Dr. Joseph Crespino, History Department Chair and Jimmy Carter Professor, was recently quoted in an article in The Atlanta Journal Constitution about the upcoming visit of Democratic presidential nominee Joseph R. Biden to Warm Springs, Georgia. The town served as a vacation retreat for Franklin Delano Roosevelt during his 12 years as president. AJC political columnist Jim Galloway interviewed Crespino to help explain the significance of the visit along with the parallels between Roosevelt and Biden and the 1930s and 2020s. Read an excerpt below, along with the full article: “Opinion: Joe Biden heads for Warm Springs and the Roosevelt legacy.”

“Joe Crespino is the Jimmy Carter Professor of History at Emory University. Much of his work has involved the Depression-era South.

“Biden’s visit is ‘interesting symbolically and historically because of where Biden fits within the Democratic party in 2020,’ he told me. ‘He’s had to move to the left in the primary to accommodate a younger, more liberal wing within the party. Roosevelt was pushed by the left wing of his party.

‘Yes, [Roosevelt] was a liberal. He was surrounded by liberals. But he was pulled to the left by the circumstances of the time. He became more liberal, and the New Deal became more far reaching,’ Crespino said.“