American History Tellers

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Encore: Supreme Court Landmarks | Jane Roe | 7 Aug 30, 2023

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In 1970, a 22-year-old woman in Texas named Norma McCorvey tried and failed to get an abortion from her doctor. Abortion was illegal in Texas, just as it was in most states. Women hoping to terminate their pregnancies had few options, and many resorted to risky back-alley procedures.

McCorvey was soon introduced to a pair of young lawyers who hoped to go to court to challenge the Texas law banning abortion. Before long, McCorvey became the plaintiff known only as “Jane Roe.”

Her case eventually made its way to the Supreme Court, where the Justices would rule on whether the constitutional right to privacy applied to abortion. The Court’s landmark ruling changed the lives of American women, and unleashed intense controversy, dividing the nation for decades to come.

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Encore: Supreme Court Landmarks | A Recount in Florida | 6 Aug 23, 2023

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The morning of Nov. 8, 2000, Americans woke up to an undecided election. Pollsters had predicted a close race between Vice President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush, but no one knew just how narrow the margins would be. It all hinged on Florida, where 25 electoral votes were up for grabs.

Over the next 36 days, armies of lawyers waged a bitter fight to determine how to count the votes in Florida. It was a battle that would eventually find its way to the Supreme Court.

In its long history, the Court had been asked to weigh in on political matters, but never before had it intervened in the results of a presidential election. The case that became known as Bush v. Gore would ultimately send one man to the White House and expose the Court to intense public scrutiny.

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Encore: Supreme Court Landmarks | The Warren Court | 5 Aug 16, 2023

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Before the 1950s, the Supreme Court was best known as an institution that adhered to the status quo. It often sought to protect the rights of property owners and businessmen, shying away from cases that took direct aim at controversial social or political issues.

But when a popular former California governor became Chief Justice in 1953, all that changed. Earl Warren’s court would take on some of the hottest issues of the times, ruling on cases where individual rights would take precedent, such as Brown v. Board of Education and Baker v. Carr, and where First Amendment and Fifth Amendment rights would be strengthened, such as Engle v. Vitale and Miranda v. Arizona.

For sixteen years, the Warren Court would radically reshape the legal and social landscape of America.

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Encore: Supreme Court Landmarks | Loaded Weapon | 4 Aug 09, 2023

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Through most of 1941, as fighting raged across Europe, the United States held back from entering the war. That all changed in December, when Japanese fighter planes bombed Pearl Harbor and the nation found itself mobilizing for World War II. Suddenly, the frenzy to fight enemies abroad turned to suspicion against those at home.

President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, giving the military the power to detain and permanently jail over 110,000 Japanese Americans living on the West Coast. But three young detainees would defy their fate.

Fred Korematsu, Gordon Hirabayshi and Mitsuye Endo would challenge the U.S. policy of Japanese internment and bring their cases all the way to the Supreme Court — pitting the wartime powers of the United States against the constitutional rights of American citizens.

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Encore: Supreme Court Landmarks | Separate and Unequal | 3 Aug 02, 2023

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After the Civil War, America began to rebuild a shattered nation. For the first time, the country could create a society without slavery, and a nation where Black people could forge their own path as independent citizens.

But by the 1890s, the laws and policies that promised new rights for Black citizens in the South were under assault. In Louisiana, white politicians attempted to turn back the clock on racial progress by passing the Separate Cars Act and reinstating segregation.

The move prompted a Black New Orleans activist group called the Comité des Citoyens to rise up and challenge the law. Members Louis Martinet and Albion Tourgee aimed to build a test case – a case that would force the Supreme Court to strike down segregation laws, and disprove the idea that “separate” could ever be “equal.”

The high-stakes case would define race relations for decades to come. And it would begin with a brief train car ride in New Orleans, by a 29-year-old shoemaker named Homer Plessy.

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Encore: Supreme Court Landmarks | The Cherokee Cases | 2 Jul 26, 2023

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In the early 1800s, the United States was growing rapidly, seeking land and resources for its expanding population. But the growth threatened Native American communities throughout the East. In the southern Appalachia region, the Cherokee Nation held millions of acres of prime farmland and forests, managed by a centuries-old tradition and a thriving government. But the state of Georgia, and a relentless President Andrew Jackson, set their sights on seizing the land.

When the Georgia statehouse declared political war, Cherokee advocates fought back. Newspaper publisher Elias Boudinot and Cherokee Chief John Ross took their challenge all the way to the Supreme Court, forcing Chief Justice John Marshall to weigh in on two monumental cases, Cherokee Nation v. Georgia and Worcester v. Georgia.

At stake was a decision that would test the limits of the high court’s power -- and determine the future and sovereignty of a threatened nation.

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Encore: Supreme Court Landmarks | The Predicament of John Marshall | 1 Jul 19, 2023

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After the War of Independence, the new American government created the Supreme Court to be the final word on disputes that the states couldn’t settle. But at first, the Court was anything but Supreme.

For nearly a decade, Congress and the President held the real power. In practice the Supreme Court was weak, ineffectual and disorganized – a post so unappealing that many men turned down nominations to serve on its bench.

All that would change with the appointment of Chief Justice John Marshall and the arrival of a case called Marbury v. Madison — a political drama that would embroil the new President Thomas Jefferson, outgoing president John Adams, the U.S. Congress, and even the Chief Justice himself.

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Reconstruction Era | Counter Narratives | 7 Jul 12, 2023

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After Federal troops withdrew from the South in 1877, Reconstruction officially came to an end, and the battle to control the narrative began. For the next century, white Southerners espoused the Lost Cause mythology, shifting the blame for the failure of Reconstruction onto Northern interlopers and Black citizens supposedly “unready” for freedom. Today, Lindsay is joined by University of Colorado Professor Ashleigh Lawrence-Sanders to discuss the legacy of Reconstruction, and how Black scholars and communities have worked to counter the Lost Cause narrative, even up to today.

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Reconstruction Era | The Great Betrayal | 6 Jul 05, 2023

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In 1876, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden vied for the presidency. But when Election Day was over, no clear winner emerged. Amid reports of voter fraud, intimidation and violence, both parties claimed victory in South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida, the only three Southern states where Republicans still held the reins of local government.

It was the most bitterly disputed election in American history. As the stalemate dragged on, the nation faced a Constitutional crisis. The outcome of the presidency, the fate of Reconstruction, and the futures of millions of Black Southerners hung in the balance.

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Reconstruction Era | The Panic | 5 Jun 28, 2023

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On Easter Sunday, 1873, an armed white mob battled a Black militia over control of a courthouse in a rural Louisiana parish. In the end, as many as 150 Black citizens were massacred. It was one the deadliest incidents of racial violence during the Reconstruction era.

As anti-Black violence ravaged the South, President Ulysses S. Grant entered his second term. Soon, the North’s commitment to defending Southern Black political rights faltered when disaster struck Wall Street, triggering bank failures across America. Tens of thousands of freedpeople saw their meager savings disappear, as their political rights came under threat from armed Southern Democrats determined to reclaim power once and for all.

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