Author

Berry Craig
Berry Craig, a Carlisle countian, is a professor emeritus of history at West Kentucky Community and Technical College in Paducah and the author of seven books, all on Kentucky history. His latest is "Kentuckians and Pearl Harbor: Stories from the Day of Infamy" which the University Press of Kentucky published. He is a freelance journalist and a member of the American Federation of Teachers and the Kentucky State AFL-CIO Executive Board.
‘Something wicked’ coming our way?
By: Berry Craig - November 20, 2023
Bully Mullin, meet Bully Brooks. Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., recently threatened to fight Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien during a Senate hearing on unions. On the Senate floor in 1856, Rep. Preston Brooks, D-S.C., nearly killed Sen. Charles Sumner, R-Mass, with a heavy cane. Elected last year, Mullin is all MAGA all the time. He […]
Burgone?
By: Berry Craig - November 6, 2023
Burgoo is long gone as a Kentucky campaign trail staple. “Maybe Kentucky is too sophisticated for burgoo these days,” speculated Northern Kentucky Tribune columnist Bill Straub, a Kentucky Journalism Hall of Famer. He suspects that many Kentuckians, especially younger folks, have never heard of the famous stew that was served at political events for decades. […]
A Kentuckian transplanted to Detroit ‘sat down’ with the United Auto Workers in ’37
By: Berry Craig - October 16, 2023
I saw on Instagram that the daughter of a 1937 sit-down striker at a Flint, Michigan, General Motors plant recently walked a picket line with United Auto Workers strikers at a GM facility in Swartz Creek, Michigan. “86 years after the sit down strike, UAW members are standing up!” uaw.union posted. I’m sure Western Kentucky natives Ermon […]
Ahem, Rand Paul, aren’t you forgetting something?
By: Berry Craig - September 25, 2023
In a fundraising letter boosting Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron for governor, GOP Sen. Rand Paul praised the state’s top cop for suing Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear over “virtually every authoritarian edict” the incumbent “unleashed on Kentucky.” Paul meant Beshear’s emergency executive orders that were aimed at keeping Kentuckians out of the hospital and the cemetery […]
Abraham Lincoln was no favorite son in his native Kentucky
By: Berry Craig - February 10, 2023
No son of Kentucky is more famous or more revered than Abraham Lincoln, who was born on Feb. 12, 1809, near Hodgenville. His birthplace is a national shrine. His statue stands tall in the Capitol rotunda in Frankfort. Lincoln was the first Republican president, and today Kentucky is one of the reddest Republican red states. Yet […]