America250 with John Dichtl (AASLH)
On Tuesday, July 21 at 7:00 PM, John Dicthl of the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) will join us to talk about his organization's role in the America250 Initiative and how local- and state-based historical groups can take part in the programming.
National leaders and organizations, state commissions, local government, and others spent years preparing for the nation’s Semiquincentennial. In the end, will it be a celebration, a commemoration, a reckoning? Although federal support has been sparse, national, state, and local organizations hope to make this a powerful grassroots event. They are providing programming that encouraged patriotism and pride in the story of American resilience, offering multiple perspectives on our shared history as a nation of diverse people, and fostering critical awareness of what it means to learn from our mistakes. Where do we take the commemoration from here?
John will be addressing these questions and more. The AASLH has been named as the primary National Resource Partner for State and Local History on the America250, tasked with overseeing the national effort to convene and activate other state and local history organizations in a coordinated, unified effort to build up to the 250th.
John Dichtl has been AASLH president & CEO since 2015. Prior to that he was the executive director of the National Council on Public History (NCPH) for nine years and worked for the Organization of American Historians for fourteen years as deputy director and in several other roles. He is the author of Frontiers of Faith: Bringing Catholicism to the West in the Early Republic (The University Press of Kentucky, 2008).
