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Copyright, 1993
by Julian Boyd
This is an opportune moment to look back at our past to see what it has to teach us about our future.

A new administration has taken office, and as it did, our long national nightmare came to an end.

There are those Americans so young they cannot remember the last time there was hope and promise in the land, who can't remember when we last had a President who believed in all of the American people.

I teach history to college students, young women and men too young to remember having lived under a President who believed that government was intended to help those who cannot help themselves.

For the last twelve years, they've lived in a nation where survival of the greediest was the national religion and where brotherhood was neither preached from the national pulpit on Sunday or practiced any other day of the week. They've seen Presidents drive us apart when they could have pulled us together. They've seen the awful forces of reactions gain power and prestige. They've seen bigotry proudly paraded.

They've grown up in a world where might nearly always meant right, and where guns were chosen over bread and butter every time. They saw a campaign for the nation's highest office conducted as if it were a contest for the Presidency of the Ku