“What is democracy in America?”

Parker alumnus and historian Professor David Farber asked students this question at his ZooMX. He asked the question at the beginning of his presentation, in which he spoke about the effects of the Vietnam War in the US. 

Farber spoke to faculty, eighth graders, and Upper School students on Tuesday, May 26. He talked about the Vietnam War and social protests regarding the war. This ZooMX is one of five online lectures by Parker alumni organized by the history department. 

Farber has degrees from the University of Chicago and University of Michigan. He currently teaches at Kansas University as the Roy A. Roberts Distinguished Professor of History. Farber is a distinguished historian and his research is focused on the second half of the 20th century.

The ZooMXes were created by the history department following the shift to remote learning. Since classes moved online, Parker alumni have talked to Parker students on Zoom about topics such as FDR and the sociology of the COVID-19 pandemic. The idea for ZooMXes started after Principal Dr. Dan Frank suggested to Upper School history teacher and Department Co-Chair Andrew Bigelow that Parker should invite alumni to speak for an hour to students on Zoom. “All of a sudden, the ball got rolling, and we have five different guest speakers coming in, and then Dr. Frank suggested ‘bring back David Farber,’ who we brought in two years ago to do a Morning Ex on the 50th anniversary of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.”

“I am not the true research historian that Professor Farber is, like someone who is a professor of history, and so my hope is that these kids will see this as an opportunity to spend some quality time with a specifically trained and well versed historian,” Bigelow said. “And they will hear and see his passion and my hope is they will want to learn more.”

After providing background on the beginning of US involvement in Vietnam, Farber focused on the effects of the Vietnam War here. “America’s role in Vietnam became so uncertain and has had massive implications ever since,” Farber said during the Zoom. “Fifty years later and there’s still this powerful echo.” 

Farber talked about the effects of the Vietnam War and the anti-war movement in Chicago, specifically Parker. “Francis Parker by 1969 and 1970 was a hotbed of activism,” Farber said. “There was an SDS chapter, a radical leftist organization that had a tiny membership of Francis Parker, and lots of kids by the time I was 11 had gone to anti-war protests downtown and marched and did whatever we could.”

Bigelow believes that it is important to continue the history curriculum outside of class during remote learning. “I’ve gone to the ZooMX’s because my teacher recommended them as supplements to our topic of US History,” junior TK Muro said. “I want to become more politically aware and active, and for me, part of that has meant learning more about our nation’s history, especially the parts that we want to forget.”