The Presidency / The First Year

Gold plate on back of chair that says "the president"

Joe Biden at one year

Presidential experts evaluate the 46th president's first year in office

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First Year 2017 logo

Donald Trump at one year

White House veterans and Miller Center scholars evaluate the 45th president's first 365 days

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Featured Video

First Year Project Introduction

Watch this overview of the First Year Project

Woman in "Black Lives Matter" hat

Race and Racism

American apartheid

After centuries of exclusion, black Americans have been almost wholly accepted into the public sphere of American life and are central to the nation’s definition of itself as a political and social community. And yet, at the same time, black Americans remain extraordinarily excluded from most regions of the nation’s private sphere.
Orlando Patterson
Harvard University
President Obama

Race and Racism

Learning Obama's lessons

Despite the election of our nation’s first black president—and in some ways, perhaps because of that fact—America, in the realm of race, remains embroiled in crisis, controversy, and catastrophe. That need not be the case, especially if we as a nation, and our new president individually, are willing to learn hard lessons from the Obama era and move forward.
Michael Eric Dyson
Georgetown University
Protestors

Race and Racism

Donald Trump, racial pioneer?

Donald Trump’s presidency offers an extraordinary opportunity to advance the paralyzed national discourse on race in America, and our new chief executive can validate his campaign claims to be a racially tolerant figure working for the success of all Americans—without alienating his core supporters.
Douglas A. Blackmon
Miller Center
Donald Trump with media

The Presidency

Presidential communications in 2017

The big question we all must consider during the first year of his presidency is whether his communications strategy will ever switch out of perpetual campaign mode—and what the repercussions will be if it doesn’t.
Dave Karpf
The George Washington University
Reagan's inaugural

The Presidency

Inaugural memories

From the Presidential Oral History Program, we bring you some inaugural memories
Carah Ong
University of Virginia