Life and times. This is just over an hour. Im john eleff, president of the Lincoln Group of the District Of Columbia. The Lincoln Group has existed since the 1930s to honor the life and legacy of Abraham Lincoln. And this year we have a special opportunity to hear from an extraordinary speaker. And in introducing him i would like to repeat something that he said at the First National Republican Convention that he attended as a young man in 1884. He was part of a reform wing of the Republican Party, and they had an insurgent candidate to be temporary chair of the convention, taking on the candidacy of the Republican National committee. That candidate happened to be the africanamerican congressmen from mississippi, john r. Lynch, and here is somewhere of what our speaker said. It is now less than a quarter of a century this this great city organized it is a fitting thing for us to choose to preside over this convention. One of that race whose right to sit within these walls is due to the
Honor Taylor Branch. Taylor is best known for his trillage of the Civil Rights Movement, america in the king years, the first volume parting the waters won the Pulitzer Prize in 1989. Two successive volumes and still remain essential text to any understanding of the role that Martin Luther king played in transforming our nation. Along the way, taylor won an in addition to the pults administer prize and many other prizes. I think he would agree that this extraordinary career really began in 1970 when he took a very low paid job with Charlie Peters, the legendary founder and editor of the Washington Monthly, a very small circulation political opinion and reporting magazine which still exists. I strongly suspect that taylor learned his trade as a journalist and book author while working for peters for three years. A few years later i went through a similar process myself but working for victor navaski at the nation magazine here in new york. Both of us arguably became buy og gras fers aft
Prof. Kastor i want to begin today by talking about the International Exposition of arts manufacturers and products of the soil and mind. You all want to go to that, dont you . Do any of you know what this actually was . It was also referred to as the centennial International Exposition. It was held in philadelphia from may to november 1876. It was supposed to celebrate the centennial of american independence, and ideally it was supposed to celebrate the reunion of the nation following the civil war, which was really the first worlds fair. But in the midst of the celebration, there was terrible news. I will explain to you what it was, but i think it was a very useful moment, when the Northern Plains and the delaware valley, two of the five regions we have looked at, they seem so far from each other and were in fact closely connected. What i want to do is use this moment, 1876, 1877, to really reflect back on what we have done this semester and give you a sense of where we are going, to