What Changed the Democratic Party?
Nearly every week for the past two years, Linda Killian has flown from Washington, D.C., to Boston for a graduate course at BU. Killian (COM’80, CAS’80), as well as being the director of the College of Communication’s Washington Journalism Center, is a Graduate School of Arts and Sciences doctoral candidate in history. She is writing a book on the history of the Democratic Party from 1960 to the present, funded by a grant from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, where she is a public policy scholar in the Division of United States Studies.
“I’m focusing on individuals who have been either key figures in the party or who reflect something significant that I want to talk about,” she says, citing civil rights and the expanding role of women in politics as examples.
Killian wants to show how the Democratic Party evolved to its current state. She plans to examine the party’s views during the Vietnam War, its relationship with voters, and its decisions throughout the last 50 years.
Killian, who is also a columnist for The Politico, says that she plans to complete the book after the 2008 presidential election.
Rebecca McNamara can be reached at ramc@bu.edu.