“In 1974, after testimony from ethnic spokesmen denouncing the melting pot as a conspiracy to homogenize America, Congress passed the Ethnic Heritage Studies Program Act--a statute that, by applying the ethnic ideology to all Americans, compromised the historic right of… — Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr Copy Share Image
“The civil rights revolution provoked new declarations of ethnic identity by the now long-resident "new migration" from southern and eastern Europe--Italians, Greeks, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians. Claiming to speak for white minorities aggrieved by the idea of the melting pot,… — Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr Copy Share Image
“In 1856 the Know-Nothings even ran a former president, Millard Fillmore, as their presidential candidate. "Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid", observed Abraham Lincoln. "As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal'. We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except Negroes'. When the Know-Nothings get control, it… — Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr Copy Share
“The Irish were regarded as shiftless and drunken; moreover, they were papists, and their fealty to Rome, it was said, meant they could never become loyal Americans. They were subjected to severe discrimination in employment and were despised by genteel society. W.E.B. Du Bois, the black scholar, testified that when he grew up in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, in the 1870s,… — Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr Copy Share
“Yet the old faith in the power of Bryce's "amazing solvent" to fulfill Washington's conception of Americans as "one people" held fast. However much… — Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr Copy Share Image
“[P]ressed too far, the cult of ethnicity has had bad consequences too. The new ethnic gospel rejects the unifying vision of individuals from all… — Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr Copy Share Image
“[I]s there not something basically hostile to the actor's art in the consanguinity principle? After all, what is acting but an exercise in dissimulation?… — Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr Copy Share Image
“Let us by all means teach black history, African history, women's history, Hispanic history, Asian history. But let us teach them as history, not… — Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr Copy Share Image
“In New York the curriculum guide for 11th-grade American history tells students that there were three "foundations" for the Constitution: the European Enlightenment, the… — Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr Copy Share Image
“Though Fidel came to boast of his Marxism-Leninism, he himself never joined the Communist Party. As the revolution careened along, the Communists may even… — Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr Copy Share Image
“To what extent did Castro at this point conceal secret communist purposes? He later said that he hid radical views in order to hold… — Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr Copy Share Image