26, 2026
Long before DNA tests promised to unravel our histories, there was Roots. When Alex Haley’s book appeared fifty years ago, it did more than recount a family’s journey—it called America to reckon with a central truth: we cannot understand who we are unless we remember how we got here.
This summer, as the nation marks the fiftieth anniversary of Roots, I found myself on the grounds of the Alex Haley Farm in Tennessee, invited to speak at the Children’s Defense Fund’s Summer Institute. Upon arrival, I felt the weight of the stories that had rooted themselves in that soil—the ones spoken and the ones carried in silence. The farm, now a living classroom, embodies the values Haley and Marian Wright Edelman championed: that children deserve honest stories, and democracy depends on them.
The Tennessee hills are unremarkable at first glance, but their quiet insistence on the ordinary gives them power. Haley never wanted a monument to himself; he wanted a place where people come to do the work, where memory becomes responsibility.
Roots changed America not because every detail withstood scholarly scrutiny, but because its deeper truths refused to be ignored. Haley grasped what historians sometimes miss: facts alone don’t move nations; stories do. When Roots arrived during the Bicentennial, it interrupted our self-congratulation with a sharper question: who had freedom, and who did not? While fireworks marked two centuries of liberty, Haley reminded us that millions lived those years as an inheritance, not of freedom, but of captivity.
Haley’s work democratized genealogy, turning the search for ancestry into a collective reckoning. Black families, long denied records and recognition, found permission to ask questions once deemed unthinkable. White Americans, too, faced histories their families had never spoken aloud. Libraries and kitchen tables became spaces where old silences broke, and new stories began.
We now inhabit an age glutted with information and starved for wisdom. Algorithms can summarize centuries in a moment, but wisdom requires humility—something Haley modeled in his lifelong search for Kunta Kinte’s story. He listened deeply, doubted, revised, and listened again. He approached memory with reverence, understanding that history yields no insights to the incurious or the arrogant.
The Children’s Defense Fund honors that spirit. The farm isn’t a nostalgic museum; it’s a living laboratory where new leaders grapple with justice, democracy, and the moral formation of children. The conversations here return to the stories our children inherit—their sense of belonging or exclusion, the voices they hear or never do. Every curriculum, every omission, shapes who they become.
The genius of Roots was never just in tracing one family’s tree—it was in insisting that Black history is American history, not a sidebar. Haley rejected the false choice between patriotism and honesty. Real love of country, he argued, requires the courage to remember truthfully and to tell that truth plainly.
Today, debates over history education often suggest that complexity threatens unity. Haley taught the opposite: a nation grows stronger when it can name both its achievements and its failures. Denial breeds fragility; truth fosters resilience. That is why remembering matters: it is how a nation becomes honest enough to endure.
In my role as a cleric, I see the church struggle with this, too—quick to celebrate redemption, slow to confess what needed redeeming. Yet Scripture grounds hope in remembrance, not erasure. Israel remembered Egypt. Jesus remembered Passover. Communities are redeemed not by forgetting wounds, but by telling the truth about them.
Haley knew names matter. Stories matter. Remembering is an act of resistance against a culture that pretends Black lives began with their recognition by others. In my own family, as in so many, stories are passed down across kitchen tables, more faithful than any official record. Haley validated that inheritance, giving ordinary families the conviction that their stories deserved to last.
Perhaps, fifty years later, Roots offers a new invitation. In a polarized America, genealogy becomes metaphor. Every family tree holds contradiction—heroes beside failures, courage beside compromise. No honest lineage, and no nation, is simple. The lesson is not to choose pride over accountability, but to hold both at once. That is the unfinished work of every generation.
As I reflect on my time together at Haley Farm, I’m compelled to consider how I and others might carry this unfinished work forward in our own spheres of influence. Whether in classrooms, congregations, boardrooms or homes, we are called to remember honestly, to listen deeply, and to share stories that expand, rather than shrink, our common understanding. Likewise, I invite you to ask: what stories in your care still need a voice, or a reckoning? What will you do, in your role, to ensure that memory becomes the beginning of responsibility and change? The work endures through us.
The Children’s Defense Fund and Alex Haley, in their different ways, call us to remember so that memory becomes responsibility rather than nostalgia. As I left the farm, I was reminded of Haley’s infamous admonishment: “Find the good and praise it.” Understand, Haley never ignored evil; he chronicled it. But he believed that hope demands disciplined attention to the good that survives even the worst history.
Today, our civic imagination swings between romanticizing the past and fearing the future. Haley suggested another way. We honor our ancestors not by embalming their memories, but by carrying their work forward.
The fiftieth anniversary of Roots deserves more than commemoration. It deserves a renewed commitment to telling fuller, braver American stories—stories that can hold sorrow and triumph, bondage and freedom, lament and possibility. Moreover, the work of remembrance and storytelling will require the leadership of young people whose voices bring new questions, perspectives, and urgency. As they claim their rightful place at the table, they do not simply inherit stories—they curate, challenge, and expand them for the future. The Haley Farm, in the end, is less a monument than a mirror. We come seeking to understand through legacy; we leave understanding ourselves.
Rev. Dr. F. Willis Johnson is a spiritual entrepreneur, author, scholar-practioner whose leadership and strategies around social and racial justice issues are nationally recognized and applied.
Keep ReadingShow less
Recommended
a couple of people sitting at a table with cups of coffee
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash
Let’s Talk to Our Neighbors To Improve Our Political Situation
Jul 26, 2026
Our political situation looks dire. In December 2025, Pew Research reported that “Just 17% of Americans now say they trust the government in Washington to do what is right. The current measure is one of the lowest” in nearly seven decades. In April 2026, Gallup reported that disapproval of Congress had risen to a record high of 86 percent.
A podcast between Heather Cox Richardson and Scott Galloway touched my imagination concerning how conversations among neighbors can improve political situations. A century ago, as historian HCR reminds us, an effective political response to unprecedented wealth, poverty, and inequality emerged from the grassroots, not from national leaders — from neighbors talking informally on front porches, lunch counters, coffee shops, barbershops, town halls, and houses of worship. Numerous popular reforms percolated upward, transforming the Gilded Age into the Progressive Era. Conversations can be especially powerful when they are planned and organized in advance.
How can we begin to talk to more of our neighbors about political topics? If initiating such conversations feels daunting, perhaps those feelings are further proof of the need to rebuild our communities. An incremental approach might work. Ask a few neighbors, “Can we talk?” Then explore mutual interests. Include how they see the prospects for improving our political situation. Other mutual interests can also help us to rebuild our communities. Select neighbors who are open to discussion about political topics. They might be independent voters or dissatisfied with two-party politics. Although agreement on political matters is not always possible, we can hear conflicting views, acknowledge them, and treat them with respect, even if we strongly disagree. Having the humility to admit our own uncertainty and limited knowledge about a topic can encourage others to acknowledge theirs.
Groups could employ the World Café's procedures and resources. Initiate an impromptu Zoom discussion. Or start up a regular conversation group at a local coffee shop, restaurant, senior citizen center, Kiwanis, or Rotary club.
As a Professor of Communication for more than four decades, I faced the challenge of getting about 20 students to speak candidly to each other about controversial topics, like genocides, lynchings, anti-semitism, sexual assaults, and anti-gay homicides. My teaching forced me to examine interactions closely to determine what worked. During discussions, we can agree to disagree, acknowledge our blind spots, and ask questions. I experimented with strategies to reduce mishaps. For example, I had students articulate their own ground rules, which they monitored and upheld. Sitting in a circle enhanced collaboration, consensus, and civility. Typically, trust would build such that students shared personal stories about what it was like to live on welfare, to learn with a disability, to counteract racism, or to have a transgender sibling. Personal experiences touched hearts and moved minds.
Since my retirement, I have participated in a weekly Zoom discussion with more than a dozen neighbors for over a year, whose insights and opinions have helped me understand complex issues, even when we express misgivings. Disagreement is a good thing if it makes us think. On occasion, we have arranged Zoom group conversations with a guest: an advocate for Medicaid recipients, an elected state representative, and a Congressional representative. Participation in this Zoom group has enriched my life, strengthened my network of friends, and energized our involvement in political life.
If you decide to initiate a discussion group, set some ground rules. For example, use “I” statements like “I am inclined to think.” Listen attentively, even if you feel tempted to interrupt. Collaborate on action items, such as a phone call or a letter-writing campaign to elected officials. They count those calls and letters. Some even reply. If warranted, express “No confidence.”
Generate your own topics as a group by asking, “What topics in current political life engage our interests?” Then, set up priorities among the topics.
To be sure, communication with our neighbors alone will not resolve our national problems. A wide variety of teamwork is vital for problems of such magnitude. However, communication can help focus our attention, generate new frameworks for our problems, and encourage multi-pronged, incremental approaches to address deep and abiding problems.
True, some neighbors are not open to discussion or persuasion. They will not come to the door, much less gather on a porch to talk politics. Some US citizens relish polarization or reject democracy.
It is crucial that the rest of us endeavor to bridge our differences, because our democracy is at stake. Our government was founded “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” We have a lot to talk about. Let’s reclaim our democratic republic and prepare to vote.
Lester C. Olson is a Professor Emeritus of Communication at the University of Pittsburgh.
Keep ReadingShow less
A 2021 poll shows 73% of Connecticut voters supported the amendment giving all voters the option to vote by absentee ballot without needing an excuse.
(Adobe Stock)
CT election security group honors 10 years of fighting for democracy
Jul 26, 2026
A Connecticut voting-rights group is celebrating its 10th anniversary.
Bridgeport Generation Now has worked to broaden voting access and ensure fairer elections for city residents. Some of its most important work came at a time when many Bridgeport residents felt their votes didn't matter, pointing to absentee ballot fraud as the cause.
During the city’s 2019 mayoral primary, co-director Callie Gail Heilmann said the group found unauthorized campaign workers were harvesting absentee ballots to the benefit of their preferred candidate.
"They go into low-income public housing, low-income senior housing, they target monolingual Spanish-speaking voters and manipulate them, lie to them about eligibility, they forge their signatures on an application," Heilmann said.
Voters sued to overturn mayoral election results in 2019, but the case failed. However, when a similar case played out after the 2023 election, election results were overturned and a new primary was ordered.
Since the state implemented universal absentee voting, reported cases of ballot harvesting have decreased, but now Heilmann said there's more work to do in educating voters about submitting an absentee ballot on their own.
Heilmann considered the city a "canary in the coal mine" for what happens when people in power undermine democratic norms. Heilmann said when it became clear the organization was up against a major threat to local democracy, the mission changed.
"From a simple 'let's be more civically engaged,' to 'no, we actually need to dismantle systemic corruption; we need to fix our democracy,'" Heilmann said.
If the state can’t do that for its largest city, Heilmann said, it can’t claim to have a functional democracy.
For the next decade, Heilmann said, the group will continue with some of its ongoing programs such as a candidate bootcamp for anyone who wants to run for office, and a two-day workshop about democracy and civic engagement.
CT election security group honors 10 years of fighting for democracy was first published by Public News Service and was republished with permission.
Edwin Viera is a producer with PNS.
Keep ReadingShow less
U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026 in Washington, DC.
Photo by Eric Lee/Getty Images)
Court’s Slaughter Decision Hands Presidents Sweeping New Authority
Jul 25, 2026
This series from Lawyers Defending American Democracy connects the words of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to current events that threaten democracy and the justice system. Each piece highlights the unique responsibility lawyers carry—through their oath, professional obligations, and roles in their communities—to help the public understand what’s at risk and to speak out when democratic principles are under threat. LDAD’s call to action is straightforward: as the Founders once did, we must recognize threats to constitutional values, demand accountability, and act to defend them.
In its recent decision in Trump v. Slaughter, a divided Supreme Court approved an expansive use of presidential power that upsets the Constitutional balance between Congress and the President. The Court approved the President’s summary dismissal of agency leaders (in this case, commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission), notwithstanding a statute signed by a former President and the Court's own precedent specifically forbidding such dismissals. This decision will further politicize and weaponize much of our federal government.
Because of their important role, the statutes creating many of our most important agencies typically provide their leaders (appointed by both parties) with a degree of independence by setting forth fixed terms of office and prohibiting removal by the president without cause. The independence of these agency heads is a hallmark of balanced separation of powers, contributing to government integrity and professional expertise and preserving continuity as administrations change. The Slaughter decision destroys that model and will do lasting damage to our nation.
The History and Experience Slaughter Has Undone
Since 1914, the FTC Act has provided for five Commissioners (no more than three from the same party) to be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. The Act specifies that they may be removed by the President for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance.” Since 1887, every President before Trump, except Franklin Roosevelt, accepted the protections against the arbitrary dismissal of these multimember agency heads. And when FDR tried to fire a previous FTC commissioner without cause, he lost in a unanimous Supreme Court decision (Humphrey’s Executor v. United States). The New Deal-era Court that decided that case was as sharply and bitterly divided as today’s, but it ruled unanimously that the FTC, like many other agencies, was created to perform quasi-judicial and legislative functions. The Court held that the FTC did not simply function as an arm of the executive branch and that a president has no power to remove its leaders except on the grounds specified in the statute.
The FTC Act became law when President Wilson signed it, thereby, in his capacity as Chief Executive, endorsing a statute that specifically eliminates any implicit Presidential power to remove Commissioners without cause. Wilson vetoed forty-four bills during his Presidency—in one case because of a provision that would have restricted his ability to remove a budgetary official performing strictly executive branch duties. But he did not veto or object to the removal provisions in the FTC Act. Wise presidents have historically recognized that it would be inappropriate and beyond their authority to exercise such powers over agencies with the manifold duties of the FTC. Once a President has exercised executive branch authority to sign a statute into law, it binds all future Presidents and Congress itself, unless the statute is repealed or amended. Much of our government has been created and operated in reliance on these principles since before the New Deal.
Casting aside Humphreys Executor and over a century of reliance, the six Justices in the Slaughter majority substitute a novel, hands-off-the-President approach. They assert that their theory of a unitary executive –a theory they have fashioned without any textual basis-- now compels the opposite result. These six Justices overturned precedent to transfer power from the legislative to the executive branch, undermining the constitutional balance and destabilizing the government.
The Slaughter majority's rationale essentially eliminates fixed terms and bipartisan boards in most executive agencies. It enables the current and future Presidents to remove at whim leaders of our most essential agencies, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Merit System Protection Board, which provides due process protections to federal workers.
The President may then either replace their leaders with loyalists who know they must do the President’s bidding or create vacancies that paralyze any Congressionally created agency the President dislikes. (The FTC now has only two of five Commissioners, and the Merit Protection Board has no chair and a years-long backlog to investigate employment termination cases, thereby rendering civil service protections a nullity in practice.) Slaughter may also lead to the conclusion that a president may bypass the special notice and reporting provisions Congress created for the removal of the Inspectors General who police abuse and corruption in government agencies.
The Supreme Court Majority That Justifies Its Decision on the Theory That the “Buck Must Stop” with the President Ensured Two Years Ago That the President Will Never Pay the Bill
The majority’s rationale in Slaughter is even more troubling when juxtaposed with one of its other recent decisions: Trump v. United States, which provided broad immunity to a President for actions even marginally related to the performance of the duties of the office.
The majority now finds another reason to give the Chief Executive unbridled authority: to fulfill the duty to execute the laws faithfully, it says, there must be one, and only one, person responsible and accountable for doing so: it’s the Buck Stops with the President theory of government. But in the earlier case, the Court made the Chief Executive the least accountable person in the United States by investing the incumbent with broad personal immunity. If the buck is going to stop with a Chief Executive now freed from the inconvenience of independent actors, then the person occupying that role should be held strictly accountable, and actions by the President and surrogates should receive heightened, not highly deferential, scrutiny.
Only in an Ideological Ivory Tower Can an Agency That Performs The Far-Ranging Variety of Functions of the FTC Be Treated as a Lowly Presidential Subordinate
Humphrey’s Executor held that the FTC was a multi-member, multifaceted agency with largely adjudicative and legislative duties. Justice Roberts (without finding it necessary to define what makes an agency a power executive) seems to think we would all now agree that somehow it has entered “the heartland of executive power.” But there is no reason for preferring his characterization to Humphrey Executor’s.
Long after 1935, I began teaching and practicing antitrust law and interacting with the modern-day FTC. These interactions included formal hearings, where the FTC acts in a judicial capacity with decisions reviewable in the federal courts of appeals, and submission of testimony or bar association reports when the FTC convened proceedings to examine the efficacy and economic effects of laws in what seems a quasi-legislative capacity. While the FTC also institutes proceedings in a manner akin to a traditional prosecutorial function as a necessary and proper adjunct to its other significant consumer protection duties, it functions very differently and in many more capacities than a purely executive-branch enforcement arm like the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division.
Where Are We and What Might Be Done?
If the Slaughter decision has made a hash of the constitutional order and threatens to wreak havoc on government stability, what can be done about it?
Senators from both parties must do more in their role in advice and consent. They cannot continue to rubber-stamp loyalists and sycophants who come before them for appointment. They should do this for their own long-term protection as well as for our national welfare.
Similarly, Congress as a whole should not hesitate to invoke remedies for malfeasance and mistakes, including investigations, funding withdrawals, and impeachment when warranted. Extraordinary authority demands strict accountability.
Congress must protect its own prerogatives when the President usurps them. It can act forcefully and creatively to discipline a president through its power of the purse. It could also limit the Supreme Court's jurisdiction and waive immunity from tort liability for any federal employee who interferes with our constitutional rights or commits other tortious acts, even when acting at the direction of the President or presidential surrogates.
In the future, Congress should tailor legislation narrowly to limit excuses for executive branch overreach and give the courts unequivocal grounds to curb it when it occurs. Congress could also create bodies structured more like the tax court or the Copyright Office (established as part of the Library of Congress), or as federally chartered or partially private corporations not subject to the President's control.
With the loss of agency independence, the federal courts should rethink the scope of abstention doctrines like ripeness, standing, and the political question doctrine, which were developed for other times and sometimes serve as unnecessary barriers to judicial review of executive action. The times now demand that many such actions be scrutinized carefully (as many courts have been doing).
Many of the possibilities seem politically unattainable right now. We have learned, to our sorrow, how hollow remedies for serious wrongdoing, like impeachment, are likely to be. There are no easy answers. But almost two hundred fifty years ago, from the day when we declared our independence from a despot and madman, the Court, a supine Congress, and our own inattention have left us on the verge of placing ourselves in the hands of another.
James B. Kobak, Jr., has been a lawyer in New York for over fifty years. He is a former President of the New York County Lawyers Association and currently chairs the National Center for Access to Justice. He prepared this article as a volunteer with Lawyers Defending American Democracy.
Keep ReadingShow less
Load More