Channel Title: Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College Channel Description: The Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute is dedicated to innovative approaches to teaching, research, and public programming. Located in the heart of New York City, the institute provides a platform from which high quality scholarship effectively informs and influences public debate and public life. The mission of Roosevelt House is three-fold: to educate students in public policy and human rights, to support faculty research, and to foster creative dialogue. Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute provides opportunities for students to analyze public policy and experience meaningful civic engagement; for faculty to research, teach, and write about important issues of the day; and for scholarly and public audiences to participate in high-profile lectures, seminars and conferences. <video> Charlotte Gray — Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons Description: Roosevelt House is pleased to present a discussion—here in the very home that Sara Delano Roosevelt built and shared with her son and his family—of a brilliant new joint biography of FDR’s mother and her British counterpart: Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons: The Lives of Jennie Jerome Churchill and Sara Delano Roosevelt. In this study, Charlotte Gray delivers a unique exploration of the parallel lives of two famous women whose sons would change the course of the 20th century. The author is in conversation with historian Amanda Foreman. Welcoming remarks by Roosevelt House Director Harold Holzer. Born into upper-class America in the same year, 1854, Sara Delano and Jennie Jerome refused to settle into predictable, sheltered lives as little-known wives to prominent men. Instead, as Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons shows, both women focused much of their energy on encouraging their sons—Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill—and helping them reach the epicenter of political power on two continents. Raised with privilege but subject to the constraints of women’s roles at the time, Sara and Jennie learned how to take control of their destinies—Sara in the prosperous Hudson Valley and Jennie in the glittering world of Imperial London. Yet, through Gray’s vivid portrayal, readers learn that their personalities and choices were dramatically different. A vivacious extrovert, Jennie married Lord Randolph Churchill, a rising politician and scion of a noble British family. Her social and political maneuverings benefited not only her husband but, once she was widowed, her ambitious son. By contrast, Sara Delano married a man as old as her father and, once widowed, she made Franklin, her only child, the center of her existence. Thanks in large part to her financial support and guidance, Gray argues, Franklin acquired the skills he needed to become a successful politician. Set against a hundred years of world history, and impeccably researched, Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons is an absorbing study in loyalty and resilience. Gray argues that Jennie and Sara are too often presented as lesser figures in the backdrop of history—rather than as two remarkable individuals who shaped their sons’ characters and prepared them for the world stage. Filled with intriguing social and political insights, Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons breathes new life into Sara and Jennie—and shows how leaders are not just made, but born. Charlotte Gray, one of Canada’s best-known writers, is the author of 12 acclaimed books of literary nonfiction, including The Promise of Canada: 150 Years—People and Ideas That Have Shaped Our Country. Her bestseller The Massey Murder: A Maid, Her Master, and the Trial That Shocked a Country won the Toronto Book Award, the Heritage Toronto Book Award, and the Canadian Authors Association Lela Common Award for Canadian History. An adaptation of her bestseller Gold Diggers: Striking It Rich in the Klondike was broadcast as a TV miniseries. An adjunct research professor in the department of history at Carleton University, Gray was awarded the Pierre Berton Award for distinguished achievement in popularizing Canadian history. She is a Member of the Order of Canada and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Amanda Foreman is the author of the prize-winning bestsellers Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and A World on Fire: A Epic History of Two Nations Divided, an account of the American Civil War from both sides of the Atlantic. In 2016, Dr. Foreman served as chair of The Man Booker Prize. That same year, her BBC documentary series, The Ascent of Woman, was released. In 2019, she was invited to curate a special exhibition for Buckingham Palace as part of its summer opening. She has been a columnist for The Sunday Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Smithsonian Magazine. Her highly anticipated next book, The World Made by Women: A New History of Humanity, is scheduled for 2026. London-born and Oxford-educated, she is the daughter of American screenwriter Carl Foreman (High Noon), who relocated to England after being blacklisted during the Red Scare. Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, December 2, 2024. </video> <video> Nigel Hamilton — Lincoln vs. Davis: The War of the Presidents Description: Roosevelt House is pleased to present a discussion of historian Nigel Hamilton’s new book Lincoln vs. Davis: The War of the Presidents. In this vivid and unique dual biography, Hamilton delivers the riveting Civil War tale of how two concurrent American “presidents” faced off as the fate of the nation hung in the balance—and how Abraham Lincoln came to embrace emancipation as the last, best chance to save the Union. The author is in conversation with Jonathan F. Fanton Director of Roosevelt House, and renowned Lincoln scholar, Harold Holzer. An enthralling, fascinating account, Lincoln vs. Davis fills what the author sees as a surprising gap in the Lincoln literature: the drama of how the “railsplitter” from Illinois grew into his critical role as U.S. commander-in-chief, and managed to outwit his formidable opponent, Jefferson Davis, in American history’s only military faceoff between rival American presidents. Davis was a trained soldier and war hero; Lincoln, a country lawyer who had only briefly served in the militia. Confronted with an extremely violent and challenging war, Lincoln, according to Hamilton, seemed ill-suited to the task. He was, as Hamilton writes, inexperienced, indecisive, and a poor judge of people’s motives. As a result, says Hamilton, he entrusted command of his army to a young officer named George McClellan—whose defeat in battle left Washington, the nation’s capital, at the mercy of General Robert E. Lee. The war might have ended there, but, in what Hamilton considers a Shakespearean twist, Lincoln made a climactic decision: issuing as a “military necessity” a proclamation freeing the 3.5 million enslaved Americans without whom the South could not feed or fund their armed insurrection. As Hamilton tells it, this new war policy doomed the rebellion—which was in dire need of support from Europe, none of whose governments would now dare to recognize rebel “independence” in a war openly fought over slavery. With a cast of unforgettable characters, from first ladies to fugitive coachmen to treasonous cabinet officials, Lincoln vs. Davis is an affecting and surprising American saga. Nigel Hamilton is a New York Times best-selling biographer of General Bernard “Monty” Montgomery, President John F. Kennedy, President Bill Clinton, and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, among other subjects. He has won multiple awards, including the Whitbread Prize and the Templer Medal for Military History. The first volume of his FDR at War trilogy, The Mantle of Command, was longlisted for the National Book Award. He is a senior fellow at the University of Massachusetts’s McCormack Graduate School. This is his second appearance at Roosevelt House. Harold Holzer has served since 2015 as the Jonathan F. Fanton Director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute. A prolific author with more than 50 books to his credit, he won the 2015 Gilder Lehrman Prize for his Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion, and earlier earned a 2008 National Humanities Medal and co-chaired the U. S. Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. His most recent books are The Presidents vs. the Press: The Endless Battle Between the White House and the Media, from the Founding Fathers to Fake News and Brought Forth on This Continent: Abraham Lincoln and American Immigration. Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, December 19, 2024. </video> <video> The 2024 McNickle Lecture on Integrity in Government — Combatting Government Corruption Description: Marking International Anti-Corruption Day on December 9, Roosevelt House is pleased to present the 2024 McNickle Lecture on Integrity in Government featuring New York State Inspector General Lucy Lang. Discussing the vital importance of combatting government corruption both locally and nationally, Inspector General Lang will be joined in conversation by New York City Council Member Gale Brewer, who chairs the City Council’s Committee on Oversight and Investigations; and the Eleanor Roosevelt Distinguished Leader in Residence at Roosevelt House, former longtime Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, who previously served as the Chairwoman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. The discussion is moderated by author, Roosevelt House Advisory Board member, and founder of the McNickle lecture, Chris McNickle. Welcoming remarks by Roosevelt House Director Harold Holzer. This panel explores the corrosive effect of government corruption and the leading role of oversight entities in the fight against it. In particular, the panel considers successful case studies and best practices; the importance of transparency and accountability in government institutions; and the vital role the public can play in detecting and preventing corruption. As local and federal regulatory agencies are faced with political pressure and attempts to undermine their authority, please join us for an urgent discussion of the future of government oversight. Hon. Gale Brewer is the City Council member representing the 6th District, which includes Hell’s Kitchen, Midtown, and the Upper West Side. She is also chair of the Committee on Oversight and Investigations, which has a far-reaching mandate to examine the mayoral administration, its policies, and delivery of city services. Under her leadership, the committee held oversight hearings on costs of the migrant crisis, responses to climate emergencies, proliferation of unlicensed cannabis shops, operational challenges in family court, and maintaining the municipal workforce. Previously, Brewer served as Manhattan Borough President. Hon. Lucy Lang is an attorney, educator, lifelong New Yorker, and New York State’s 11th Inspector General. Lang brings her longstanding commitment to justice to overseeing the Office’s investigations into corruption, fraud, abuse, and misconduct in state government. Under her leadership, the Office of the Inspector General has implemented novel transparency initiatives, extensive public educational outreach, and the agency’s complete technological overhaul. Prior to her appointment as Inspector General, Lang served as the Director of the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution, a national criminal justice organization; and an Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan, where she investigated and prosecuted violent crimes including homicides, gun violence, and domestic abuse. Hon. Carolyn B. Maloney, the Eleanor Roosevelt Distinguished Leader in Residence at Roosevelt House, represented the Upper East Side of Manhattan (and parts of Queens and Brooklyn) in the U.S. House of Representatives for 30 years. Maloney was the first woman to Chair the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, and the Joint Economic Committee. She authored and passed more than 81 landmark measures, including the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, the Postal Service Reform Act, and the Credit CARD Act. She is also a former Chair and current Board Member of the ERA Coalition. Chris McNickle is a Roosevelt House Advisory Board member and the author of To Be Mayor of New York: Ethnic Politics in the City; The Power of the Mayor: David Dinkins 1990-1993; Bloomberg: A Billionaire’s Ambition; and Passages: A Personal Journey. His articles and columns on finance, politics, and history have been published in scholarly journals as well as the New York Daily News, Crain’s New York Business, and the Financial Times. Since he founded The McNickle Lecture on Integrity in Government, its featured speakers have included former New York State Attorney General Robert Abrams and U.S. Senator Russ Feingold. Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, December 11, 2024. </video> <video> #historian Jon Meacham on his letter to #president Trump and a phonecall from #president Bush Description: </video> <video> #playwright Moisés Kaufman on the #murder of Matthew Shepard and the goal of The Laramie Project Description: In 1998, the gruesome murder of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming shocked the U.S. into revising its laws on hate crimes. Laramie Project Director Moises Kaufman reflects on his efforts to understand why some tragedies spur Americans to action, and how we can show respect to the victims of hate crimes whose tragic stories go overlooked by American news media. #laramieproject #MoisesKaufman #lgbtq #lgbt #gay #pride #queer #LGBTNetwork #Igbt #Igbtq #transgender #trans #nonbinary #gendernonconforming #TGNCNB #lesbian #bisexual #gay #asexual #intersex #support #community #communitysupport #queer #queerevents #queereventsNYC #Igbtevents #lgbtnyc #queernyc #queerpower #americanstudies #genderstudies #americanhistory #history </video> <video> The 2024 Stepanski Family Lecture: What Next for America? — featuring Steve Benen & Rachel Maddow Description: As we continue to process the results of the 2024 Presidential Election, Roosevelt House is proud to present a discussion featuring Steve Benen, MSNBC producer and author of Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past; in conversation with the inimitable Rachel Maddow, MSNBC host and author of Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism. Welcoming remarks by Hunter College President Dr. Nancy Cantor and Roosevelt House Director Harold Holzer. The second Stepanski Family Lecture at Roosevelt House, this discussion considers the threats democratic values and institutions may face during a second Trump presidency—through the prism of Benen’s and Maddow’s newest books. In Ministry of Truth, Benen delivers a vital investigation of what he considers the Republican Party’s campaign to rewrite recent history in real time, and identifies such efforts at historical revisionism as a known despotic tactic; while Maddow’s Prequel traces the fight to preserve American democracy back to World War II, when, as Maddow writes, a handful of public servants and private citizens thwarted a plot to steer the nation toward an authoritarian alliance. Steve Benen is an Emmy Award winning producer of MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show and the author of The MaddowBlog. His articles and op-eds have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Monthly, The American Prospect, and Salon. He is the author of The Impostors: How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politics, a national bestseller. Rachel Maddow is host of the Emmy Award–winning Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC and the hit MSNBC podcast, Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra. She is also the New York Times bestselling author of Drift and Blowout, and the New York Times bestselling co-author of Bag Man. Maddow received a bachelor’s degree in public policy from Stanford University and earned her doctorate in political science at Oxford University. Anthony Stepanski, former entrepreneur, then CEO of a global computer technology company, is a generous Hunter benefactor and member of the Roosevelt House Board of Advisors. The inaugural Stepanski Family Lecture featured Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and former CNN political analyst John Avlon. Stepanski created and endowed this lecture series in memory of his late wife Jane. Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, December 17, 2024. </video> <video> What Just Happened? A 2024 Election Reaction Discussion Description: Roosevelt House presents an election reaction panel featuring New York journalists and former political leaders assessing the result of the 2024 presidential election, and where the nation goes from here. This event provides an opportunity to the Hunter community and beyond to respond to, and ask questions about, the defeat of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris—and, in particular, what a second Trump presidency means for immigrants, students, families, and the women of New York. Panelists include the Political Director for Spectrum News NY1 Bob Hardt; veteran journalist and author Jonathan Alter; the Eleanor Roosevelt Distinguished Leader in Residence at Roosevelt House and former longtime Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney; former Speaker of the City Council Melissa Mark-Viverito; and MSNBC Political Analyst Dr. Basil Smikle Jr. The discussion will be moderated by the Jonathan F. Fanton Director of Roosevelt House Harold Holzer. Panelists: Jonathan Alter is a columnist, historian, and documentary filmmaker. A former longtime senior editor for Newsweek magazine and political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, Alter is the author of American Reckoning: Inside Trump’s Trial―and My Own. He has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, The New Yorker, Bloomberg and the Daily Beast. Recently, he covered the Trump felony trial for NYTimes Opinion, The Washington Monthly, and Old Goats, his Substack newsletter. He has participated in numerous Roosevelt House events. Bob Hardt has been the Political Director of Spectrum News NY-1 for 20 years, overseeing the station’s coverage of state and local politics, writing a column for its website, supervising the program Inside City Hall, and frequently appearing on-air with morning anchor Pat Kiernan to discuss and analyze political campaigns and results. Hardt previously worked at both the New York Post and the Associated Press. Harold Holzer has served since 2015 as the Jonathan F. Fanton Director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute. A prolific author with more than 50 books to his credit, he won the 2015 Gilder Lehrman Prize and a 2008 National Humanities Medal. His most recent book is Brought Forth on this Continent: Abraham Lincoln and American Immigration. Hon. Carolyn B. Maloney, the Eleanor Roosevelt Distinguished Leader in Residence at Roosevelt House, represented the upper east side of Manhattan (and parts of Queens and Brooklyn) in the U.S. House of Representatives for 30 years. Maloney was the first woman to Chair the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, and the Joint Economic Committee. She authored and passed more than 81 landmark measures, including the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, the Postal Service Reform Act, and the Credit CARD Act. She is also a former Chair and current Board Member of the ERA Coalition. Dr. Basil Smikle Jr. is an MSNBC Political Analyst and Director of the nonprofit management program at Columbia University. A longtime political strategist, policy advisor, and former Executive Director of the New York State Democratic Party, he served previously as Distinguished Lecturer and Director of the Public Policy Program at Roosevelt House. Hon. Melissa Mark-Viverito is former Speaker of the New York City Council and a former longtime councilmember representing the 8th District, which includes East Harlem and the South Bronx. The first Puerto Rican and first Latina to hold a citywide elected position, she currently serves as President of Hamilton Campaign Network. Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, November 21, 2024. </video> <video> A Date That Lives in Infamy: Pearl Harbor, Then and Now Featuring Craig Symonds and Steve Twomey Description: To mark the 83rd anniversary of the December 7, 1941 attack that brought the U.S. into World War II, Roosevelt House welcomes back two of our most popular lecturers. Returning for the sixth time is America’s preeminent naval historian, Craig L. Symonds, author most recently of Nimitz at War: Command Leadership from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo ­Bay, a biography of the indispensable admiral who helped launch the sea battles of the Pacific Theater. Symonds is joined in conversation by Steve Twomey, author of one of the most popular and acclaimed works of contemporary Pearl Harbor history, Countdown to Pearl Harbor: The Twelve Days to the Attack. Welcoming remarks by Roosevelt House Director Harold Holzer. Revisiting their conversation from eight years ago when Twomey’s Countdown to Pearl Harbor was published, this discussion will examine how we look back on the events of that infamous day—and what we can learn from it as we consider America’s role in the global conflicts of today. Craig L. Symonds is Professor of History Emeritus at the U. S. Naval Academy and former Distinguished Ernest J. King Visiting Professor of Maritime History at the U. S. Naval War College in Newport, R.I. The winner of the 2009 Lincoln Prize for Lincoln and His Admirals, his latest books are World War II at Sea: A Global History, and Nimitz at War, which was just awarded The Gilder Lehrman Military History Award. Symonds has also won the Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt award (for his 2005 book Decision at Sea: Five Naval Battles that Shaped American History), the Samuel Eliot Morrison Award for naval literature, the Commodore Dudley W. Knox Naval History Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Pritzker Military Museum & Library Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing. Steve Twomey began his career in journalism as a copyboy at the Chicago Tribune when he was still in high school. After graduating from Northwestern University, he began a 14-year career at The Philadelphia Inquirer, during which he won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing, and then worked at the Washington Post for the next 13 years. More recently, he has written for Smithsonian and other magazines and has taught narrative writing at the graduate schools of CUNY and New York University. Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, December 3, 2024. </video> <video> American Voices: An Evening with Sonia Sanchez Description: Hunter College President Nancy Cantor presents: "American Voices: An Evening with Sonia Sanchez — A 90th Birthday Celebration." “You have spoken for us… written for us… sung to us… how much in your debt we are.” -Toni Morrison Sonia Sanchez is one of the most esteemed voices in all of contemporary American literature. A founding member of the Black Arts Movement and pioneer of education who taught the first courses in feminism and Black Studies, she is the author of award-winning poetry, plays, short stories, essays, and children’s books. Her more than 20 volumes of poetry have earned her an array of honors—from the American Book Award to the Langston Hughes Medal. In 2021, her Collected Poems gathered for the first time work spanning all four decades of her extraordinary and unparalleled literary career. Marking the occasion of her recent 90th birthday, please join us as Hunter College welcomes back one of its most celebrated alumna, and commemorates Sanchez’s lasting contributions to the world of arts and letters. Following words of appreciation from three outstanding poets and writers—Ama Birch, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, and Quincy Troupe—the evening culminates with a reading from Ms. Sanchez herself, as she takes to the stage to grace the audience with a selection of her poetry. Earning her bachelor’s in 1955, Sanchez began her journey at Hunter College. It was at Hunter, she would later say, that she started her earliest explorations of the power of writing—and, by the time she graduated, she had discovered the poetic voice for which she would become known. Welcoming remarks by American Voices Director Paul Alexander. Ama Birch is the author of (Spirit); The Bird Trade; Yesterday, Tomorrow, Today; Faces in the Clouds; and Sonnet Boom! She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Arts Performance from the SUNY New Paltz and an MFA in Creative Writing from the California Institute of the Arts. Her work has appeared in A Gather of the Tribes and The Brooklyn Rail. A recipient of a New York City Arts Corps grant, she teaches at Hunter College. Rachel Eliza Griffiths is the author of Miracle Arrhythmia; The Requited Distance; Mule & Pear; Lighting the Shadow; and Promise: A Novel. Griffiths is known for her literary portraits, fine art photography, and lyric videos. Her extensive video project, P.O.P (Poets on Poetry), an intimate series of micro-interviews, gathers nearly 100 contemporary poets in conversation, and is featured online by the Academy of American Poets. Griffiths’ collection of poetry and photography, Seeing the Body, was selected as the winner of the 2021 Hurston/Wright Foundation Legacy Award in Poetry, the winner of the 2021 Paterson Poetry Prize, and was nominated for a 2020 NAACP Image Award. Quincy Troupe is an award-winning author of 12 volumes of poetry, three children’s books, and six non-fiction works. Among his best-selling books are Miles: The Autobiography of Miles Davis and his memoir, Miles & Me. Other notable works are The Pursuit of Happyness, an autobiography written with Chris Gardner that became a major motion picture starring Will Smith; The Architecture of Language (poems), which won the 2007 Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement; and Transcircularities: New and Selected Poems, winner of the 2003 Milt Kessler Poetry Award. In 2010, Troupe received the American Book Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement. Sonia Sanchez is the author of Homecoming; We a BaddDDD People; I've Been a Woman: New and Selected Poems; Homegirls and Handgrenades; Shake Loose My Skin; and Collected Poems, among other volumes. She edited the anthologies We Be Word Sorcerers: 25 Stories by Black Americans and 360 Degrees of Blackness Coming at You. Her plays include Black Cats and Uneasy Landings and I'm Black When I'm Singing, I'm Blue When I Ain't. Among her many honors are the American Book Award, the Robert Creeley Award, the Frost Medal, the Wallace Stevens Award, the Edward MacDowell Medal, the Jackson Poetry Prize, the Lucretia Mott Award, the Langston Hughes Medal, the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, and the Robert Frost Medal for a distinguished lifetime of service to poetry. Sanchez held the Laura Carnell Chair in English and Women's Studies at Temple University, where she was the first Presidential Fellow. She has lectured at more than 500 colleges and universities in the United States and read her poetry in countries around the world from Africa, Europe, and China to Canada, Australia, and the Caribbean. American Voices is a lecture-symposium series at Hunter College directed by Paul Alexander. This is the fourth American Voices event held at Roosevelt House; the previous three focused on Sylvia Plath, Billie Holiday, and Sandra Cisneros. Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, December 9, 2024. </video> <video> Eboo Patel — We Need to Build: Fieldnotes for Diverse Democracy Description: Hunter College and the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute are proud to host Eboo Patel to discuss his new book "We Need to Build: Fieldnotes for Diverse Democracy," the first program in the new Promoting Civil Discourse & Intellectual Dialogue Series. Eboo Patel is an internationally renowned scholar and civic leader on interfaith cooperation and pluralism. Patel is the founder of Interfaith America, a non-profit organization whose mission is to inspire, equip, and connect leaders and institutions to unlock the potential of America’s religious diversity. Welcoming remarks from Hunter College President Nancy Cantor and concluding remarks from Hunter College Interim Provost Manoj Pardasani. Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, November 18, 2024. </video> <video> Jonathan Alter — American Reckoning: Inside Trump's Trial – And My Own Description: Roosevelt House is proud to present a special election season event featuring bestselling author, veteran journalist, renowned presidential historian, and frequent Roosevelt House guest speaker Jonathan Alter. Welcoming remarks by and discussion with Roosevelt House Director Harold Holzer. Bringing his broad historical knowledge to bear, and keen journalistic eye, Alter has covered Donald Trump—across a a variety of mediums and outlets—since the early 1990s, when Trump threatened to sue him. Now, he examines Trump’s unprecedented criminal trial from a seat in the Manhattan courtroom. That decades-long pursuit of accountability for the former president has culminated in the recent publication of American Reckoning: Inside Trump’s Trial—and My Own. Taking readers inside the courtroom, American Reckoning delivers a vivid eyewitness account of the historic first criminal trial of a president—as well as an introspective and passionate appeal for democracy itself. As one of a handful of journalists allowed in the courtroom, Alter sat there for all 23 days watching—and meticulously documenting—one of the spectacles of the century: the felony trial of Donald Trump. Included in the book is everything Alter witnessed—from eviscerating takes on the colorful characters to the chilling legal ups and downs—to offer a unique chronicle of the trial and its aftermath, including fresh reporting about the historic events of the summer of 2024. Deeply personal and heartfelt, American Reckoning is an eye-opening book from a journalist with a front row seat on history, offering a troubled yet hopeful look at our national moment of truth. Jonathan Alter is a columnist, historian, and documentary filmmaker. A former longtime senior editor for Newsweek magazine and political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, Alter has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, The New Yorker, Bloomberg and the Daily Beast. Recently, he covered the Trump felony trial for NYTimes Opinion, The Washington Monthly, and Old Goats, his Substack newsletter featuring conversations with accomplished people. His New York Times bestselling books about American presidents include His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life; The Promise: President Obama, Year One; The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies; and The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope. He has participated in numerous Roosevelt House events. Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, October 29, 2024. </video> <video> Celebrating the Scholarship of Nancy Foner Description: The Hunter College Department of Sociology, together with the CUNY Graduate Center's Advanced Research Collaborative and PhD program in Sociology host a celebration at the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute of the scholarship and career of Nancy Foner, Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center. Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, September 27, 2024. </video> <video> Roosevelt Scholars — Howard Husock Lecture Description: Howard Husock, a Senior Fellow in Domestic Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, speaks to students in the Roosevelt Scholars program at Hunter College. Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, October 23, 2024. </video> <video> Curtis Chin — Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant: A Memoir Description: Hunter College's Asian American Studies Program and Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute present a discussion with Curtis Chin on his new book Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant. Welcoming remarks and moderation by Charlies Tien, Director of the Asian American Studies Program. Served up by the cofounder of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and structured around the very menu that graced the tables of Chung’s, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant is both a memoir and an invitation: to step inside one boy’s childhood oasis, scoot into a vinyl booth, and grow up with him—and perhaps even share something off the secret menu. “A captivating account of growing up gay and Chinese in 1980s Detroit…In lucid, empathetic prose, Chin mounts an elegy for a now closed community center that doubles as a message of compassion to his former self. Readers will be moved.”―Publishers Weekly Curtis Chin is a cofounder of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop in New York City, and served as the nonprofit’s first executive director. He went on to write for network television before transitioning to social-justice documentaries. He has written for CNN, Bon Appétit, and the Boston Globe’s Emancipator. A graduate of the University of Michigan and a former visiting scholar at New York University, Chin has received awards from ABC/Disney Television, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and more. Charles Tien is the Director of the Asian American Studies Program at Hunter College and a Professor of Political Science at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY. He has served as department chair, was selected to be a Fulbright Scholar in American Politics at Renmin University in Beijing, China, and worked as a congressional staffer on Capitol Hill. He has taught undergraduate and graduate courses on American politics, women and minorities in politics, voting and elections, American foreign policy, research methods, and polling. Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, November 20, 2024. </video> <video> Calvin John Smiley — Defund: Conversations Toward Abolition Description: Roosevelt House is pleased to present a discussion of the new book Defund: Conversations Toward Abolition by Hunter College Associate Professor of Sociology Calvin John Smiley. An insightful and unique collection, this volume traces the rise of the “defund” movement through illuminating interviews with leading “abolitionist” thinkers and organizers—who, due to their belief in the inherent nature of the system’s flaws, advocate for the abolition of policing rather than its reform. The author is in conversation with Hunter College Professor of History D’Weston Haywood. Welcoming remarks by Roosevelt House Public Programming Curator Mac Barrett. The 2020 killing of George Floyd, and the civil unrest that followed, launched a contentious national conversation about defunding the police and prison system in favor of support for social welfare programs. Propelled into the spotlight, the “defund” movement was faced with emphatic opposition, threatening to make the movement as fleeting as it was controversial. But, according to Smiley, the pointed conversations comprising his book—with academics, activists, and individuals impacted by the justice system—reveal the “defund” movement to be much more than just a reactionary or momentary response. Instead, Smiley asserts, it is part of an ongoing struggle—against, as he says, the forces of white supremacy, police violence, and mass incarceration. Along the way, Smiley offers fresh analysis of the divide that exists between police reform and abolition—and the prospect of bridging it. Calvin John Smiley is a faculty member of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Program and Associate Professor of Sociology at Hunter College, where he teaches courses on the sociology of law, race and ethnic relations, and criminal justice policy. With research that spans law enforcement, social justice, social media, popular culture, inequality, and race, his scholarship has appeared in peer-reviewed book chapters and academic journals including The Prison Journal; Race Ethnicity and Education; Punishment & Society; Deviant Behavior; and Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment. He is the author, with Keesha Middlemass, of Prisoner Reentry in the 21st Century: Critical Perspectives on Returning Home, which he appeared at Roosevelt House to discuss. D’Weston Haywood is a Professor of History at Hunter College, where he teaches courses in 20th century American history, including Black protest, Black power, and intersections of Black culture and politics. The author of Let Us Make Men: The Twentieth-Century Black Press and a Manly Vision for Racial Advancement, Haywood’s work also includes an innovative scholarly and pedagogical praxis he calls “Sonic Scholarship,” which seeks to generate new ways of analyzing history, including the use of hip hop as a scholarly framework and methodology with which to bridge academic and popular discourses. He has appeared in numerous Roosevelt House programs. Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, November 19, 2024. </video>

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The Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute is dedicated to innovative approaches to teaching, research, and public programming. Located in the heart of New York City, the institute provides a platform from which high quality scholarship effectively informs and influences public debate and public life. The mission of Roosevelt House is three-fold: to educate students in public policy and human rights, to support faculty research, and to foster creative dialogue.

Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute provides opportunities for students to analyze public policy and experience meaningful civic engagement; for faculty to research, teach, and write about important issues of the day; and for scholarly and public audiences to participate in high-profile lectures, seminars and conferences.

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