Today’s episode is all about Presidents Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison, the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th presidents of the United States—one of the most unusual transitions in US history. Cleveland served one term from 1885 to 1889, lost the election to Benjamin Harrison, who was in turn replaced by Cleveland in 1892.  Whew.  And you thought our times were complicated!

Our two experts today will fill in the details of their stories, and how their politics continue to inform our current moment. For this episode, we spoke to two esteemed scholars: Dr. Greg Downs, Professor of History at the University of California, Davis, and Dr. Gordon Chang, Professor of History at Stanford University.   

Together our guests highlighted two key stories from this period: First, the ongoing battle, and ultimately the ongoing erosion, of African-American civil rights in the South now a full generation after the Civil War’s end. And second, immigration’s increasingly key role in the fight over who could, in fact, be a citizen, or if you will, a real American. 

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