This Sunday, June 9th, thousands of high school students from across the country will be gathering in Maryland for the National History Day contest.  I became aware of this event when my sister’s granddaughter Marissa Galardi suddenly appeared in a photo with our daughter Margaret, a resident of  the D.C. area at a Metra station.  Marissa is a finalist from Nebraska among hundreds of other students chosen because of their history research and topic.  Marissa’s study is on the horrendous nature of the meat industry, awakened by Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle ” in the early 1900s,  and the federal creation of the Food and Drug Administration .

The reality of this National History Day, centering on the past history of our nation, brought me great delight,  not only for the fact  that history is my own field, but because we have often despaired at the lack of  historical consciousness  among  the U.S. populace.  Running down the topics which the high school students have chosen for their research and presentation, many from the field of racial equality and  the development of democratic government where justice is a central issue,  awakens a hope that we are raising a new generation equipped to bring greater equity to our country and the world.