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1619 (PREDATES 1776)Establishment of slavery and Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)Some respondents focused on the original sin of the slave trade, others on the infamous Supreme Court decision that called enslaved people property, but they were all saying the same thing: Slavery, while not a single “moment,” was our greatest shame.1830–1850Indian removal/Trail of TearsThe forced removal and ethnic cleansing of some 60,000 Native Americans. Wrote one survivor: “Many days pass, and people die very much.” It was led by Andrew Jackson. Whose portrait now hangs in Donald Trump’s Oval Office.1861Firing on Fort Sumter/the Civil WarLincoln had just been elected. South Carolina had just seceded and insisted that the U.S. Army abandon its military installations in the state. It refused. South Carolina’s militia attacked. The Civil War was underway.1865Lincoln’s assassinationJohn Wilkes Booth vowed that a speech he heard Lincoln give on April 11 would be his last. And so it was. An act that felled our greatest president—and gave us one of the worst.1877Compromise of 1877 ending ReconstructionThe political deal that ushered in the era of the Ku Klux Klan and Jim Crow laws. Oh, and finagled the presidency away from the guy who got more votes. Sound familiar?1921Tulsa MassacreTwo days of mob violence that destroyed 35 square blocks and left 10,000 Black people homeless. And it took seven decades for the state to form a commission to acknowledge and study it.1941Pearl HarborJapan attacked a naval base in Hawaii and ended America’s neutrality in World War II. The “date which will live in infamy,” in FDR’s famous phrase. His first draft? “A date which will live in world history.” Most important speech edit in history?1942Japanese American internment in World War IIWithout question, FDR’s low point—120,000 Japanese Americans (80,000 of them citizens) sent to 10 camps. The Supreme Court defended this in 1944’s Korematsu v. United States, which has gone down in history as one of its worst decisions.1945Dropping atomic weapons on JapanHarry Truman said he never lost a night’s sleep over the decision to drop the bombs that ultimately killed nearly 200,000 people. It did shorten the war—but it launched a dark and paranoid era in human history.20019/11Three items on this list are not things the United States did, but things done to the United States. This one was awful: Four planes attacked the country, killing nearly 3,000 people and injuring thousands more. It was made even worse by our government’s overreaction.2021January 6It’s still hard to believe that a sitting president led an insurrection against the United States of America and was at best indifferent to the idea of the mob killing his own vice president.2024Reelection of Donald TrumpFuture historians will ask how the hell the American people decided to do this. Let’s just hope those historians are still living in a democracy.

Best PresidentsT-1. Abraham Lincoln (1861–1865)The Great Emancipator and the savior of the Union. And he created the national railroad and the land-grant university system, all while fighting the war!T-1. Franklin Roosevelt (1933–1945)His steady confidence, “bold, persistent experimentation,” and optimistic mien guided the nation through the Great Depression and the Second World War, reimagining both the federal government role and the country’s place in the world.3. George Washington (1789–1797)His greatest achievement may have been something he didn’t do. “He could easily have become president for life and did not,” University of Texas law professor Sanford Levinson noted.4. Lyndon Johnson (1963–1969)More than one expert placed LBJ both on this list and on the “worst” list. But with the passage of time, his accomplishments at home, including Medicare, Medicaid, the Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act, have come to overshadow Vietnam.5. Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909)An OG populist who used federal power for the general good. “When I am feeling blue or discouraged, I pick up a TR biography and read any random page—it gives a jolt of energy and hope!” said Michael Waldman of the Brennan Center for Justice.The best presidents used “the federal government to not only expand the American imagination of the ways in which the government can solve society’s biggest problems but also significantly and substantively improve the lives of millions.”—Candis Watts Smith, Duke University6. Barack Obama (2009–2017)Not only the first African American president but also the sole one since Eisenhower to twice win a popular vote majority. “Americans could believe that we were capable of living up to the promises of equality and liberty,” said University of Virginia media studies professor Siva Vaidhyanathan.7. Thomas Jefferson (1801–1809)“His pen inscribed the nation we still rightly dream of being,” said Richard Parker of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. More practically, the Louisiana Purchase was, as one of his successors might have put it, a big effing deal.8. Dwight Eisenhower (1953–1961)Using what has come to be known as a “hidden hand” leadership style, Eisenhower halted the Korean War, built the interstate highway system, and presciently warned against the burgeoning “military-industrial complex.”9. Harry Truman (1945–1953)Played a critical role in helping establish the postwar, rules-based international order that set the stage for decades of U.S. prosperity at home and leadership around the world. Not bad for a failed haberdasher.10. John F. Kennedy (1961–1963)One of the nation’s most rhetorically gifted presidents, Kennedy earned a place on this list for his inspirational words, and also for navigating the world’s moment of maximum peril, the Cuban Missile Crisis.Worst Presidents1. Donald J. Trump (2017–2021, 2025–present)Some experts voted for him twice—once for each term. “Much more corrupt and dangerous to the Constitution than all of the others on this list combined,” observed author and columnist Jonathan Alter. Thank you for your attention to this matter.“The most striking thing on evaluating this question is how much easier it is to fill the latter category [worst presidents] than the former [best presidents]! The worst president category overflows with possibilities.”—John Fabian Witt, Yale Law2. Andrew Johnson (1865–1869)He sought, in the words of Richard Parker of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, “to betray the sacrifice of 600,000 lives in combat, and the rights owed millions more.”3. James Buchanan (1857–1861)Pro-slavery, he successfully lobbied the Supreme Court on its odious Dred Scott decision. He was, one expert noted, the only president to finish his term with fewer states in the union than when he started.4. Richard Nixon (1969–1974)He was so much worse than the “second-rate burglary.” And despite his best efforts and those of his apologists, he is best remembered as the only president to resign his office—in a miasma of disgrace he could never shake.T-5. George W. Bush (2001–2009)His administration was a string of disasters and blunders, from 9/11 to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars to the Great Recession. He exhibited a deadly blend of self-assurance and incuriosity.T-5. Warren Harding (1921–1923)For a long time, Harding’s administration had a serious claim to the title of “most corrupt” (Google “Teapot Dome”). Harding’s ghost must be grateful to Team Trump.7. Andrew Jackson (1829–1837)Jackson “exhibited a fairly consistent disdain for law and established the pernicious tradition of presidents who viewed themselves as ‘tribunes of the people’ … entitled to behave as they wished,” University of Texas law professor Sanford Levinson argued.T-8. Herbert Hoover (1929–1933)The Great Depression started on his watch, and he flailed in its face.T-8. Franklin Pierce (1853–1857)A pro-slavery Democrat who helped grease the nation’s slide toward Civil War with, among other moves, the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act. He was, Theodore Roosevelt later wrote, “a servile tool of men worse than himself ... ever ready to do any work the slavery leaders set him.”10. Ronald Reagan (1981–1989)“With an affable demeanor, he laid the foundations for what the current snarling GOP has become,” noted James Fallows, who worked for and then fell out with Reagan’s predecessor, Jimmy Carter.

Because it’s America’s birthday, we decided in full ecumenical spirit to invite a few conservatives to the party. They are, as you’ll see on the facing page, all respected thinkers, scholars, and jurists. And their answers are interesting—they give Dr. King his proper due—and even surprising (how did they omit Phyllis Schlafly?). As the widely respected former circuit court Judge J. Michael Luttig wrote us: “This is an ingenious idea for celebrating the 250th Anniversary of America’s Founding. My lists are American lists, not ‘conservative’ lists. And no, I was not surprised that they often tacked more liberal.”The Greatest Moments in American History1. Constitution and Bill of Rights2. Declaration of IndependenceT-3. Victory in World War IIT-3. Abolition of slavery/Thirteenth Amendment5. Lee surrenders at AppomattoxT-6. Moon landingT-6. Victory in the Cold WarThe Worst Moments in American History1. 9/112. Pearl Harbor3. Trail of Tears/Indian removal4. Japanese internmentT-5. Lincoln assassinationT-5. Southern secessionT-5. Arrival and institutionalization of slaveryThe Best PresidentsT-1. Abraham LincolnT-1. Ronald ReaganT-1. George Washington4. Thomas Jefferson5. Franklin Roosevelt6. Calvin CoolidgeThe Worst Presidents1. Andrew Johnson2. James BuchananT-3. Joe BidenT-3. Donald TrumpT-3. Woodrow WilsonT-6. Warren G. HardingT-6. Franklin PierceThe Most Influential Founding FathersT-1. Alexander HamiltonT-1. Thomas JeffersonT-1. James MadisonT-2. John AdamsT-2. Benjamin FranklinT-2. George WashingtonThe Most Consequential Politicians Who Never Became President1. Alexander Hamilton2. William Jennings Bryan3. Henry ClayT-4. Benjamin FranklinT-4. Barry GoldwaterT-4. John MarshallMost Important Americans in Public Life Who Never Held Elected Office1. Martin Luther King Jr.2. Thomas EdisonT-3. Frederick DouglassT-3. Henry Ford5. Jonathan Edwards“The great American novel about freedom, conscience, and the courage to defy an unjust society. Huck’s decision that he’d rather go to hell than return Jim to slavery is the most libertarian moment in American literature.”—Veronique de Rugy, Mercatus Center, on Adventures of Huckleberry FinnThe Images That Define American HistoryT-1. Iwo Jima flag raisingT-1. Washington Crossing the DelawareT-3. Moon landingT-3. Statue of LibertyThe Most Important Court Cases1. Brown v. Board of Education2. Marbury v. Madison3. Dred Scott v. Sandford4. McCulloch v. Maryland5. Obergefell v. HodgesThe Most Important WomenT-1. Susan B. AnthonyT-1. Eleanor Roosevelt3. Sandra Day O’ConnorT-4. Frances PerkinsT-4. Elizabeth Cady StantonT-4. Harriet Beecher StoweT-4. Harriet TubmanThe Most Important People of Color1. Frederick Douglass2. Martin Luther King Jr.3. Barack Obama4. Jackie Robinson5. Booker T. WashingtonThe Most Important Works of Art in American History1. Adventures of Huckleberry FinnT-2. CasablancaT-2. The Wizard of Oz11-way tie for fourth placeThe Liberal Mount Rushmore1. Franklin D. Roosevelt2. Martin Luther King Jr.T-3. Lyndon B. JohnsonT-3. John F. KennedyFrederick Douglass, Barack Obama, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Theodore Roosevelt each received substantial support.Conservative ContributorsRichard Brookhiser, National ReviewVeronique de Rugy, Mercatus CenterRobert George, Princeton UniversityAllen Guelzo, University of FloridaDouglas Holtz-Eakin, American Action ForumR. Glenn Hubbard, Columbia UniversityJ. Michael Luttig, circuit court judge (ret.)Harvey Mansfield, Harvard UniversityMichael McConnell, Stanford UniversityHenry Olsen, Ethics and Public Policy CenterAmity Shlaes, Coolidge FoundationStephanie Slade, ReasonEugene Volokh, UCLA (emeritus)

A quarter of a millennium has passed since the Founders declared our independence and established a nation based on radical ideas—which they deemed “self-evident”—regarding individual equality, consent of the governed, and rule of law tempered by “inalienable rights.”We have spent those years defining and redefining what America is and who Americans are. It has never been a clean or simple dialogue: Consensus is often fleeting, with answers’ clarity often varying according to the eyes of their beholders. At worst, it’s an argument that spurred a Civil War and underlies today’s bitterest disagreements. At best, it has generated a creative tension that has produced magnificent advances in art, science, and human liberty.The American story is not uniform, neither all good nor all bad. “Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary,” as Reinhold Niebuhr, one of our great theologians, once said. The American genius has been to create a blend toward progress. E pluribus unum: Out of many we are one. Our brief 250 years illustrate Niebuhr’s wisdom: Our achievements stretch from a declaration at a Statehouse in Pennsylvania to Stars and Stripes planted on the moon; our failures are tallied in tragedies starting with human enslavement and running through a bloody series of catastrophes and injustices, some self-inflicted, others perpetrated upon us.To capture the scope and sweep of the American story, we decided to survey leading scholars and thinkers in a number of fields, such as history, political science, and law. We invited them to contribute lists of their nominees in the categories you will find in this series. Many answered all of the questions, some a few, and a handful answered different questions entirely. All were thoughtful and thought-provoking, and we are deeply grateful for their contributions.We built these lists from their responses. Some results were predictable—yep, Abraham Lincoln was great—but many surprised. Taken together, they are our attempt to define our nation on its semiquincentennial. And we even gave a handful of conservative thinkers their say.Historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., my father, was fond of describing history as “an argument without end.” Bruce Springsteen, the nation’s music laureate, riffs along the same lines. “America was born out of disagreement,” he said at a May concert in Washington, D.C. “It’s an argument, an ongoing, blessed, sacred argument—an argument about what course the country should take to form a more perfect union.” We offer these lists in that spirit, as a fresh avenue for the great and ongoing discussion of where we have been, who we are, and what we may yet become.—Robert Schlesinger, guest editorMethodologyWe reached out to scores of leading scholars and public intellectuals in fields such as history, the law, economics, political science, and media and asked them to offer their top-fives in over a dozen categories designed to capture our history in its fullness. We also asked the same of a smaller group of our friends on the right.We received nearly 100 responses. Some respondents completed all 13 lists, some fewer. We made the lists in these pages by simply tallying up the votes. In some instances, we felt logic dictated that we group them thematically—for example, putting the Reconstruction Amendments together, rather than counting them individually. The final lists here are admittedly somewhat subjective, in that in each category we decided on a number that constituted a critical mass of votes; that number was different for each category, since the n of each category was different based on the number of responses (for example, many more participants made best/worst presidents lists than court cases lists). For each category, we chose a cutoff point that seemed to us to represent substantial sentiment favoring inclusion of that person or event.ContributorsJonathan Alter, author and columnistEric Alterman, Brooklyn CollegeWilliam J. Antholis, University of Virginia’s Miller CenterCristina Beltrán, New York UniversityDavid Harry Bennett, Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs (emeritus)Mary Sarah Bilder, Boston College Law SchoolDavid Blight, Yale UniversityHeather Boushey, University of Pennsylvania Kleinman Center for Energy PolicyNadia Brown, Georgetown UniversityAndrew Burstein, Louisiana State UniversityBrandon R. Byrd, Vanderbilt UniversityDavid Canton, University of FloridaLizabeth Cohen, Harvard UniversityJohn Milton Cooper Jr., University of Wisconsin-Madison (emeritus)Robert Dallek, historianMatt Dallek, George Washington UniversityWilliam A. Darity Jr., Duke University Sanford School of Public Policy (emeritus)Matthew Dickinson, Middlebury CollegeRobert E. DiClerico, West Virginia University (emeritus)E.J. Dionne, Brookings InstitutionDaniel Drezner, The Fletcher School at Tufts UniversityKristin Kobes Du Mez, Calvin UniversityJames Fallows, writerJohn A. Farrell, writer and historianDrew Gilpin Faust, Harvard University (president emerita)Amy Fried, University of Maine (emerita)Beverly Gage, Yale UniversityDavid Garrow, writer and historianHenry Louis Gates Jr., Harvard University Hutchins Center for African and African American ResearchRoxane Gay, writer and cultural criticDavid Greenberg, Rutgers UniversityDarrick Hamilton, The New School for Social ResearchMichael Harriot, journalistNicole Hemmer, Vanderbilt UniversityElizabeth Hinton, Yale UniversityDavid Hollinger, University of California, Berkeley (emeritus)Nancy Isenberg, Louisiana State UniversityMichael Kazin, Georgetown UniversityDavid Kennedy, Stanford University (emeritus)Randall L. Kennedy, Harvard Law SchoolAmna Khalid, Carleton CollegeLarry Kramer, London School of Economics and Political ScienceKevin M. Kruse, Princeton UniversityJennifer L. Lawless, University of Virginia Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public PolicyNicholas Lemann, Columbia University Journalism SchoolMargaret Levi, Stanford University (emerita)Sanford V. Levinson, University of Texas at Austin School of LawDavid Levering Lewis, New York University (emeritus)Jen Manion, Amherst CollegeJane Mayer, The New YorkerLiza Mundy, journalist and authorMelissa Murray, New York University School of LawGeorge Derek Musgrove, University of Maryland, Baltimore CountyAryeh Neier, Open Society Foundations (president emeritus)Nell Irvin Painter, Princeton University (emerita)Richard Parker, Harvard University Kennedy School of GovernmentClaire Potter, The New School for Social Research (emerita)Andrew Preston, University of VirginiaLara Putnam, University of PittsburghEric Rauchway, University of California, DavisSam Rosenfeld, Colgate UniversityMiguel Schor, Drake University Law SchoolKate Shaw, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law SchoolJohn Sides, Vanderbilt UniversityTheda Skocpol, Harvard UniversityCandis Watts Smith, Duke UniversityPaul Starr, Princeton UniversityThomas J. Sugrue, New York UniversityJulie Suk, Fordham University School of LawJeremi Suri, University of Texas at Austin Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public AffairsJames Tejani, California Polytechnic State UniversityMichael Tomasky, The New RepublicRobert L. Tsai, Boston University School of LawSiva Vaidhyanathan, University of VirginiaLynn Vavreck, University of California, Los AngelesMichael Waldman, Brennan Center for Justice at NYUSean Wilentz, Princeton UniversityMaya Wiley, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human RightsIsabel Wilkerson, journalist and authorBrenda Wineapple, Columbia UniversityJohn Fabian Witt, Yale Law SchoolJulian E. Zelizer, Princeton University

1. James MadisonThe Father of the Constitution. Shows the payoff for taking copious notes. The ugly side: He owned more than 100 enslaved people.2. Thomas JeffersonAnd at number two, the author of the American theory of law-based, anti-divine rule. A second hit: the Virginia statute on religious freedom. Slave ownership: more than 600.T-3. Alexander HamiltonThe anti-Jefferson, the leader of the high-born Federalists, co-author of the vital Federalist Papers, and architect of our financial system. Good life’s work.“I am not much of a fan of the Founding Fathers terminology (I use Founding Generation), as in a democratic republic it seems to me that the government depended on more than the men inside the various legislative chambers.”—Mary Sarah Bilder, Boston College Law SchoolT-3. George WashingtonHis decision in 1783 to stop off in Annapolis and resign his military commission stands as maybe the most important act in early American history. It made the United States a republic. Slave ownership: more than 300.5. Benjamin FranklinStunning polymath, skilled (and randy) diplomat, committed abolitionist in his later years after benefiting from the slave trade earlier in his life; also the only person to sign the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Treaty of Paris.6. John AdamsHe first rose to prominence opposing the hated Stamp Act. In convincing Jefferson to be the lead author of the declaration, he said: “I am obnoxious, suspected, and unpopular. You are very much otherwise.”7. Thomas PaineThe English-born Founder whose early pamphlets like “Common Sense” made the popular case for revolution. Also a vigorous foe of slavery and advocate for an early version of the welfare state.8. James WilsonWho? This Pennsylvanian was a vital and active delegate to the Constitutional Convention and an important proponent of ratification. He was also one of Washington’s original six appointees to the Supreme Court.

Sports fans do it obsessively. Who’s on the Yankees Mount Rushmore? The Lakers? Kobe, Jerry West, Magic, and Kareem? What—you’re leaving off Wilt Chamberlain?! The exercise leads to some intense, and fun, arguments.This was the question we posed to our contributors: Which four progressive titans—elected officials, activists, thinkers, what have you—would you put on the famed mountainside? The illustration above tells you how it came out. King got the most votes, then FDR, then Douglass, and then Lincoln, a somewhat surprisingly distant fourth. We were disappointed no woman made the mountain. The closest competitors, just a couple of votes behind Lincoln, were Jane Addams, Frances Perkins, and Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Barack Obama, John Dewey, and Robert La Follette also came close.“This idea troubles me … because it seems to me there’s something intrinsically illiberal about monumental representations of persons. If we must put four progressive depictions somewhere, I vote for Norman Rockwell’s representations of the Four Freedoms.”—Eric Rauchway, University of California, DavisWe should note that a few of our respondents wrote to say they reject the whole idea of a Mount Rushmore. “On America’s 250th anniversary, it’s time to move from exceptionalism and hero worship to a politics of memory that embraces complexity, ambivalence, tragedy, greatness, and love,” argued NYU political scientist Cristina Beltrán. Fordham Law’s Julie Suk described a similar sentiment: “A democracy should not give immortal godlike status to four progressive ‘titans,’ but rather it should represent the masses of people who have invisibly built this country and sacrificed their lives to move it closer to its stated ideals of democracy, equality, liberty, and justice for all.”We think hey, it’s fun to argue over.

1. Martin Luther King Jr.In 1955, few had heard of him yet. A mere eight years later, he was moving mountains.2. Frederick DouglassBorn into bondage, he was King’s nineteenth-century precursor and the country’s conscience during the Civil War and after.3. Eleanor RooseveltA first lady of many firsts (first to write a newspaper column, first to speak to a national convention), she also went on to a nearly two-decade career vigorously promoting both human rights abroad and reform politics at home.4. Susan B. AnthonyShe was decades ahead of her time in arguing and agitating for women’s suffrage. But she was equally committed to abolitionism.T-5. W.E.B. Du BoisHis The Souls of Black Folk (1903), with its argument about “the color line” in American society, had a seismic impact. He helped found the NAACP but became disillusioned over time, finally moving to Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana.“A champion of civil rights before FDR, Eleanor [Roosevelt] wrote her own column for 27 years before and after he was president, and she led the committee that wrote the U.N. [Universal] Declaration of Human Rights.”—Amy Fried, University of Maine (emerita)T-5. J. Edgar HooverNot our favorite, but hard to deny his importance over five decades of American life. He intimidated presidents and hounded movements. But contrary to legend, he was apparently not a cross-dresser.7. Henry FordThe good: He famously paid his employees enough that they could buy the cars they themselves made. The bad: The Dearborn Independent, his virulently antisemitic newspaper.T-8. William F. Buckley Jr.Erudite, supremely self-confident, full of charm, capable of making and keeping liberal friends. But it’s hard to forget his support for segregation and later suggestion that gay men with aids be tattooed.T-8. Thomas EdisonThe light bulb, the phonograph, the motion picture camera. And those three just scratch the surface. His West Orange, New Jersey, laboratory contained “eight thousand kinds of chemicals, every kind of screw made, every size of needle,” and a hell of a lot else.T-8. Elizabeth Cady StantonThe lead organizer of the important suffragist Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 and the co-founder (with Anthony) of the National Woman Suffrage Association. She was also, like Anthony, a fierce abolitionist.T-11. Rachel CarsonShe wrote a 1951 bestseller about the ocean that won a National Book Award, but nothing touched the impact of 1962’s Silent Spring, one of the most influential books of the century. She died of breast cancer just 16 months later.T-11. John Marshall*He wasn’t the first chief justice; he was the fourth. But for good and for ill, Marshall is the one who made the court the final word on U.S. legislation and law.T-11. John D. RockefellerRockefeller’s Standard Oil gobbled up smaller and weaker competitors like bats eat mosquitoes, ending up with around 90 percent of refined oil in the United States. On the plus side, he did leave us the University of Chicago.14. Benjamin Franklin*Everyone knows about the famous kite experiment. But did you know he invented swim fins? When he was just 11 years old?* Franklin and Marshall served in elected legislative office but are far better known for their accomplishments outside that realm.

1. Frederick DouglassAbolitionist, gifted orator, and adviser to President Lincoln. Fun fact: He was born Frederick Bailey. “Douglass,” which he adopted after he escaped from bondage and settled in Massachusetts, is taken from a character in Sir Walter Scott’s poem “The Lady of the Lake.”2. Martin Luther King Jr.Not-so-fun fact: As a child, he was recruited to appear onstage, dressed in a slave costume, for the gala premiere in Atlanta of Gone With the Wind.3. Barack ObamaYou know that if you became the first African American president in U.S. history but still finished only third on this list, those other two guys must really be giants.4. W.E.B. Du BoisSociologist, writer, and champion of civil rights—a public intellectual par excellence. Check out these chillingly relevant words, which Du Bois issued in 1905: “Either the United States will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States.”5. Thurgood MarshallThe first Black justice to serve on the Supreme Court. An absolute hero of American jurisprudence. If only he’d stayed on the court until he died—one week into Bill Clinton’s presidency—most Americans would still have no idea who this Clarence Thomas guy was.“A dedicated labor activist … also worked to promote women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, and immigrant rights.... In her mid-nineties, she broke her silence about her experience of sexual assault by Cesar Chavez as other victims came forward.”—Vanderbilt University’s Nicole Hemmer on Dolores Huerta6. Harriet TubmanA life of almost impossible to imagine courage. Tubman traveled back and forth between North and South to lead dozens of people out of bondage. And then she was a Union spy!7. Dolores HuertaAn American labor leader and a co-founder of the National Farm Workers Association. Been through countless struggles—and she’s still at it, at 96.T-8. A. Philip RandolphHe organized and went on to represent the first African American labor union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. He had the ear of presidents. He was co-organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Enough for you?T-8. Booker T. WashingtonFor years the more accommodationist Washington was seen as Du Bois’s less radical and threatening antipode, which he certainly was. But the leader of the Tuskegee Institute, now Tuskegee University—who was also a gifted writer and orator—had a massive following in his day.T-8. Malcolm XThe famed Black nationalist leader. Malcolm Little had plenty of reasons to hate America, but by 1964, after a pilgrimage to Mecca, he’d begun to turn the other cheek. The next year, members of the Nation of Islam assassinated him.T-11. Muhammad AliThe rare athlete who transcended sports to become a cultural icon. As beloved as Ali became, it’s worth remembering that much of mainstream white society hated him into the 1970s for telling certain uncomforting truths, like: “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong. No Vietcong ever called me a n-----.”T-11. Louis ArmstrongBy the time he was 15, he’d been arrested for a firing a gun into the air and been stabbed by a prostitute. Ten years later, he was the most celebrated jazz trumpeter in the country.T-11. Jackie RobinsonTo understand the cultural impact of his breaking the color barrier in 1947 with the Dodgers, you have to understand that baseball was everything back then. The NFL barely mattered. Although football, too, considered wooing Robinson, a star UCLA running back, to break its color line.T-11. Sitting BullThe famed Lakota leader was the spiritual head of the group of tribes who defeated Custer at the Little Bighorn in 1876. Alternately feared and revered, he was killed in 1890 by Indian agency police under orders of the government.

1. The Birth of a Nation by D.W. Griffith (film, 1915)Racist, “Lost Cause,” Klan-glorifying propaganda, it was also the birth of modern filmmaking. “Thoroughly pernicious, but tremendously important … establishing the importance of film and helping to shape national consciousness about Reconstruction,” said University of Texas law professor Sanford Levinson.T-2. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (poetry, 1855)“Here are the roughs and beards and space and ruggedness and nonchalance that the soul loves,” Whitman wrote in the preface to the first edition of this landmark poetry collection. He repeatedly expanded and revised the work until he died in 1892.T-2. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (novel, 1852)Stowe’s slavery-condemnation novel sold more copies than any book in the nineteenth century, save perhaps the Bible. Credited with changing white attitudes toward slavery, it’s nevertheless not widely read today, due to its negative stereotypes of Black Americans, particularly that of the title character.T-4. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (novel, 1885)Ernest Hemingway said all modern American literature comes from Twain’s antebellum tale of a white Missouri preteen helping a slave find freedom. It was and remains controversial, but by this time in his life, Samuel Clemens was a staunch supporter of racial justice. T-4. Moby-Dick; or The Whale by Herman Melville (novel, 1851)The classic tale of obsession and revenge was initially a whale of a flop. Melville lived another 40 years and had long passed into the great ocean beyond before his magnum opus took its place in the American literary canon.6. Citizen Kane by Orson Welles (film, 1941)Welles was 25 and a first-time director when he crafted this dark tale, which still stands up, about a media mogul’s rise, withdrawal, and a futile search for what he’d lost along the way. Rosebud! T-7. Beloved by Toni Morrison (novel, 1987)Her Pulitzer Prize winner is not universally beloved, often appearing prominently on lists of banned books, but this story exploring the trauma of slavery in postbellum Ohio is probably her most acclaimed.T-7. The Godfather Parts I & II by Francis Ford Coppola (film, 1972 and 1974)The Corleone family’s embrace and corruption of the American dream is a classic tale of tragedy as triumph. And the cast is pretty good, too. (Yeah, our panel ignores Part III.)T-9. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (novel, 1925)The American dream’s glory and tragedy unfold in this classic set in the Jazz Age that remains a staple of high school syllabi. Squint hard and you can just see the green light at the end of the dock.T-9. “Strange Fruit” by Abel Meeropol (song, 1939)Billie Holiday’s haunting rendition of Meeropol’s composition never directly mentions lynching, but its topic is clear. “Black body swinging in the Southern breeze/Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.” Time named it the song of the twentieth century.T-11. “Battle Hymn of the Republic” by Julia Ward Howe (song, 1862)Visiting Washington, D.C., in 1861, Howe heard Union soldiers singing “John Brown’s Body.” She wrote new lyrics for it that were a hit in the North and loathed in the South. Oh well, the victors get to call the tune.T-11. “Rhapsody in Blue” by George Gershwin (orchestral work, 1924)A train ride inspired Gershwin’s orchestral mélange of jazz and blues: “a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America—of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our metropolitan madness,” he later said.T-13. Nighthawks by Edward Hopper (painting, 1942)“Unconsciously, probably, I was painting the loneliness of a large city,” Hopper explained. It was magnified by its context—a city under blackout restrictions in the early days of war.T-13. Vietnam Veterans Memorial by Maya Lin (architectural memorial, 1982)The names of the 58,000 killed in America’s tragic conflict emanate chronologically from the monument’s center. Both Lin and the design were attacked by the usual suspects, but the public has always appreciated its understated genius.15. Casablanca by Michael Curtiz (film, 1942)The lightning dialogue. The flawless cinematography. The thrilling direction. The poignant message. The breathtaking ending. Oh, yeah—the acting wasn’t too bad either.