Known as America’s Government Teacher, Sharon McMahon was met Monday at SDSU with a lively crowd that spanned all ages as she shared a message about how hope for today can be found in stories of the past.
“Great Americans are not just people who lived long ago,” McMahon said. “Great Americans live, and we can choose to be one of them.”
In the Oscar Larson Theater at the Performing Arts Center on Oct. 27, McMahon was welcomed by SDSU as this year’s Daschle Dialogues speaker. A former government and law teacher, she takes pride in breaking down politics into a digestible, nonpartisan manner.
McMahon is a No. 1 New York Times best-selling author of the book “The Small and the Mighty.” She is the founder and editor-in-chief of “The Preamble” newsletter that grew its distribution to be larger than nearly every print newspaper in America in its first year. Her podcast “Here’s Where It Gets Interesting” also tops charts.
At the heart of everything McMahon does, is her passion for education. She shares the stories of history’s unsung heroes to show how change can start with anybody’s small step forward.
Her light-hearted delivery paired with hard-hitting stories captivated listeners. Whoops and cheers of support were heard throughout the speech by her fans, the “Governerds.”
One largely forgotten figure, “Gouverneur Morris,” wrote the preamble to the Constitution. At the time, he was regarded as the best man for the job. McMahon questions why today his picture isn’t hanging in more history classrooms.
“If you take the ideas found in the preview of the Constitution, America, at her best, would be four things. She would be just, peaceful, good and free,” McMahon said.
Among others, Morris volunteered to write the Constitution to create a just society. He was best friends with Alexander Hamilton, and when Hamilton was shot, they sent for Morris, who spoke at his funeral.
Morris spoke about the fear that the Constitution wouldn’t be enough and the Founding Fathers actually doubted their efforts. McMahon encouraged the audience by pointing to the fact that these men from more than two centuries ago – people who we look up to – doubted themselves.
The message “America was made great by imperfect people who rose to the moment when their moment arrived” flashed on the screen during part of McMahon’s presentation.
Two historical figures who demonstrate peace, according to McMahon, are Alan Simpson and Norman Mineta. They met as children when Simpson’s Boy Scout troop held a jamboree in the Japanese incarceration camp where Mineta’s family was imprisoned during World War II.
Years later, the two men were elected to Congress, and despite political differences, remained lifelong friends. Simpson, a Republican from Wyoming, and Mineta, a Democrat from California were both presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
“History does not favor the cynics,” McMahon said. “History does not favor the critics. History favors the doers, and it especially favors the doers who work on behalf of others.”
Septima Clark also dedicated her life to serving others. With parents who were born enslaved, she grew up in segregated Charleston, South Carolina. When she became a teacher, she couldn’t be hired in her hometown.
After beginning her career on an island off the coast of South Carolina, she got a job in Charleston. But she was fired for refusing to revoke her membership to a civil rights organization.
Undeterred, she moved to Tennessee and began teaching adults to be activists for civil rights. She was a part of creating the concept of citizenship school. Clark devised a curriculum at the Highlander Folk School for adult literacy where civil rights leaders John Lewis and Rosa Parks attended.
Later, when Clark was elected to the school board that fired her, she said, “I can work with my enemies because they might have a change of heart at any moment. How would your enemies ever see the light if you don’t turn it on for them?”
McMahon said these historical figures made changes they never expected to by putting one foot in front of the other and doing what they believed was right.
“Nobody is coming with the plan, and that actually is really good news because that means that we need to be the plan,” she said.
The Daschle Dialogues encourage members of the audience to join in conversation of timely, critical issues by provoking intellectual thought. SDSU student Cale Jones left the speech with hope.
“I thought the speech was inspiring as well as thought provoking,” Jones said. “It made me think about how politics are being run today and what steps the average person can take to really make a difference and be heard.”
Starting in 2014 as a public series of the Sen. Thomas A. Daschle Congressional Research Study, the dialogues have hosted thought leaders including former majority leader of the U.S. Senate Trent Lott and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Sen. Daschle graduated from SDSU with a political science degree. His son, Nathan Daschle, introduced the event on Monday by speaking of the impact the school had on Sen. Daschle.
“My father likes to use the phrase ‘Light your curiosity candle,’ and for him, that lighting took place here at South Dakota State,” Nathan Daschle said.
Like Sen. Daschle, McMahon believes in Americans working together in public service. Last week, she raised almost $700,000 for local food banks and Feeding America as the government shutdown affects supplemental programs.
McMahon stressed that every dollar counts. Having almost a tenfold impact with food bank costs, this money will end up feeding over 6 million people.
Met by a standing ovation from a crowd filled with a renewed sense of hope, McMahon closed by saying: “The best thing you can do is the next needed thing.”
