Article 1 2020 Presidential Address Organization of Educational Historians: Hindsight is 2020: The Importance of Educational Historians in the Era of Black Lives Matter

Like all of you, I have found 2020 to be a year of incredible turmoil. Here we are, at our annual meeting, gathering over ZOOM—some of us with our screens blacked out to hide our pajamas—because we are enduring an endless cycle of chaos, where we find ourselves forced to continue our work amidst the most challenging of circumstances. We are in our homes, some of us with family members whose health is compromised, trying to make sense of the senseless. As scholars of history, we know we are living at a time of incredible import, and while we don’t yet know how it all ends, we do know for certain that our work is critical, and so we meet over ZOOM. We find a quiet space in our basements, plop the kids in front of the TV, hope for a good signal, and log on. We try to engage and connect with one another because we must.