Just Imagine

The Just Imagine messages focus on societal issues, and ask readers to consider possibilities for society as it relates to the message theme. The categories in the Just Imagine series include:

  • The Irony of History

    Edmund Pettus was born in 1821 in Alabama as the youngest of nine children. He was trained as a lawyer. He served as an officer in the Mexican-American War and later as a Confederate Officer in the American Civil War. He was a strong believer in slavery. During the...

    Read More
  • A Call to Duty

    Grace (Banker) Paddock was born in New Jersey in 1892. Prior to World War I, she was a switchboard instructor for AT&T. When America entered the war, it became obvious that the French switchboard operators were not up to the task of supplying the communications...

    Read More
  • Forgetting

    Hermann Ebbinghaus was born in 1850 in the Kingdom of Prussia. He is noted today for his pioneering work in the study of memory. Using himself as a subject, he would memorize nonsense words formed by a consonant-vowel-consonant combination that had no meaning (e.g.,...

    Read More
  • Lessons from a Ball Field

    At first glance, it looks like many other baseball fields used in the minor leagues or by colleges. But Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama, is much more. It is a place that has seen much of America’s past, and it is a place where we can envision our future. A.H....

    Read More
  • Artificial Intelligence and Justice Denied

    Just imagine you are standing in the front of your house playing with your two young children with your wife looking on. A police cruiser pulls up to your house, and you are handcuffed and placed under arrest. When your wife asks what you are being accused of doing,...

    Read More
  • The Perils of Binary Thinking

    Bob was an extrovert growing up with jobs selling shoes and appearing on the radio. He was also very bright. He originally planned to be a comedian but chose to study medicine instead and specialize in cardiology. Not one who enjoyed working for others, he created his...

    Read More
  • Lessons from The Donora Fog

    Donora, a small town south of Pittsburgh was a microcosm of American society. Donora had become home to a blend of cultures all coming together to work on the nation’s rapid growing economy post World War II. For a small community, it was well represented in both the...

    Read More
  • Know Nothings: History Revisited

    It began in 1830. Roman Catholics facing difficulties at home due to their religious faith were immigrating to America in large numbers. Nativist alarmists began to spread conspiracy theories that the Roman Catholic church was out to destroy the American way of life....

    Read More
  • Societal Progress

    Anthony Comstock was born in 1844 in Connecticut. Through his experience serving with the Union Army in the Civil War, he became obsessed with what he considered to be the low state of morals among his fellow soldiers. Returning from the war, he worked at a number of...

    Read More
  • Opportunities Matter

    Valerie Thomas was born in Maryland in 1943. When she went to school, schools were being integrated. Without the landmark Brown vs Board of Education Supreme Court decision, it’s unlikely that Valerie would have had the opportunity to utilize fully the talent she had...

    Read More