Miller Center

Stacey Abrams “galvanized the ground game” in Georgia, which flipped from red to blue in the 2020 presidential election for the first time since 1992, explains Barbara A. Perry and Alfred Reaves IV.  Perry is the Gerald L. Baliles Professor and director of presidential studies, and Reaves is the faculty and program coordinator at the […]

Following the November U.S. elections, Barbara A. Perry comments on the tradition of presidential transitions. Perry (@BarbaraPerryUVA) is the Gerald L. Baliles Professor and Director of Presidential Studies at the University of Virginia‘s Miller Center. We welcome your comments on this post below.   Transition Tradition: Presidential History Lessons In the classic Broadway play and […]

Ruth Bader Ginsburg might not have ascended to the Supreme Court if President Carter had not developed a deliberate affirmative action strategy. Barbara Perry explains the significance of Carter’s appointment of Ginsburg to the DC Circuit bench. Perry (@BarbaraPerryUVA) is the Gerald L. Baliles Professor and Director of Presidential Studies at the University of Virginia‘s […]

“JFK himself will remain firmly embedded in history as long as worthy biographies about him continue to appear in each new age,” says Barbara A. Perry about Fredrik Logevall’s new work: JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956. Perry (@BarbaraPerryUVA) is the Gerald L. Baliles Professor and Director of Presidential Studies at the […]

On June 2, Lifetime Learning sponsored a virtual webinar, “Election 2020: Presidents, Politics, and Pandemics,” moderated by Paul Freedman, associate professor in the Department of Politics at the University of Virginia. Mr. Freedman was joined by panelists William (Bill) Antholis, director and CEO of UVA’s Miller Center, and Jennifer Lawless, department chair and UVA’s Commonwealth […]

Holiday downtime and New Year’s resolutions open the door to reading new titles. Barbara Perry offers book suggestions on influential U.S. political figures on both sides of the aisle, highlighting George H.W. and Barbara Bush. Ms. Perry is the Gerald L. Baliles Professor and Director of Presidential Studies at the Miller Center at the University […]

Written by Barbara Perry, Gerald L. Baliles Professor and Director of Presidential Studies, and Sheila M. Blackford, Librarian and Managing Editor of American President, UVA’s Miller Center. Follow them on Twitter @BarbaraPerryUVA and @Sheila_bl. All presidents since Herbert Hoover have established libraries to house their presidential archives and museums. Barack Obama’s will be situated on […]

Written by Barbara Perry, Gerald L. Baliles Professor and Director of Presidential Studies, UVA’s Miller Center. She is the author of Jacqueline Kennedy: First Lady of the New Frontier and Rose Kennedy: The Life and Times of a Political Matriarch. Follow her on Twitter @BarbaraPerryUVA. In the very same week of the Academy Awards, I […]

Written by Barbara A. Perry, White Burkett Miller Center Professor and Director of Presidential Studies, UVA’s Miller Center. Follow her on Twitter @BarbaraPerryUVA.   Recently Saturday Night Live opened its show with A Christmas Carol parody in which Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump is visited by three ghosts–Christmas Past, Present, and Future.  It struck me […]

Written by Barbara A. Perry, White Burkett Miller Center Professor of Ethics and Institutions and Presidential Studies Director at UVA’s Miller Center. Follow her on Twitter @BarbaraPerryUVA   As I moved through the grocery check-out line this past weekend, my eye fixed on a tabloid headline, “JFK Assassin Worked for the CIA!”  Lee Harvey Oswald […]

Written by Barbara Perry, White Burkett Miller Center Professor of Ethics and Institutions and Presidential Studies Director at UVA’s Miller Center. Follow her on Twitter @BarbaraPerryUVA.   We don’t typically think of John F. Kennedy and Donald J. Trump as leading comparable presidencies. Yet they both faced a right-wing faction of their party over the […]

  Written by: Barbara A. Perry, White Burkett Miller Professor of Ethics and Institutions; Director, Presidential Studies; Co-Chair, Presidential Oral History Program, Miller Center Valentine’s Day 1962 established First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy as a modern TV star when she hosted A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy, which was broadcast on […]

Written by Barbara A. Perry, the White Burkett Miller Center Professor of Ethics and Institutions at UVA and Presidential Studies Director at the Miller Center.  You can follow her on Twitter @BarbaraPerryUVA. Last year I saw the film Suffragette about the early 20th century battle for women’s suffrage in Britain.  At the end of the […]