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!

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:

Dave Leshtz is the editor of The Prairie Progressive. The Hamburg Inn eventually reopened under new leadership. Original post follows.

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.

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.

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. 

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”!

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.  

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.”

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.

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?

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.