# History



Queen Susie and Grandmother Rebecca

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal on Nov. 15, 2023. Above: Detail from illustration by Hayle Calvin.

Susie the Brave
was also Susie the Queen
who was born in a town
called Muscatine.

So begins the picture book Susie Clark: The Bravest Girl You’ve Ever Seen: Desegregating Iowa Schools in 1868.

You say you never knew there was
a Queen in Muscatine?
Well, get ready to meet
the bravest girl you’ve
ever seen!

Susie’s father is Alexander Clark, the most famous “colored” person in 1860s Iowa. He has just won the court case which bears her name and makes her a public figure at age 13.

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Susie Clark publicity

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal on November 1, 2023.

Back in January I told of forthcoming books about Susan Clark and said she had a publicity problem.

“Never heard of her” was indeed a buzz surrounding the mid-October release of the picture book by author Joshalyn Hickey-Johnson and illustrator Hayle Calvin—“Susie Clark: The Bravest Girl You’ve Ever Seen: Desegregating Iowa Schools in 1868.”

Iowans, even long-time Muscatine residents, exclaimed that the true story was new to them.

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Iowa GOP lawmakers want their politics in your kid's classroom

Ed Tibbetts, a longtime reporter and editor in the Quad-Cities, is the publisher of the Along the Mississippi newsletter, where this article first appeared. Find more of his work at edtibbetts.substack.com

Republicans in the Iowa legislature say they don’t want politics in your kid’s classroom. But that’s not true. They don’t mind politics in your kid’s classroom—as long as it’s their politics.

The proof was in full view on February 28 in the Iowa House.

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Debut of the Susie Clark picture book

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal on October 18, 2023. Above: “Ms. Rocki” reads aloud that evening.

Tonight is the launch for the picture book I hinted at last January.

“You can expect rhyming and rapping…and whimsical, colorful illustration,” I wrote.

That was 20 columns ago. Today’s column is published October 18, the very day you should make your way to the third-floor meeting room at Musser Public Library for the 6 p.m. unveiling of Susie Clark: The Bravest Girl You’ve Ever Seen. Subtitle: “Desegregating Iowa Schools in 1868.”

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Iowa House bill would mandate long list of U.S. history topics

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column.

House File 2544 survived last week’s funnel deadline in the Iowa legislature and is eligible for floor debate in the state House of Representatives. If I were a public school social studies teacher in Iowa and this bill were to become law, I would begin to wonder how I could continue to teach what I know about American history and government.

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German history shows dangers of electing Trump again

Gerhild Krapf is a longtime resident of Iowa City. She worked as attorney for University hospitals and served in a variety of University of Iowa administrative positions for many years, prior to retiring early. She is now real estate broker of her firm, Homes & Hearth,LLC.

I write as the daughter of German immigrants who survived Nazi Germany and came to America in the early 1950s. My father was conscripted in Germany at age 17, and fought in the German army on the Russian front. At war’s end, he was illegally captured by the Soviets and transported to a Siberian prison camp, where he almost died.

After four years of forced labor, he was sent home to Germany, now weighing only 85 pounds and too weak to labor in coal mines, build bridges and roads, and so on. His return home was a miracle to his family, who believed he was dead.

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1883 civil rights ruling “will frame mischief”

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal on October 4, 2023.

The longest writing I’ve seen by Alexander Clark appears on page 1 of this newspaper two days after Christmas 1883.

The editors give the title “CIVIL RIGHTS” with subtitle “Views of a Distinguished Colored Citizen on the Subject.”

Apparently their readers knew enough—and cared enough—about the subject to slog through two full-length columns, most of the non-advertising content of the page. His letter comes to well over 2,000 words, maybe as much as three times my column here.

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MAGA movement steeped in Christian nationalism

President Donald Trump poses with a Bible outside St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington on June 1, 2020. Official White House photo by Shealah Craighead.

Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000.

For openers, please consider two quotes from centuries ago. They are relevant to today’s politics, and in particular to former President Donald Trump and his supporters among those the news media call “the evangelical right.”

The first quote is from 1792, when then Secretary of the Treasury and founding father Alexander Hamilton warned of the risks inherent in a democracy:

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Last call: Remembering Tim Kraft

From left: State Representative Dick Myers, Chip Carter, and Tim Kraft in December 2003. Photo by Dave Leshtz, published with permission.

Dave Leshtz is the editor of The Prairie Progressive.

The first sentence of Tim Kraft’s obituary in the Albuquerque newspapers last month labeled him as the manager of Jimmy Carter’s 1976 Iowa caucus campaign and, later, “a top aide to President Carter.”

Not a bad legacy for a kid from Noblesville, Indiana. It gives a hint of the extraordinary, suggesting that the deceased man was smart, talented, and deserving of recognition for helping to elevate a nationally unknown politician and farmer from the South to the presidency.

For those of us who have worked the caucuses or on campaigns, we know just how remarkable of a feat that was—and why, almost 50 years later, it’s worth the lede in his obituary. We also know just how far out of the norm it is for the person who orchestrated that win to be so humble and down to earth.

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Refreshments of the season

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal on September 20, 2023. Above: Detail from Clark’s law-school graduation photo, 1884.

In my previous column I quoted the long report about lawyers and judges inducting Alexander Clark into their fraternity, but I did not tell nearly everything readers might want to know.

Muscatine Journal, June 24, 1884: “The members of the Muscatine Bar met at Delmonico’s as per invitation of their newly elected brother, Alexander Clark, Esq. at eight o’clock last evening.”

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Alexander Clark’s initiation to the bar

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal on September 6, 2023. Above: Brannan, Carskaddan, Clark, Richman.

In 1879, Alexander Clark Jr. was Iowa’s first Black law-school graduate. In 1884, his father became the second.

The Vidette-Reporter, State University of Iowa, February 2, 1884: “We had the pleasure of perusing a very able article on the Civil Rights question, written by Mr. Alexander Clark, a member of this class, and published by the Muscatine Journal. The article sustains the dissenting opinion of Justice Harlan.”

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The controversial 1824 presidential election

Left: John Quincy Adams, depicted by painter Thomas Sully. Right: Andrew Jackson, also painted by Thomas Sully.

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column.

The 2024 presidential election will in all probability be decided in the usual fashion, with a candidate receiving a majority of the electoral votes declared the winner. That’s the way it’s been done in almost all 109 presidential elections since the nation’s founding.

But not all of them. Exactly 200 years ago, the 1824 presidential election tested the Constitution as never before or since. In some ways the 1824 event seems old-fashioned, while in other respects it was a precursor of our modern contests, including recent claims of a stolen election.

To set the 1824 stage:

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The Greenway connection

This column by Daniel G. Clark first appeared in the Muscatine Journal on August 23, 2023. Above: Muscatine Journal and News-Tribune, September 23, 1919.

Recently I told John Jelly’s 40-years-later account of a “colored man” bringing food for a “freedom seeker” hidden on a farm in northern Muscatine County in 1855. From not much evidence, I concluded that man must have been William H. Greenway (1840-1930).

Then I discovered Jelly had exposed young Greenway a decade prior to his 1896 letter to historian Wilbur Siebert. That version of the little-known story identifies Jelly as Atalissa correspondent.

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Greenway's Underground Railroad

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal on August 2, 2023. Above: Underground Railroad map by State Historical Society of Iowa.

It’s okay to imagine Muscatine as a station on the Underground Railroad, but only two reliable accounts tell specific instances of aid to the freedom seekers.

I’ve told about the 1848 Jim White case that is an important piece of the story of our hometown hero Alexander Clark. The second documented case is from the small town of Atalissa, along U.S. Highway 6 in the northern part of the county. Evidently slave catchers found no welcome there.

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A “colored” businessman on the Great White Way

This column by Daniel G. Clark first appeared in the Muscatine Journal on July 19, 2023. Above: Lee Greenway in 1909. (Oscar Grossheim Collection of Musser Public Library, Muscatine)

The Civil War-era “Whiteway” building stands in a prime location we call Carver Corner today.

Muscatine Journal, March 12, 1919: “The White Way hotel will probably be the name of Muscatine’s newest hostelry, which will be opened within the next ten days at the corner of Hershey avenue and Green street.”

“The Appel building, a three-story brick structure, has been remodeled and changed into a modern hotel and rooming house. Fifteen apartments, some only one room, and some of two and three, have been fitted up. The first floor will be the hotel lobby and a spacious dining-room, while the two upper floors will be sleeping rooms.”

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Iowa’s half-century run as nation’s first presidential testing ground

Edmund Muskie, left; Gary Hart, right

Arnold Garson is a semi-retired journalist and executive who worked for 46 years in the newspaper industry, including almost 20 years at The Des Moines Register. He writes the Substack newsletter Second Thoughts, where this article first appeared.

Iowa has been America’s biggest stage for launching presidential campaigns for more than a half-century.

Virtually every presidential election since 1972 has been impacted by what happened in Iowa in January of an election year. During this period, scores of men and women who have wanted to become president of the United States have campaigned extensively in Iowa. They have been on the ground shaking hands in all 99 counties and spent tens of millions of dollars on lodging, transportation, meals, advertising, and more in the state.

It all began in the late 1960s, as America became sharply divided over the rapidly escalating war in Vietnam. As American casualties mounted, the passion among those who favored the war and those who opposed it grew in intensity.

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An Iowa caucus like no other?

Screenshot of Donald Trump speaking at a rally in Newton, Iowa on January 12

Dan Guild is a lawyer and project manager who lives in New Hampshire. In addition to writing for Bleeding Heartland, he has written for CNN and Sabato’s Crystal Ball, most recently here. He also contributed to the Washington Post’s 2020 primary simulations. Follow him on Twitter @dcg1114.

I have written before about the incredible shifts that have happened late in Iowa caucus campaigns. Front runners beware, I wrote in 2016 (and that piece was prescient).

In 2020 I suggested Iowa would surprise, and predicted Pete Buttigieg would be the candidate most likely to do it.

This time it feels different, for good reasons.

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Watermelons along the Great White Way

This column by Daniel G. Clark first appeared in the Muscatine Journal on June 28, 2023. Above: Detail from poster by Greater Muscatine Chamber of Commerce & Industry. Not finished in time for RAGBRAI, the 40-foot installation was dedicated on October 14.

One month hence, on July 29, RAGBRAI cyclists will dip their tires here, the seventh time Muscatine will have rolled out the red carpet—previously 1976, 1986, 1995, 2001, 2006, 2016.

Before paved roads, Iowa was famous for mud and muck. And no river-to-river Great Bicycle Ride, obviously.

Long before Interstate 80 was imagined, a coalition of town leaders mobilized to build the border-to-border road christened the Great White Way. Its course from Davenport to Council Bluffs passed through Muscatine and Fruitland. It bragged the fastest route across Iowa, even outpacing the Lincoln Highway (later U.S. Highway 30).

In April 1914, about 40 Muscatine “boosters” drove through the construction zone 100 miles to Oskaloosa, headquarters of the Great White Way Association of Iowa, to make a pitch for hosting the movement’s annual picnic, an event promised to bring throngs of visitors.

Having won their bid, they retraced their tracks in high spirits, parading and partying and inviting everyone they met to attend  the grand occasion on their Mississippi riverfront.

Muscatine Journal, April 24, 1914: “In fact nearly every culvert along the route is either concrete or currugated iron, both of these being manufactured in Muscatine.”

Journal, July 21: “Muscatine will be the scene of the greatest good roads celebration ever held in the state of Iowa when the Great White Way picnic is staged here from August 17th to 20th. Fifteen thousand visitors are expected to be attracted to Muscatine by the elaborate entertainment which is to be provided. Three thousand dollars is to be appropriated to meet the expenses of the event which will be of such magnitude as to attract tourists from the Mississippi to the Missouri rivers.”

Motor-boat racing. Aqua-plane racing. Hydro-plane flights. Venetian Night illuminated boat parade. Free vaudeville acts and more.

“The visitors will also be permitted to indulge in a Muscatine water melon orgy. Thousands of melons from the Muscatine Island, the richest melon producing area in the world, will be brought….”

The word went out. “5 p.m. Watermelon feed. Free watermelon to out of town visitors, who register at the headquarters.”

But the picnic got rained out. Presenters of activity and performers of entertainment slogged and soldiered on, but mud and muck prevailed. An effusive letter of thanks signed by officers of the association put on a brave face in praise of “arrangements for holding the greatest event of the kind ever planned.”

“However valuable this deluge, the thousands who were thereby prevented from motoring to the picnic more than share your regret…. Muscatine and the hospitality of its people have become better known to hundreds of thousands of people through the middle west.”

Association secretary Don McClure left for Oskaloosa “in his big touring car.”

“‘I will tell every one who intends to take an auto trip in Iowa to be sure to stop at Muscatine and get a melon’ said McClure. He took with him two of the biggest melons in the city.”

*****

So, listen up, you RAGBRAI riders. That historic route is how you will enter our town. After you cross under U.S. Highway 61, you will be on Hershey Avenue, admiring our soccer fields to your right. Soon you will approach our riverfront and at least one slice of fresh, juicy melon some volunteer will offer you.

You won’t believe your eyes when the 40-foot Largest Watermelon Slice on Planet Earth appears in view! Our mayor has promised to erect it for your passing pleasure and then grow it into a permanent icon.

He’s our Chamber of Commerce CEO, too: Booster-in-Chief Brad Bark.

But wait! Just a brief moment earlier you will be gliding by Carver Corner, and there you might give a special, grateful salute to those old-time good-roads boosters.

Glance left at that red brick, three-story, Civil War-era building. It’s vacant. Some call it an eyesore, but still it stands defiantly—like it belongs there. After decades as grocery, saloon, restaurant, and dance hall, a new owner refurbished it for the comfort of 20th-century motorists and reopened in 1919 as the White Way Hotel.

*****

Muscatine Journal, September 29, 1914, quoting the Iowa Highway Commission magazine: “She had five blocks of her main street bejewelled with myriads of electric lights. White Way banners and streamers were countless. Store fronts were orgies of bunting and banners. Muscatine water melons straight from Muscatine Island were there, enough to feed the armies of the allies and Germans combined…. But the rains descended and the floods came and soaked all eastern Iowa. Instead of picnickers, Muscatine for two days had only messages from White Way automobilists tied up, scores of miles away.”

The guns of August 1914. Germany rolled over Belgium, and the Great War was on.

Early in 2022 I set out to relate pieces of our shared story framed as local Black History. This is Column 60.

Next time: A “colored” businessman on the Great White Way

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Haley and Trump wear their Confederate gray

Dan Piller was a business reporter for more than four decades, working for the Des Moines Register and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He covered the oil and gas industry while in Texas and was the Register’s agriculture reporter before his retirement in 2013. He lives in Ankeny.

Nikki Haley needed an entire day to admit, rather furtively, that slavery was a possible cause of the Civil War. Donald Trump thinks that the bloody struggle from 1861-65 (which Trump, in a rare burst of accuracy, described as “very rough time”) happened because Abraham Lincoln was born too soon to read the “Art of the Deal.” Had the Great Emancipator been so fortunate, Trump said in Newton on January 6, “you probably wouldn’t even know who Abraham Lincoln was.”

Iowans whose knowledge of the Civil War goes slightly beyond Ken Burns’ PBS series three decades ago are shaking their heads in wonderment at such ignorance. But history is as much a vantage point than an absolute certainty. I learned that lesson in September, 1963, and the first days of classes in my junior year at Lincoln High School in the Nebraska capitol city.

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Race on a riverfront

Statue on Muscatine’s Mississippi riverfront erected in 1926 by the all-white Improved Order of Red Men.

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal on June 7, 2023, under the headline “Alexander Clark does RAGBRAI?”

What would Alexander Clark say about Muscatine gearing up for another horde of RAGBRAI visitors in their sweat-drenched thousands?

A stretch of the imagination to wonder such a thing? It’s what I do while researching 19th century newspapers for dots connecting local Black history to—everything.

Clark was more than Equal Rights Champion. He did much to make his hometown better. Movers and shakers patronized his Hair Dressing Saloon, so he knew what was happening. He enjoyed travel, and his marketing sense and public demeanor took him places, especially in later years.

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Every thread was a prayer

Muscatine Daily Journal • Saturday, April 27, 1861.

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal on May 24, 2023.

Muscatine volunteers fought in the first major Civil War battle west of the Mississippi, at Wilson’s Creek in southwest Missouri, August 10, 1861.

Outnumbered Union troops lost, and Gen. Nathaniel Lyon was killed, but the federal show of force is credited with keeping Missouri a neutral border state.

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The Carskaddan connection

The carriage step in front of the Couch-Carskaddan house in Muscatine’s West Hill Historic District

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal on May 10, 2023.

May is Preservation Month, when we celebrate historic places and ponder the importance of remembering.

I lived in Muscatine almost 20 years before I paid attention to our historic homes—beyond admiration, I mean.

“Lumber barons built these mansions. Aren’t they grand?”

In 2001, I reported the startup of the city’s first Historic Preservation Commission. At the commission I heard of historic stuff that could have been saved if people had known or cared before it was too late—before neglected structures got derided as eyesores or obstacles to progress. Not every old building can be saved or should be saved, they said. Documenting what we have is the first step toward mobilizing resources to be able to save any of them.

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An issue that hasn't yet been unfurled in Iowa

New design of Minnesota state flag

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council and can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com

We Iowans apparently have been kidding ourselves.

Somehow, as we focus on taxes, water quality and allegations of big-government overreach, as we wrestle with immigration, inflation, drug abuse, school choice and women’s reproductive freedom, and as we contemplate transgender issues, academic freedom, religious rights and free speech on college campuses, Iowa has missed another issue—one that appears to be gaining momentum, and controversy, in some states.

The surprising topic of debate? State flags.

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Tremont Hall reminiscences

Muscatine Journal article from February 28, 1953 about the planned demolition of historic Tremont Hall

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal on April 19, 2023.

May is Preservation Month, the nationwide celebration of historic places and reminder of the importance of preservation.

Early in 2022 I set out to relate pieces of our shared story framed as local Black History. This is Column 56, with pieces yet to be found.

Last time I told that Frederick Douglass spoke here in 1866, as “Tremont Hall, one of the largest in the State, was packed to its utmost capacity….” Apparently, from various reports, a full house numbered well above 300.

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Frederick Douglass packs the hall

Muscatine Journal, May 5, 1866, “Mr. Douglass was the guest of Alex. Clark, a colored citizen, […]”

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal on April 5, 2023.

This little item caught my eye and triggered today’s column.

“A new historical marker was erected [Mar. 8] in Champaign, Illinois, to mark the site where Frederick Douglass spoke in 1869.” (“The Reconstruction Era: Blog Exploring the World the Civil War Created”)

The marker is one of 20 to be posted throughout Champaign County for a new African American Heritage Trail.

The famous orator had also spoken in Muscatine, I recalled, maybe brought here by Alexander Clark. A story to find and tell!

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Five facts to know about the Boston Tea Party

Boston Tea Party, vintage engraved illustration. Contributed by Morphart Creation to Shutterstock

Kurt Meyer writes a weekly column for the Nora Springs – Rockford Register and the Substack newsletter Showing Up, where this essay first appeared. He serves as chair of the executive committee (the equivalent of board chair) of Americans for Democratic Action, America’s most experienced liberal organization.

I’ve never been a big tea drinker, preferring coffee, several mugs daily. I will modify my beverage choice, however, on one day in mid-December to celebrate an anniversary. December 16, 2023, marks 250 years since the Boston Tea Party, a milepost in our nation’s march toward independence.

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On historic Black property


This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal on March 22, 2023.

Whose idea was it to move the Alexander Clark House to 203 W. 3rd Street? I will ask Bob Campagna tomorrow evening at the Art Center.

Muscatine Journal, December 5, 1974: “If the price of a vacant lot and relocation costs are right, an Eastern Iowa women’s group will begin efforts next week to save the historic Alexander Clark home from demolition. … Robert Campagna, the city’s low-rent housing administrator, said today the housing commission would assist the group in their efforts.”

With demolition scheduled for February, the article quotes Campagna: “If the house can be moved, we would be happy to see it done.”

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Wanted: Ethical behavior in public service

From left: Governor Robert Ray’s daughter Randi, David Oman, Bill Crews, Richard Gilbert, Julie Gammack (Photo by John McCarroll)

Michael V. Reagen, Ph.D. was Commissioner of Iowa’s Department of Human Services and President of the Greater Des Moines Chamber of Commerce. He is retired and lives in Naples, Florida.

The former staff to the Iowa Governor Robert D. Ray gathered in late September at the Drake University Center bearing his name to honor the anniversary of his 95th birthday and his legacy. The event made me recall Thomas Jefferson’s quote: “I consider ethics, as well as religion, as supplements to law in the government of man.”

Bob Ray was an iconic example of ethical accountability, professionalism, and servant leadership during his fourteen years as governor and in retirement, when he continued to make extensive civic contributions.

The essence of Ray’s ethical legacy reaffirmed Jefferson’s quote and stands out in sharp relief to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, former U.S. Representative George Santos, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and U.S. Senator Robert Menendez, who have been in the news lately.

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When Iowa refused to join "Franksgiving" celebrations

I’m grateful for so much this Thanksgiving, including an independent platform and a community of readers who appreciate in-depth coverage of Iowa politics.

In past years, I have marked this holiday by sharing links about its origins and the associated myths, or ideas for making soup and other dishes from Thanksgiving leftovers.

Today, with permission from Matthew Isbell, I want to share a vignette about Iowa’s Thanksgiving celebrations during a previous era, when (like today) this state was solidly Republican during a Democratic presidency.

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Will growing support for unions bring transformative change?

Kurt Meyer writes a weekly column for the Nora Springs – Rockford Register and the Substack newsletter Showing Up, where this essay first appeared. He serves as chair of the executive committee (the equivalent of board chair) of Americans for Democratic Action, America’s most experienced liberal organization.

In the spring of 1972, Dad brought a college scholarship application home from work, funds made available through his Hormel union, then the “Amalgamated Meat Cutters & Butcher Workmen of North America,” now the less muscular sounding “United Food & Commercial Workers.” Applicants were required to take a proctored test about the history of the U.S. labor movement. Highest scores would be rewarded at several levels: $1,000 for first, maybe two at $500, probably several at $250.

Instructions included reading a particular book, something like “Mileposts in Labor History.” So, I’ll read the book, take the test, and win the money, ha. As I recall, I had a few days to make this happen, and eagerly swung by the high school library. Not surprisingly, the book was not part of the collection, nor was it in the town library. I did find several relevant volumes, however, one with more photos than narrative (Eugene V. Debs displaying anguish), a Samuel Gompers biography, and a history book with a Haymarket Square chapter.  

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Church and state: Where's the wall?

Dan Piller was a business reporter for more than four decades, working for the Des Moines Register and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He covered the oil and gas industry while in Texas and was the Register’s agriculture reporter before his retirement in 2013. He lives in Ankeny.

Senator John F. Kennedy rose to a lectern at the Rice Hotel in Houston on September 12, 1960 to face the toughest audience of his presidential campaign; a roomful of Southern Baptist ministers who reflected the longstanding antipathy of the evangelicals toward Kennedy’s Roman Catholic religion.

JFK was just the second Roman Catholic nominee of a major political party, and older Americans remembered the fate of the first. New York Governor Al Smith lost to the lackluster Herbert Hoover in 1928, amidst charges that Smith’s Catholicism would put him—and the nation—under the control of the Pope in Rome.

If Kennedy didn’t win over the skeptical Texans, his sixteen-minute address at least neutralized their hostility by avowing his support for the longstanding doctrine of separation of church and state.

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Who will be for us?

Writing under the handle “Bronxiniowa,” Ira Lacher, who actually hails from the Bronx, New York, is a longtime journalism, marketing, and public relations professional.

For more than five years, China has subjected its 11 million mostly Muslim Uyghur minority to imprisonment, as well as forced labor and other repressions. Yet, there is no mass worldwide movement to boycott, divest and sanction made-in-China products, as has arisen against those made in Israel.

Serbia has long been targeted as a country that routinely subjects dissidents, as well as its Roma and other minorities, to systematic human rights abuses. Yet there has been no concerted effort to expel that country from the United Nations, as the world body has frequently been called on to do with Israel.

And for years, Egyptian border patrols have blockaded the movement of goods from Gaza into Sinai, causing hardship to the 2.2 million residents living there. Yet, Hamas didn’t attack Egypt, just Israel, firing on civilians, taking hundreds hostage, and apparently murdering them.

While other nations—including the U.S. and the United Kingdom—have established empires, repressed minority populations within them and perpetrated belligerent acts many consider war crimes, no other country in the history of the world has been regarded as an international pariah as has Israel. 

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Ron Reagan's message would surprise Linn County Republicans

Gerald Ott of Ankeny was a high school English teacher and for 30 years a school improvement consultant for the Iowa State Education Association.

The image at the top of this post comes from the Linn County Republicans’ graphic promoting their upcoming October fundraiser. The event is billed as a Reagan Breakfast starting at 7:00 AM. We all know Reagan won’t be there. The former president, never one to get up that early, has been dead for nearly 20 years. 

A Reagan impersonator, the self-described MAGA presidential candidate Larry Elder, is the guest speaker. 

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Finding irony at the intersection of Hoover and Trump Streets

Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000.

Perhaps some place there is an intersection of Dr. Jekyll Avenue and Mr. Hyde Street, commemorating the contrasting personalities of a man in the 1886 novella by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Even if so, it would be difficult to match the contrasts and political irony of an intersection in the shire of Leonora in the state of Western Australia—the intersection of Hoover and Trump Streets!

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A new Selzer Iowa poll shows Trump dominates

Dan Guild is a lawyer and project manager who lives in New Hampshire. In addition to writing for Bleeding Heartland, he has written for CNN and Sabato’s Crystal Ball, most recently here. He also contributed to the Washington Post’s 2020 primary simulations. Follow him on Twitter @dcg1114.

The gold standard Iowa pollster, Selzer & Co—their caucus record is nothing short of amazing—is out with a new poll showing former President Donald Trump with a significant lead among likely Republican caucus-goers. He has 42 percent support, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has 19 percent, and Senator Tim Scott has 9 percent. Former Vice President Mike Pence and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley were tied at 6 percent, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie registered 5 percent, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy 4 percent, and all others at 2 percent or less.  

I have written about the Iowa caucuses and their history many times. A few reminders:

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Souvenirs (A Hamburg Inn memoir)

Dave Leshtz is the editor of The Prairie Progressive.

228 E. Bloomington Street in Iowa City was a battered old duplex across the street from Tweedy’s grocery store, the future site of Pagliai’s Pizza. The elderly landlady lived in one half of the duplex. I lived in the other half with a married couple and their baby, plus whoever needed a bed for the night or the week or the month. 

A block south on Linn Street was the Hamburg Inn #2. The year was 1967, and the Burg was in its pre-caucuses heyday. I ate breakfast, lunch, or dinner there almost every day.

The customers were vividly eclectic: hungover fraternity brothers, young couples who obviously had spent the night together, lawyers with nearby offices, small-time gamblers, alcoholics who had trouble lifting that first cup of coffee to their lips without spilling, poets, and house painters.

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The surprising origins of Iowa's standard township layout

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column.

Ever wonder why our Midwestern rural layout consists of 36 one-mile-square sections per township? Or where the Midwest’s emphasis on public education comes from? Or why slavery never gained a foothold here? Or why so many of the federal Bill of Rights protections were guaranteed in the Midwest even before their adoption in the Constitution?

No? Well, no problem. I’m gonna tell you anyway.

All those practical and admirable attributes originated in a series of ordinances way back in the 1780s, adopted by the Congress that was created by the Articles of Confederation during the Revolutionary War.

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History should be about learning—not comfort

Jim Chrisinger is a retired public servant living in Ankeny. He served in both Republican and Democratic administrations, in Iowa and elsewhere. 

Florida Republicans just whitewashed their history curriculum. Slavery wasn’t so bad. Look away from the rape, torture, and selling children like livestock. Did you know that enslaved people learned skills from which they benefited (slavery was a jobs training program)? Create a false equivalence by saying that both sides committed violence during the civil rights era (spoiler: sometimes Blacks shot back).  

Florida Republicans aren’t acting alone. Republicans across the country have been and continue to march history back to the time when white, male, Christian, straight, native-born men wrote the textbooks, centering themselves. That’s the history I learned in school. 

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Greenfield was perfect backdrop for Jesse Jackson's Iowa campaign

Jay Howe wrote the following guest column at the request of the Chicago host committee that recently recognized Jesse L. Jackson on the 35th anniversary year of his historic run for the U.S. presidency.

Yes, those were the days, 1987-88! It all made quite an impact. We deliberately juxtaposed Jesse Jackson from South Chicago into rural, white, farm country Iowa. It worked well to raise his national visibility, eventually helping him win several state Democratic primaries. The first African American to rise as a viable presidential candidate.

National farm leader Dixon Terry of Greenfield, Iowa met Jackson at the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco. The two of them recognized the potential for including family farm agriculture and rural places in Jackson’s political coalition. The 1980s saw many family-scale farms in deep financial trouble because of high borrowing costs and commodity prices below costs of production.

So in January 1987, it all flowed into the Jackson exploratory event on Superbowl Sunday at the United Methodist Church in Greenfield. When Jackson witnessed a packed house of small-town and farm folks show up in southwest Iowa, that was “it”!

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When you love America like you love your child

Al Womble is chair of the Iowa Democratic Party’s Black Caucus.

I was a student at Drake University in the early 1990s. What I enjoyed most about Drake was having classes that allowed me to truly get to know my fellow students, and to have discussions with them both in and outside of class. Our classes and our homework often brought up certain topics and ideas that would then extend beyond the classroom itself. We often stayed up until one or two AM talking and debating.

We had a history professor who wasn’t at Drake very long, because she moved on to a bigger east coast school. But she was a Black female history professor, and I remember her willingness to challenge students’ perceptions. That was a feature of the the Drake University environment, and I guess it still is true.

Someone once asked that professor why she hated this country. She said, “I don’t hate this country. I love this country. But I look at this country like my child. When my child has a sickness, I realize there’s something wrong and I have to do something about that sickness.”

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Stay WOKE to America

Gerald Ott of Ankeny was a high school English teacher and for 30 years a school improvement consultant for the Iowa State Education Association.

Before critical race theory (CRT) was named and studied in universities and used to frame legal arguments (and fell into disrepute among Republicans), I learned enough to qualify me as WOKE, at least on a scale with Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds—a low bar, I admit. 

It’s a bold claim, one based mainly on the fortuitous experiences of my youth, all before Iowa’s governor was born. 

As we know, Reynolds was born and reared in Iowa. She graduated from I-35 High School in 1977, and entered a typical middle-class life of occasional college classes, marriage, children, parenthood, jobs, and local politics beginning in the Clarke County treasurer’s office during the 1990s. She was elected to the Iowa Senate in 2008.

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The Republican double standard on public assistance

Henry Jay Karp is the Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Emanuel in Davenport, Iowa, which he served from 1985 to 2017. He is the co-founder and co-convener of One Human Family QCA, a social justice organization.

As some of the Republican presidential hopefuls are talking about cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits for the young, starting in 2031, the underlying issue is far more extensive than the financial woes of these two programs.

Yes, both the Medicare and Social Security programs are in need of serious reform if they are to remain solvent. But there are two major fixes which could do the job: cutting benefits or raising taxes. These presidential candidates choose to cut benefits for future beneficiaries, rather than raising the taxes of our country’s top earners.

That choice reflects a broader ideological problem with the current Republican Party: favoring the interests of the rich and corporations over the interests of the everyday people.

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From Greenville to Greenfield: Jesse Jackson's 1988 Iowa caucus campaign

John Norris grew up in Red Oak, Iowa, and now lives in Des Moines. He delivered these remarks at the Jesse Jackson campaign reunion at the Rainbow PUSH Community Hall in Chicago on July 15, 2023.

I am John Norris. I was the first person hired in Iowa for the Jesse Jackson 1988 campaign, serving as Jesse’s Iowa State Director. After the Iowa caucuses I worked for a while in his national headquarters, then organized several western states, and continued on through the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta.

Also here today from Iowa are George and Patti Naylor from Greene County and David Leshtz from Johnson County. George and Patti are Iowa farmers; nothing says “white voter” quite like “Iowa farmer.” I think it is fair to say the Naylors are on the left spectrum of the Democratic Party, but in ’88 Jesse had support from liberal farmers to conservative farmers like Steve and JoAnne Heaberlin from Pleasantville. All over Iowa I witnessed farmers hugging Rev. Jackson and sometimes crying as he connected economic injustice from rural Iowa to urban Chicago.

David Leshtz is from Iowa City. He is a great organizer, but he had to take on the “I like Jesse, but” crowd. You know, those academic liberals who said, “I really love Jesse, but he can’t win.” David, who was also a Jackson ’84 supporter, did a great job challenging that “but” crowd. He helped build a stellar organization in Johnson County and continues the fight for economic and social justice to this day.

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Jason Aldean is coming to a State Fair near you

Dan Piller was a business reporter for more than four decades, working for the Des Moines Register and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He covered the oil and gas industry while in Texas and was the Register’s agriculture reporter before his retirement in 2013. He lives in Ankeny.

A cloud now scarcely capable of throwing shade has the potential to become a thunderstorm when country singer Jason Aldean performs on August 20 at the Iowa State Fair Grandstand.

In case you don’t watch Fox News, Aldean became the center of a music publicist’s dream controversy when the CMT country music channel yanked his “Try That in a Small Town” song/video from its playlist. CMT, with a wary eye on its audience demographic that includes both small town and big-city folks, didn’t say why “Small Town” was objectionable. But anyone who saw the video, with its images of urban rioters superimposed over the bucolic images of small towns, could get the message quickly.

Opinions can vary about the latest round of urban disruptions that began in 2020 with the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, but the idea of small-town vigilantism seemingly endorsed by the song is disturbing.

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How Democrats can use Bidenomics to win in rural America again

Scott Syroka is a former Johnston city council member.

Democrats have a major opportunity to increase their appeal in rural America, thanks to the policy framework crafted by President Biden, which he laid out in his June 28 address on Bidenomics in Chicago, Illinois.

While Democrats have successfully embraced Bidenomics to pass legislation like the American Rescue Plan, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, CHIPS Act, Inflation Reduction Act, and beyond, they haven’t done enough to champion Bidenomics through a rural-specific lens.

By using this framework to present a vision for an inclusive rural economy, rather than the trickle-down status quo of exploitation, Democrats can draw a clear contrast with their Republican opponents.

If they choose to seize this opportunity, Democrats can begin to stop the electoral bloodbath in rural areas, shrink the margins, and maybe even start to win again.

The forgotten history of America’s family farm movement and its fight for parity shows us how.

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Book Review: The Hidden History of American Democracy

Paul Deaton is a lifelong Democrat living in Johnson County whose first political work was for Lyndon Johnson’s presidential campaign.

Is democracy the default state of humanity? In The Hidden History of American Democracy: Rediscovering Humanity’s Ancient Way of Living, author Thom Hartmann presents the case that democracy is our default state, overcome only by the intrusion of dictators, popes, and kings using the power of great wealth, control of media, or the force of arms and technology. He explains where society has gone astray and what we can do to restore democracy.

The Hidden History of American Democracy is the ninth volume in Hartmann’s Hidden History series. Like its predecessors, it is accessible and easily readable, especially for readers immersed in the issues it covers. Hartmann creates a narrative grounded in historical documents, yet the interpretation seems fresh and modern.

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Need upbeat news? Consider Herbert and Harry

Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000.

Once upon a time—as fairy tales begin—a Democratic president and a former Republican president became friends and, despite political differences, worked together to save millions of lives around the world.

Not only that: although the Republican was wealthy, he didn’t care if he lost his fortune in trying to feed the starving.

The Democratic president was kind of poor. But after he left office, he turned down great big salaries, even though he could have simply attended corporate board meetings and said not a word.

Surprise! This is not a fairy tale at all.

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Needed for America: A better operating system

Writing under the handle “Bronxiniowa,” Ira Lacher, who actually hails from the Bronx, New York, is a longtime journalism, marketing, and public relations professional.

Bringing in my 7-year-old Windows laptop to the repair shop—I confess I hold on to my computers as long as I hold on to my cars—made me think about how America is like a PC.

PCs, based on the Microsoft Windows operating system, are greater than the sum of their parts: a box made by manufacturer A, a motherboard from manufacturer B, a hard drive from manufacturer C, a power source from manufacturer D, and so on.

Similarly, America was pieced together as a conglomeration: 13 semi-autonomous colonies, now 50 semi-autonomous states, which differ in ethnicity, topography, religion, and economy, among others.

The Constitution was designed not as a unifying operating system but as a series of giant compromises to keep states from warring with each other. So states can mandate what is considered criminal conduct, mandate their own penalties for such conduct, ascribe and proscribe rights, and more. In fact, it took the Supreme Court to rule, in 1819, that yes, federal law had primacy over state law.

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In today's culture war, Iowa is 1950s Ireland

Chuck Holden was born and raised in Iowa and is a history professor at St. Mary’s College of Maryland.

As readers of Bleeding Heartland know all too well, there are no signs that the hard-right GOP governing the state will stop its drastic reshaping of law and culture. Iowa, it appears, is competing with states like Texas and Florida for the title of most reactionary. But due to their size and much more diverse populations, Texas and Florida do not serve as good comparisons for a state like Iowa. Rather, Ireland in the mid-1900s, nearly all white and all conservative Christian, does.

The vision of Iowa that the state’s Republican leadership seems to have in mind is remarkably similar to that of the long-time Irish leader Éamon de Valera’s from the 1930s through the 1980s: lands of sturdy farms and humble, god-fearing families where “traditional” is worn as a badge of pride. But underneath the wholesome image one finds punitive regimes ever-alert to threats real or imagined of an encroaching modern world.

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Iowa ticket-splitting deep dive, part 2

Macklin Scheldrup was the Iowa Democratic Party’s Data Director in 2022. A native of Cedar Rapids, he had previously worked on the monitoring and evaluation of foreign aid projects in conflict zones including Afghanistan, Pakistan, and South Sudan.

Part 1 of this series tried to ascertain the percentage of Iowa’s 2022 general electorate who could be classified as swing voters by the rate of ticket-splitting. It found evidence that ticket-splitting is comparatively high in Iowa and has not declined over the past few decades, with at least 12.4 percent of 2022 voters splitting their ticket.

So where are these voters located? And what can that tell us about why they are willing to vote for candidates from either major party in the same election?

The ticket-splitting score presented in Part 1 can also be calculated for smaller areas of Iowa.

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We honored Cameron and remembered Governor Ray

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council and can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com

Sue and I were in Washington, Iowa, last month for a high school graduation.

It was a special occasion because the people we joined with in honoring young Cameron, the newly minted Washington High School grad, have been our friends for almost 44 years.

It is important to know that while family and friends gathered to celebrate this milestone in the young man’s life, there was one noteworthy person close to the family’s heart who was there in spirit, because he truly made this wonderful day possible. 

That person was the late Robert Ray, Iowa’s former governor, who died in 2018. He is a revered figure in the lives of Cameron’s extended family and in the lives of thousands of immigrant families.  

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How Grassley, Ernst approached debt ceiling under different presidents

The United States avoided a doomsday scenario for the economy this week, when both chambers of Congress approved a deal to prevent a default on the country’s debts in exchange for future spending cuts. Iowa’s entire Congressional delegation supported the legislation, marking the first time in decades that every member of the U.S. House and Senate from this state had voted to raise or suspend the debt ceiling.

The vote was also noteworthy for Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, who were part of the 63-36 majority that sent the bill to President Joe Biden. Bleeding Heartland’s review of 45 years of Congressional records showed Grassley had backed a debt ceiling bill under a Democratic president only once, and Ernst had never done so.

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Memories from better times in Iowa politics

Larry Osweiler grew up in Keota, Iowa and now lives in Indiana. A graduate of the University of Iowa, he is an aficionado of Iowa treats found nowhere else: Pagliai’s Pizza, Sterzing Potato Chips, Maid-Rite’s, and kolaches from anywhere close to Cedar Rapids.

I got interested in Iowa politics in 1964 at the age of 8, when Governor Harold Hughes was running for re-election. I had sent for a picture of the governor and received a package from his office a few weeks later. I remember showing it to everyone on the school bus.

While waiting on the bus one afternoon, I remember Evan Hultman riding by on the back of a convertible with a Hultman for Governor sign on it. Hughes won with 68 percent of the vote. Hard to believe there was once a day when a Democrat would win a statewide race in Iowa by that large a margin.

I studied the book I’d received and memorized almost every state official. John Schmidhauser was elected to Congress from the first district. At our dinner table that election night, I wondered how my dad was so sure Lyndon Johnson was going to win the presidential election.

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Iowa schools may never recover from 2023 legislative session

Two Republican trifectas, 50 years apart, reshaped Iowa’s K-12 schools. But whereas the legislature and Governor Robert Ray put public education on a more equitable, better funded path during the early 1970s, this year’s legislative session left public schools underfunded and unable to meet the needs of many marginalized students.

Governor Kim Reynolds capped a devastating year for Iowa’s schools on May 26, when she signed seven education-related bills, including two that will impose many new restrictions while lowering standards for educators and curriculum.

In a written statement, Reynolds boasted, “This legislative session, we secured transformational education reform that puts parents in the driver’s seat, eliminates burdensome regulations on public schools, provides flexibility to raise teacher salaries, and empowers teachers to prepare our kids for their future. Education is the great equalizer and everyone involved—parents, educators, our children—deserves an environment where they can thrive.” 

Almost every part of the first sentence is false or misleading.

As for the second sentence, this year’s policies make it less likely that any of the named groups will thrive, aside from a small subset of parents who share the governor’s political and religious outlook.

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What became of Susie Clark?

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal.

International Women’s Day—a day for celebrating women’s achievements.

Two months before the unanimous vote naming Susan Clark Junior High, a school board member wrote to me: “You might want to create a Wikipedia page for Susan Clark. It’s quite difficult to find information on her online.”

I tried and failed. Several tries have produced the same verdict: there’s already a page for the 1868 Iowa Supreme Court ruling in her name, and that’s enough.

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Could the Tennessee debacle happen in Iowa?

Republicans who control the Tennessee House of Representatives used their supermajority this month to expel two Black lawmakers for “disorderly behavior.” State Representatives Justin Jones and Justin Pearson had helped lead a protest against gun violence in the House chamber, disrupting legislative work for a little less than an hour.

The power play was quickly revealed as a miscalculation. Jones and Pearson gained national acclaim and many new supporters. They were back at work within a week, after local government bodies reappointed them to the state House.

Meanwhile, the overreaction generated a tremendous amount of negative media coverage. Many reports noted that Tennessee Republicans had ousted two young Black men, while a third Democrat who took part in the same protest (an older white woman) barely survived the expulsion vote.

The episode also brought greater scrutiny to Tennessee’s Republican lawmakers. This week, a vice chair of the House GOP caucus resigned from the legislature after a Nashville-based television station uncovered evidence that he had sexually harassed at least one intern. An ethics committee had investigated that matter in secret, and the House speaker had imposed no consequences for the grotesquely inappropriate behavior.

Watching all of this unfold, I wondered whether anything like this scenario had happened, or could happen, to an Iowa lawmaker.

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The Clark-Lee-Mahin connection

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal.

First we examine the white marble monument whenever I accompany visitors to Alexander Clark’s grave at Greenwood Cemetery. Then I tell about other family members buried there. Then I point to the adjacent plot where a large central stone is inscribed “Lee” on one side and “Mahin” on the other.

As friendly as they were in life, I say. I tell, as I do in these columns, about pioneer editor John Mahin (1833-1919) who led this newspaper for half a century. His close association with Clark appears to continue through graveyard neighborliness.

I can’t say how the eternal-rest deal came to pass, but I do say it’s not hard to guess.

Same with the Lees, I say.

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Iowa Senate Republicans hit new low for transparency

Iowa Republican lawmakers aren’t sticklers for tradition. They have used their trifecta to destroy a collective bargaining process that stood for more than four decades, and to overhaul a nearly 60-year-old judicial selection system on a partisan basis.

Iowa Senate Republicans have shattered norms in other ways. In 2021, they stopped participating in budget subcommittee meetings that had been a routine part of legislative work since at least the 1970s. Last year, they kicked all journalists off the chamber’s press bench, which had been designated for the news media for more than a century.

Senate Appropriations Committee members hit a new low for transparency last week. Led by chair Tim Kraayenbrink, Republicans advanced seven spending bills with blank spaces where dollar amounts and staffing numbers would normally be listed.

The unprecedented maneuver ensured that advocates, journalists, and Democratic senators will have no time to thoroughly scrutinize GOP spending plans before eventual votes on the Senate floor. Nor will members of the public have a chance to weigh in on how state funds will be spent during fiscal year 2024, which begins on July 1.

Bleeding Heartland was unable to find any former Iowa legislator, lobbyist, or staffer who could remember anything resembling this year’s Senate budget process.

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Alexander Clark project in jeopardy

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal.

A headline that could have been repeated many times over the years: “Alexander Clark project in jeopardy.”

“[E]fforts to restore his 100-year-old house on West Third Street are jeopardized by a shortage of interest and funds.”

That sentence, too, could have been recycled across the 44 years since it appeared in the Iowa City Press-Citizen on November 25, 1978.

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Women who saved Alexander Clark’s house

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal.

September 1974. Crisis averted?

At a meeting of stakeholders, members of the women’s group studying historic homes of Muscatine assured city officials they would not block demolition of a house built by historic resident Alexander Clark. Their expressions of concern had raised fears of an impending nomination to the National Register of Historic Places.

Muscatine Journal, September 26: “Such a nomination would, in effect, dash the city’s hopes for the 100-unit federally funded complex for low-income elderly, according to Charles Coates, city administrator.”

But study group member Bette Veerhusen said others might take up the cause.

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The fight to preserve a Muscatine landmark

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal.

September 1974. One building or the other might have been doomed.

The fate of the historic Alexander Clark House was at stake. So was the long-planned and much needed apartment high-rise that now bears the name of the Muscatine resident one historian calls “the most important African American leader who almost no one has heard of.”

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Iowa naturalist B.O. Wolden remembered

B.O. Wolden (1886-1968) was a prolific naturalist, an amateur botanist, and an advocate for conservation. Born to pioneers in rural Emmet county, Olaf witnessed drastic ecological changes during his lifetime as European Americans reshaped the tallgrass prairie bioregion. For nearly forty years, Olaf shared his observations of the natural world in a regular newspaper column called Nature Notes.

The Observer: The Life and Writings of Bernt Olaf Wolden was written by Amie Adams in partnership with the Iowa Master Naturalist Program and Emmet County Conservation. The book contains a biography of B.O. Wolden (written by Adams) and a selection of 100 of Mr. Wolden’s “Nature Notes.” Readers will learn about Iowa’s natural history and this fascinating Iowa naturalist. Copies are available for purchase online and at the Emmet County Nature Center. All proceeds support conservation and nature education in Emmet county.

Please enjoy the following excerpts from the book.

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Alexander Clark Day 2023

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal.

“February 25 is Alexander Clark Day in Muscatine.”

That was the first sentence of Column 1, on February 9, 2022. This is Column 48.

“How convenient that our city holiday comes during Black History Month!”

That was me extolling the unanimous City Council vote of 2018 declaring our municipal intention to celebrate a famous resident’s 1826 birthday in perpetuity—every year going forward.

I concluded Column 1: “There is so much more to be told about Muscatine’s part in Black History. One month is never enough.”

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Susan Clark in storybooks

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal.

I once drove a busload of visitors to the little park we call Mark Twain Overlook and heard their company’s guide tell them: “He lived in Muscatine for about three years, and his house was up here.”

I simply grinned. I was just the driver, not the history police.

Did you know Mark Twain lived in Muscatine? That part is true—all you need to know if you want to mention his storybook characters for whatever you’re selling or even name some streets and subdivisions. We’ve probably done more of that here than anywhere else outside of Hannibal, Missouri.

How many days he was here—or nights—doesn’t matter. He judged our sunsets the best anywhere. Boosters took it and ran.

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Pivotal years

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal.

Lines by Lin-Manuel Miranda run through my head while I’m researching Iowans from the past.

“And when you’re gone, who remembers your name? | Who keeps your flame? | Who tells your story?”

More than a fine song in Hamilton: The American Musical, it’s a reminder of where history comes from.

What facts are important to remember—from whose point of view? Who is important to remember—and why? Who keeps their flames alive?

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The racists in our midst

Writing under the handle “Bronxiniowa,” Ira Lacher, who actually hails from the Bronx, New York, is a longtime journalism, marketing, and public relations professional.

My aunt, who raised me after my parents died, would wake up early on Sunday to prepare a meal, then take a cab, at great expense, to visit her sister, confined to a mental institution. “If she were Catholic,” one of the nurses in the ward told me, “she would be a saint.”

But she also threw around the word “shvartze” to refer to black people. “Shvartze” technically means “black” in Yiddish, but it’s also the equivalent of the N-word. So, yes, my aunt was a racist. But she also did good for me, her sister, and uncounted others. And I still say a memorial prayer for her on the anniversary of her death.

No such sentiment may be forthcoming for Scott Adams, the longtime cartoonist who created “Dilbert.”

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One senator asked why wait longer

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal.

I like to think Beth Crookham is channeling Underground Railroader ancestors who came from Ohio in the 1840s.

I knew her in Muscatine about 20 years ago when she was a community activist, a promoter of the performing arts with a business background at her family’s sports-lighting company. Now she’s an East Coast producer, singer-songwriter, and recording artist.

As I write this column, I am enjoying her song “Good Trouble,” an homage to John Lewis and other nonviolent change-makers.

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Boldly for equal rights

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal.

At the 1865 Republican state convention it was Henry O’Connor of Muscatine who nominated Gov. William M. Stone for re-election. Next came the vote of acclamation moved by General Marcellus Crocker, the ailing former commander of the Iowa Brigade.

Iowa’s two-term sixth governor was a popular war veteran and supporter of Lincoln. Until recently I’d given little notice to his part in the equal-rights cause.

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"These are the times that try men's souls"

Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000.

In the responses to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia was too predictable and shameful with her shouts of “Liar!”

More troubling to me was Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ flag-waving response: “America is the greatest country the world has ever known, because we are the freest country the world has ever known…”

For one thing, as Huckabee Sanders raved about our freedom, what came to my mind was how soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division had to protect nine Black students from a hate-filled mob in September 1957 as the children entered the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.

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As if an earthquake

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal in December.

Reconstruction after the U.S. Civil War. That’s where I’m headed in this series, what I’m pondering as I write this year-end column.

I was raised on the Watch Night tradition started by Moravians and adopted by Wesleyans in England and brought to America. Black Americans gave new meaning to Watch Night on December 31, 1862, praying and watching for President Lincoln to make good on his call for freeing slaves in the rebellious South. It came to be Freedom’s Eve.

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One thousand armed black men

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal.

In July 1863 the War Department authorized Col. William A. Pile “to raise a regiment of men of African descent” to be known as the “First Regiment of Iowa African Infantry.” Keokuk was their rendezvous, and Alexander Clark of Muscatine was a main recruiter. While serving in Arkansas, the regiment was reorganized as the 60th U.S. Colored Troops (USCT).

After the war it was said the regiment had included “about every man of African descent in the state who was capable of performing military service.” (Davenport Gazette, April 17, 1867) 

An official 1911 report repeated the claim and said there was “an ardent desire” by “Iowa men of negro blood” to fight against slavery. 

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"Now ask the Legislature to do its duty"

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal.

People my age look back and exclaim how fast time flies. We reflect on what we learned as children and how that shaped who we became.

This column is published on my 72nd birthday. Were I born only 72 years earlier—in 1878—and growing up in Muscatine, I could have witnessed firsthand the oratory of our famous “colored” neighbor Alexander Clark. As an 11-year old, I could have attended the sendoff celebration when he departed for Liberia as the new U.S. consul, one of the highest honors accorded any Black person in 19th century America.

I like to believe I’d have felt proud of our town—Clark’s chosen home since 1842—and proud of our state where his achievements had been important and lauded.

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What we might learn from Hoover and Truman

Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000.

This post about Presidents Herbert Hoover and Harry S Truman is driven in large part by concern about what Iowa may become under the anti-public education agenda that Governor Kim Reynolds spelled out in her Condition of the State speech on January 10. The Republican-controlled legislature then rushed to pass the governor’s school voucher plan.

Consider, too, that President Joe Biden might sum up the State of Union on February 7 as “perilous.”

Risks are inherent in systems of self-governance, but perhaps we can find some ray of hope in the lives and public service of two U.S. presidents who weren’t fully appreciated, despite all their meritorious actions.

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The U.S. economy is broken. Time for a New West!

Richard Sherzan (full bio below) is a lifelong Democrat now living in Coralville, who supports the principles of individual freedom, dignity, and happiness, which were advocated by John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Cesar Chavez.

I. Where are we? Economic underinvestment and economic decline

In my view, the Biden-Harris economic policies represent the same, old, outdated, and weak policies, which have spurred America’s economic decline since the 1970s. They helped Donald Trump win the 2016 presidential election on a promise of an “America First” approach. 

New economic ideas and actions are needed, not only for the Democratic Party’s future political success, but for the American people to have a strong and prosperous 21st-century economy.

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Worthy to be trusted with the musket

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal.

In the Muscatine Journal archive can be found several reports of Civil War service by a regiment of “colored” soldiers. Next time I will examine their role in making post-war Iowa the place Ulysses S. Grant would call the “bright radical star.”

January 16, 1863: “THE AFRICAN REGIMENTS.—Some of the African regiments, upon the organization of which the President has determined, will be employed to guard the banks of the Mississippi after it shall have been opened by our fleets and armies.”

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A typo cast in stone

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal.

According to Portrait and Biographical Album of Muscatine County, Iowa (1889), Editor-publisher John Mahin “was secretary and manager of the Soldiers’ Monument Association of Muscatine County which erected the beautiful shaft to the memory of the heroes who fell in the cause of Union and freedom upon Southern battle-fields, and which now ornaments the court-house square of Muscatine.”

Author Lee Miller, while researching his 2009 book, Crocker’s Brigade, “noticed a conspicuous disparity between the number of names displayed on the memorial and the actual number of Muscatine County soldiers who died during the Civil War.” (Blurb on his second book, Triumph & Tragedy, 2012.)

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Middle initials

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal.

The first draft of history is the newspaper. Or used to be.

Certainly the Muscatine Journal archive is a main source about Alexander Clark, maybe the most important one. As early as 1853, the editor saw his neighbor’s life as news worth reporting. As Clark’s fame grew from local to national and beyond, John Mahin’s paper supplied evidence of what was said at the time about Iowa’s champion of emancipation and equality.

During the 1880s, Clark and his son worked at publishing a leading Black newspaper in Chicago, The Conservator. Bits of it quoted or mentioned in the Journal are some of the best remnants of an undertaking that put Clark on the executive committee of the national Black publishers association.

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Underground Railroad “stuff” gets personal

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal.

Do you know where your people came from? How they arrived on this continent? How they made their way to Iowa? If not, might it make a difference in your life to learn their stories?

On May 2, 2010, I posted on Facebook: “I just found a ‘smoking gun’ historical document that confirms my hypothesis (ever stronger over the past decade) about my ancestors’ role in the Underground Railroad. I am descended directly from men named as key players in Connecticut, including my great-great-grandfather who migrated directly to Durant, Iowa. Do I sound excited?”

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Alexander Clark and the Iowa Freedom Trail

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal.

Sixteen historical markers across Iowa tell the story of John Brown’s last “underground railroad” trip—February 4 to March 10, 1859—from Civil Bend near the Missouri River to the Mississippi’s edge at Davenport.

The marker I know best stands outside the historic West Liberty railway depot. Its post is well cemented into ballast rock. I know, having dug much of the hole myself in June 2009. I say it’s my most “concrete” contribution to the Iowa Freedom Trail, of which the John Brown Freedom Trail is a subset.

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John Brown at West Liberty

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal.

Cedar County was one of John Brown’s favorite stops on several trips through Iowa, 1855 to 1859, but he set foot in Muscatine County only once.

You can read about it on a marker outside the historic West Liberty depot. Following are passages from three other sources.

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John Brown tourism and Alexander Clark

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal.

John Brown’s last trip across Iowa was in early 1859. He and his band left Muscatine County by rail in March. He would die at Charles Town, Virginia, in December.

In February 2009, a speaker at the dedication of the Alexander Clark conference room at Grimes State Office Building asked us to imagine a conversation between Clark and Brown.

“It’s possible they met because Clark gave safe harbor to escaping slaves and John Brown’s trail was only a half day ride from Clark’s home,” said Rudy Simms, director of the Des Moines Civil and Human Rights Commission.

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Zelenskyy appreciates American history

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivered a dramatic, crisp, and impactful address to the American Congress in Washington on December 21.

Dramatic because it brought front and center the danger the Ukrainian people face continuously from Russian aggression. Crisp because Zelenskyy wasted no words in describing Ukraine’s situation. And impactful because his message aligned his country’s fate with proud moments in American history.

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Yes, Santa, there was a Virginia

Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000.

Given all the hoopla and hokum—and bitterness of kicking someone in the teeth—about the legend that there once was a celebrated Iowa caucus, let’s get back to reality.

Let’s consider whether there once was a Virginia who wondered about Santa Claus, and whether he actually was a fellow who dealt with things that really mattered—like merriment, consideration of others, and even being jolly.

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Train ride to Harpers Ferry

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal.

My October 2009 Facebook post is still out there: “Weighing a possible last-minute trip east via Amtrak this Wednesday; the decision would be easier if I knew someone available to drive me to Burlington or Galesburg before noon.”

I said, “my destination is a conference at Harper’s Ferry, WV, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the John Brown raid.” I added a link to the “John Brown Remembered” symposium website.

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John Brown was here

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal

October 16, 1859—John Brown led a raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. His arrest and trial are big news, his December 2 execution high drama.

December 16—Edwin Coppoc of Iowa executed along with three fellow raiders.

(Note: All quotations from the Muscatine Journal of 1859. Coppock and Coppic are deemed less common spellings.)

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More Frank and Lynn on race

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal.

Any tidbit related to Muscatine’s equal-rights pioneer Alexander Clark gets my attention, so one phrase was all it took to start me researching “George Jones, who cultivates A. Clark’s farm on the Island.” (Muscatine Journal, August 22, 1879)

December 3, 1863: “George Jones exhibited a commendable degree of patience and excellent horsemanship, finally inducing the refractory animal to go off in a horsemanlike manner.” I’ve learned more, but not very much more, about George Jones, 1828-1888, variously classified by census-takers as Black, White, and Mulatto (mixed).

My previous column introduced two of his “white” descendants, Frank Best and Lynn Bartenhagen.

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Memorializing the African Holocaust

Gerald Ott of Ankeny was a high school English teacher and for 30 years a school improvement consultant for the Iowa State Education Association.

In my years, I have visited many American historical sites. When I was seven, my parents took me to the Alamo. It was 1950. My dad was a newly appointed chaplain at Lackland Air Force base near San Antonio.

If my folks knew the real history, they didn’t say. I doubt they did. We were from the North. So, the story we were told, the Alamo myth (as I now know), became the story we believed to be true.

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Musings from a first-in-the-nation Iowa caucus critic

Dan Piller was a business reporter for more than four decades, working for the Des Moines Register and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He covered the oil and gas industry while in Texas and was the Register’s agriculture reporter before his retirement in 2013. He lives in Ankeny.

The pending end of Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses will no doubt set off long nights of reminiscences covering a half-century among the state’s political/media intelligentsia. But I will step forward with a claim that is not to be challenged.

I was the first-in-the-nation critic of the Iowa caucuses. It happened entirely by accident.

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New film puts new definition on “Woke”

Gerald Ott of Ankeny was a high school English teacher and for 30 years a school improvement consultant for the Iowa State Education Association.

I saw the trailer for Will Smith’s new film “Emancipation.” Smith’s character Peter is the enslaved man whose terribly scarred back was photographed in 1863 and viewed by millions during the Civil War era and beyond.

I immediately thought of Governor Ron DeSantis saying, “Florida is the state where WOKE goes to die.” He was speaking, wife and kids at his side, just after the November election where he was re-elected with nearly 60 percent of the vote.

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U.S. schools teach too little Native American history

Kurt Meyer writes a weekly column for the Nora Springs – Rockford Register, where this essay first appeared. He serves as chair of the executive committee (the equivalent of board chair) of Americans for Democratic Action, America’s most experienced liberal organization.

By the time you read this, Native American Heritage Month will be almost over. I admit I missed most of it again this year, too. I wouldn’t have known except for seeing a banner on the Washington Post website, calling special attention to Native American articles during November.

Why is there so little education in the U.S. about Native Americans? Possible causes include ignorance, oversight, pedagogy obstacles, and fear. Undoubtedly, it’s a blend.

News under the Native American heading often relates to changing offensive school mascots and team names, decisions usually prompting considerable controversy. Still, the name changes are a significant step in the right direction. Meanwhile, politicization of this issue underscores the need for education while simultaneously foreshadowing challenges facing advocates of a more inclusive curriculum.

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Clark farm on Muscatine Island

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal.

Alexander Clark became extraordinarily wealthy for a Black man in 19th-century America, but nobody yet has assembled all the details we could learn. 

Muscatine’s entrepreneurial barber is remembered for achievements as churchman, lawyer, masonic grand master, publisher, and statesman.

I hadn’t thought of Clark being involved in farming until I received this question from Louisa County historian Frank Best: “Did Alexander Clark own a farm out on the Island?”

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Grassley rewrites history on marriage equality stance

The U.S. Senate is on track to pass legislation protecting same-sex marriage rights, after twelve Republicans (including Senator Joni Ernst) joined all Democrats in voting to proceed with debating the bill on November 16.

Senator Chuck Grassley was among the 37 Republicans who voted to block the bill. In a written statement, he claimed the legislation would “put people with certain sincere religious beliefs at greater legal risk,” even though a bipartisan amendment addressed concerns of religious organizations well enough to satisfy the Mormon Church.

Grassley also portrayed himself as supporting marriage equality: “Of course I believe that all married couples should be able to continue to benefit from the same federal rights and privileges that Barbara and I have enjoyed for 68 years – regardless of their race or sexual orientation.”

That’s not what he said when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state bans on same-sex marriage, or when the Iowa Supreme Court struck down our state’s Defense of Marriage Act.

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She presented herself as a scholar

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal.

September 10, 1867: the beginning of the end of segregated schools in Iowa; the day 12-year-old Susie Clark tried to enroll at Muscatine’s Grammar School No. 2.

One hundred and fifty-five years ago “on the 10th day of September, 1867, said school being in session, she presented herself, and demanded to be received therein as a scholar under the common school law.” (Iowa Supreme Court, ruling in Clark v. Board of Directors, April 14, 1868.)

Instead of a welcome at her neighborhood school three blocks up West Hill from her home at W. 3rd and Chestnut, someone in charge turned Susie away on orders of the school board.

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The Register and blue ghosts from 1974

Dan Piller was a business reporter for more than four decades, working for the Des Moines Register and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He covered the oil and gas industry while in Texas and was the Register’s agriculture reporter before his retirement in 2013. He lives in Ankeny.

The windowless Office Lounge bar on Grand Avenue nestled across a narrow alleyway from the Register and Tribune Building in downtown Des Moines was a hopping place in the early morning hours of Wednesday, November 6, 1974.

Longtime Office Lounge owner Dorothy Gabriel continued her election-night tradition of keeping the Register’s semi-official bar open after hours (to the apparent indifference of the Des Moines police) so that the newspaper’s staff could blow off the heat and tension of election night.

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What was once "Iowa nice" now "too liberal," through GOP lens

Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000.

“You can’t handle the truth!”

Many Bleeding Heartland readers will recall those words of contempt that U.S. Marine Colonel Nathan R. Jessup—played by Jack Nicholson— shouted from the witness stand in the 1992 movie, A Few Good Men.

Col. Jessup was alluding to the death of a young Marine, a killing that “saved lives,” he claimed. Those outside the U.S. Marine Corps supposedly couldn’t handle his distorted view of “the truth.”

That contempt called to mind the political commercials that contaminate our television viewing these days. Judging by the smears and deception in so many ads, the phrase “Iowa nice” (like many of the targeted candidates or policies) would now be considered “too liberal for Iowa.”

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One of her favorite places

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal.

Across a crowded lobby, I recognize Iowa’s one-time state architectural historian who married a candidate for Congress. It’s one of the opening events at the spectacular new Stanley Museum of Art. She is serving as a greeter.

Calling card in hand, I make my way to her side. Scribbled on the back: “Alexander Clark House.”

She glances at the words. “That is one of my favorite places,” she says.

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Iowa governor not even close to keeping one 2018 campaign promise

“If elected, will you commit to weekly press conferences?” a moderator asked during the first debate between Iowa’s candidates for governor in October 2018. “I do it all the time,” Governor Kim Reynolds replied.

Asked again during that campaign’s third debate whether she would hold weekly press conferences, Reynolds claimed to have already made that commitment, adding, “If there’s any ambiguity, I will.”

Bleeding Heartland’s review of the governor’s public schedule reveals she has not come close to keeping that promise for most of the past four years. After a period of greater accessibility during the COVID-19 pandemic, Reynolds held just four formal news conferences during the second half of 2021. More than 40 weeks into this year, she has held only ten news conferences, the last occurring on July 12.

Reporters with access have sometimes been able to ask the governor a few questions at a “gaggle” after a bill signing or another public event. But most weeks, Reynolds has not scheduled even an informal media availability.

Avoiding unscripted questions on camera gives Reynolds greater control over news coverage of her administration, and keeps awkward moments mostly out of public view.

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Through story and song

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal.

I was excited when I learned Simon Estes would narrate the Iowa public television documentary “Lost in History: Alexander Clark.”

Ahead of the premiere showing at Muscatine Community College in March 2012, the Muscatine Journal highlighted the bass-baritone’s role in “the 27-minute film by award-winning New York producer Marc Rosenwasser that chronicles Clark’s life from his birth in western Pennsylvania in 1826 to his death in 1891.”

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Where was Susie Clark's school?

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal.

August 24 was the first full day at SCJH—Susan Clark Junior High—and also the first day of the 2022-23 academic year at Muscatine High School, alma mater of Iowa’s first Black high school graduate.

Iowa’s 1857 constitution mandated public education for “all the youths of the State, without distinction of color,” but it took an Iowa Supreme Court ruling more than a decade later to end racial segregation. The 1868 case was named for that Muscatine student: Clark v. Board of School Directors.

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