Was January 6, 2021 an aberration or was it part of a long history of political violence in the United States? Join Hilary and Geoff as they discuss the role political violence played in the nation’s founding, its presence in the Capitol Building prior to January 6, and its potentially cyclical nature. Along the way we’ll cover Tulsa 1920, the Oklahoma City Bombing of 1995, and the BLM movement.
Big Foot’s camp three weeks after Wounded Knee Massacre; with bodies of four Lakota Sioux wrapped in blankets in the foreground; U.S. soldiers amid scattered debris of camp
Join us as we continue discussing the American West!
Here are some of the books we’ve mentioned in the two-part overview:
Patricia Limerick – Legacy of Conquest Richard White – The Middle Ground William Cronon – Changes in the Land Anne Hyde – Empires, Nations, and Families Pekka Hämäläinen – Comanche Empire and Lakota America
“Scarface” Al Capone is shown here at the Chicago Detective bureau following his arrest on a vagrancy charge as Public Enemy No. 1 in this 8 x 10 black & white original wire photograph that has attached the original news bureau caption on verso, dated “2-26-31.”
February 14th isn’t just about flowers, candy, and dinner with your sweetheart. It is also the anniversary of one of the bloodiest gangland confrontations in US history. On February 14, 1929 seven men were shot in a north Chicago garage. This wasn’t just the ratcheting up of Prohibition-era violence in Chicago, a city seemingly out-of-control. It was also a key moment in the expansion of the Federal Government’s powers to override local control.
In our discussion of the massacre we also cover the valorization of crime, issues surrounding the racialization of criminals, and the legacy of gangs and men like Al Capone on US pop culture.