MESSAGE FROM THE EDITOR: Discoveries in the AHA Archives

Last week I and some of my colleagues at the American Humanist Association had to undergo an intensive but necessary “spring cleaning” of the AHA’s historical archives, which we keep in off-site storage. It wasn’t my favorite way to spend the afternoon, but it was like digging through buried treasure: what historical item in humanist history would we find? Lo and behold, the staff came across a complete collection of cassette tape recordings of AHA conferences dating back to the 80’s—and indeed, we discovered a tape of 1992 Humanist of the Year Kurt Vonnegut’s speech! I never had the pleasure of meeting him during my time at the AHA, so the opportunity to hear his voice and hear him speak about the importance of humanism was a real thrill. I hope you will enjoy it too, and we look forward to providing more audio (and maybe video) speeches from past Humanists of the Year for your listening pleasure.

Maggie Ardiente
Editor, HNN