Radical Histories: Waging Peace in the Pages of ‘The Nation’

Radical Histories: Waging Peace in the Pages of ‘The Nation’

Radical Histories: Waging Peace in the Pages of ‘The Nation’

For 150 years The Nation has refused to join the war party, instead urging skepticism, sobriety and pragmatism in the use of force for political ends.

Facebook
Twitter
Email
Flipboard
Pocket

Since its founding in 1865, The Nation has consistently acted as a brake on the train that certain social malefactors regularly try to hijack and point toward the nearest war. We have held fast to our “Nation Ideals”— from racial justice to feminism, from environmentalism to civil liberties—throughout our 150-year history. This month, we’re resurfacing material from the archives on the subject of “waging peace.” Above, you’ll find a multimedia timeline that presents that history, complete with archival photographs and video.

Research by Richard Kreitner and Stacie Williams
Design by Stacie Williams

Check out all of our timelines! 

On a fair economy for all:

Radical Histories: A Fair Economy For All, 1865 – 2011.

On environmentalism:

Radical Histories: The Fight for a Sustainable Future, 1872 – 2014.

On feminism, sex, and gender:
Part I, From Sojourner Truth’s ‘Ain’t I A Woman?’ in 1851 to FDA approval of the birth control pill in 1960.
Part II, From Helen Gurley Brown in 1960 to the criminalization of pregnancy in 2014.

On race and civil rights:
Part I, From the Memphis riots of 1866 to the first anti-lynching conference, in New York City, in 1919.
Part II, From the “Red Summer” of racial violence in Chicago, in 1919, to Rosa Parks’s bus protest, in 1955.
Part III, From the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968.
Part IV, From the ban on segregation in housing, in 1968, to freedom for Nelson Mandela, in 1990.
Part V, From the LA riots of 1992 to the release of Selma, in 2015.

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

I urge you to stand with The Nation and donate today.

Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

Ad Policy
x