Authentically AU: News and Views from the President

In the space of months, America has lost three giants, Elijah Cummings, C.T. Vivian and John Lewis. All are now “dancing with the angels,” to quote Cummings. Now the nation begins to celebrate the life and legacy of Congressman Lewis through a series of ceremonies and tributes. And,...

On 19 June 1865, Union troops reached the most remote corner of the Confederacy and read aloud the text of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. The landmark pronouncement by the nation’s 16th president freed the slaves in all areas occupied by Union soldiers....

There is a plague in our land. Perhaps you assume that I am writing about the novel coronavirus. Actually, I am thinking of an older and even more virulent plague, the scourge of racism. Historians long have thought of this as America’s “original sin,” the terrible injustice...

Memorial Day is a federal holiday, a time set aside for remembering those who served the nation as members of the military. In the hometown of my childhood, this was a weekend set aside for delivering cemetery flowers, gathering for patriotic ceremonies and the spring’s final concert by the...

I am grateful today for the members of our chamber choir and for their director, Lisa Fredenburgh. Music is a universal language, its melodies and harmonies loved by people of all faiths and those of no faith. The words of this particular song capture the longing and hope that fill our hearts...