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Podcast: what can Black History Month teach us about the legacy & future of civil rights?

Podcast: what can Black History Month teach us about the legacy & future of civil rights?

Black History Month is a celebration of the remarkable contributions of Black Americans to our nation. We share some personal thoughts and stories about the lessons of history, with extracts from past podcasts and a Common Ground Committee public event. We learn about the legacy of the civil rights movement, and recent calls for social change, justice, reform, and respect.

This episode features “ Let’s Find Common Ground ” podcast guests: Professor Ilyasah Shabazz, the daughter of Malcolm X and the author of the memoir Growing Up X; Dr. Brian Williams, Associate Professor of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery at the University of Chicago Medical Center; Hawk Newsome, Cofounder and Chair of Black Lives Matter Greater New York; Errol Toulon, Jr., Ed.D., the first African-American Sheriff of Suffolk County, New York; and Caroline Randall Williams, a poet, author, teacher and Writer-in-Residence at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.


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Mount Vernon

Mount Vernon is located on the banks of the Potomac River in Fairfax County, Virginia.

Getty Images, Bogdan Okhremchuk

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The most important part, though, is his grave. The first President of the most powerful nation on Earth rests in a modest brick mausoleum about ten feet high, built into a hillside. The plain white room containing the sarcophagi of Washington and his wife is barely larger than the two coffins themselves.

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Mount Vernon

Mount Vernon is located on the banks of the Potomac River in Fairfax County, Virginia.

Getty Images, Bogdan Okhremchuk

What Washington’s Humble Grave Reveals About American Exceptionalism and the Rule of Law

If you want to understand what makes the United States exceptional on an emotional level, take an in-person or virtual trip to both Mt. Vernon, Virginia, and Paris, France. At Mt. Vernon, you can tour the preserved and reconstructed plantation of George Washington, viewing what the tour claims is the first compost bin in the nation and reading about the particular way he organized his gardens.

The most important part, though, is his grave. The first President of the most powerful nation on Earth rests in a modest brick mausoleum about ten feet high, built into a hillside. The plain white room containing the sarcophagi of Washington and his wife is barely larger than the two coffins themselves.

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(Getty Images)

Leaked ‘wish list’ for peace in Russia-Ukraine war is hardly America First

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