Students march for the vote circa 1968. |
Indiana Senator Birch Bayh rushed a proposed Constitutional amendment through his sub-committee an on to adoption by the Senate. |
The official Joint Resolution of Congress submitting the 26th Amendment to the states fro ratification |
Richard Nixon signed the Amendment as a witness surrounded by Congressional pages. |
A screen save from MTV's first Rock the Vote campaign in 1990. |
Youth leaders if the March for Our Lives have extended their activism to Vote for Our Lives. |
Congress Voting Independence by Edward Savage circa 1800. |
The committee to draft an Independence resolution at work. Left to right Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman. |
The Declaration of Independence as first printed and circulated as a broadside. |
Many historians credit Lincoln's Gettysburg Address for re-establishing the Declaration of Independence as a foundational national document and identifying it to with an indivisible nation. |
A widely circulated anti-globalism meme. |
Cecil, the majestic and photogenic lion in happier days with one of his harem and as a victim of a feckless dentist with a bow. |
The meme that caught my attention and got me thinking about this. |
Sandra Bland and her violent arrest for apparently being an insufficiently submissive Black woman. Days later she was dead in a Texas jail. |
The execution of Samuel Dubose for not having a front licence tag. For a moment it looked like an officer would be held accountable. But nope. |
This Landmark book for young adults and a Classic Comic Book both fired my boyhood hero worship of Theodore Roosevelt. |
Col. Theodore Roosevelt 1st Volunteer Cavalry after his brevet from Lt. Col. |
Legendary Arizona lawman Bucky O'Niell was captain of a troop of Rough Riders raised in the West and including cowboys and veteran Indian fighters. |
300 pound Regular Army Major General William Shafter was the commander of V Corps in the drive to capture Santiago. He was an indifferent to incompetent senior officer. |
An Unreconstructed former Confederate, Major General of Volunteers Joseph Wheeler (left) was in command of the cavalry in the Santiago campaign. Seen here with Lenard Wood who was brevetted to Brigadier General of the 2nd Brigade, and Col. Roosevelt of the Rough Riders. |
Tough veteran Buffalo Soldier cavalrymen. |
Buffalo Soldiers advance on the Hights. By the end of the battle Black units, Rough Riders, and other white cavalry units were thoughly mixed and fighting side-by-side. |
Shortly after the battle, Roosevelt posed with his Rough Riders atop San Juan Hill. The Buffalo Soldiers who had fought with them were notably not included. |
The Great Blondin on the rope high above the gorge below Niagara Falls. He had to freeze in this posission for several moments to accommodate the long exposure on a glass plate negative.. |
Nic Walenda on his 2012 nationally broadcast walk directly above the cascades of Niagara Falls. |
A British newspaper illustration of Blondin duplicating his Niagara stuns plus a bicycle ride over an English river. |
A favorite of the Prince of Wales, Blondin starred at the famous Crystal Palace exposition in 1967. |
His stunts only gained in audacity, including pushing a lion across the wire in a wheelbarrow. He frequently performed before as many as 10,000 paying customers. During another stint at the Crystal Palace Charles Dickens may have explained his popularity, “Half of London is here eager for some dreadful accident.”
This whimsical statue in Ladywoo, Birmingham, England commemorates Blondin's crossing of the Edgbaston Resevoir. |
A prop cannon firing under the thatched roof set the straw on fire dooming the Globe Theater. |
The only known near contemporary illustration of the Globe theater by Wenceslas Hollar in 1642. |
Shakespeare had retired by the time the second Globe, left, was erected, but his plays remained a staple of the resident company. |
Dominic Rowan and Kate Duchene perform as the King and Queen Katherine in Henry VIII at Shakespeare's Globe. This time the place did not burn down. |
The Stonewall was a dive bar operated by the Mob in New York's Greenwich Village. It's patrons were outcasts and the most flamboyant of a rough streets scene--young hustlers, drag queens, butch lesbians. It was also an inter-racial scene that attracted police attention. Wealthier and more respectable Gays gathered and partied more discretely in posh clubs that authorities usually ignored. |
This Rainbow Flag update by Danial Quasar is one of the more popular versions that add recognition to the transgender community and People of Color. |
The Stonewall Inn in 1969 looked just as seedy as it was. |
When a lesbian named Betty repeatedly tried to break away from custody and was roughly handled by several cops she famously pleaded, "Why don't you guys do something?" It became the Remember he Alamo battle cry of a movement. |
Drag queens played a leading role in the resistance in the the nights that followed the police raid. |
The Christopher Street March on the first anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion is considered the founding event of the Gay Pride marches now held internationally. |
The 2019 Pride Parade in Chicago was typical of colorful and exuberant celebrations around the country which were now courted by politicians and corporations eager to cash in on a lucrative demographic. |
Marsha P. Johnson, a transgender Black woman, is now being recognized and celebrated as the person who threw the first brick at police on the night of the Stonewall uprising. |
Critisism of President George W. Bush during the ramp up of the invasion of Iraq while the Dixie Chicks were on their Top of the World tour made them overnight country music pariahs. |
Introducing The Chicks. |
Black Lives Matter supporters will return to Veterans Acres in Crystal Lake where hundreds rallied peacefully on June 3. Youth led the way. |
McHenry Mayor Wayne Jett first enforced the Back the Blue Ride and then promised to attend a listen at the McHenry Black Lives Matter rally on Saturday. |
Luis Eric Aguilar, a McHenry /BLM youth leader, met with Mayor Jett. |
Probably the most oft repeated gag in comix history--Ignatz mouse bouncing a brick over love-sick Krazy Kat's noggin. Yet it never grew old. |
George Herriman's early Musical Mose strip featured a Black protagonist who searched for acceptance by trying to pass with various European identities, always with disastrous results. It mirrored the light skinned New Orleans Creole's own life as he passed for white. |
George Herriman and his bride Mable. After their marriage he had to completely hide his racial background to avoid running afoul of anti-miscegenation laws. |
Herriman as a sports cartoonist. Any modern baseball fan will recognize the same behavior. |
A comic love triangle--Krazy Kat loved Ignatz despite being beaned almost daily, Offssa Pupp loved Krazy Kat and tried to protect him/her from the mouse who was a defiant anarchist who could never be controled. |
The southwestern landscape of Coconino County. |
George Herriman self-portrait with his characters in 1922. |
An ad for Mintz's Krazy Kat cartoons which bore little resemblance to Herriman's conception. He created a Felx the Cat clone with elements ripped off from Disney's Mickey Mouse as well. |
A column head for Don Marquis's daily Archy and Mahitabel feature. |
William Boyd as Hopalong Cassidy on his white stallion Topper. |
Clarence Mulford in 1928 banging out another Hopalong novel. |
Hopalong's first appearance in a novel, 1907. |
Robert Mitchum got an early screen credit as a bad guy in 1943's Hoppy Serves a Writ, the last of the film series produced by Harry Sherman. |
William Boyd as a silent era matinee idol. |
Silent screen actor and stock villain in early western talkies, George Hayes began a hugely sucesful second career billed as Gabby Hayes, the comic side kick first of Hopalong and later with Gene Autry, John Wayne, Roy Rogers, and Randolph Scott. |
The opening credits for the NBC repackaging of the Hopalong films included the the introduction from the 1935 first film, Hop-Along Cassidy even though the character no longer had a hyphenated name. |
The huge success of the Hopalong Cassidy school lunch box helped launch the age of tie-in merchandising and helped make William Boyd very rich. |
Norman Rockwell, the beloved painter and illustrator of a pleasant America, was deeply moved by the Civil Rights movement and shocked the nation with his depiction of the murder of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner |
Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner. |
The film Mississippi Burning starring Gene Hackman and Willem DaFoe as the lead FBI investigatosr on the case started a trend in films about the Civil Rights movement that put white heroes at the center of Black stories. |
Student volunteers for COREs Freedom Summer voter registration project in Mississippi join hands and sing as the prepare to head south. |
The ruins of the Mt. Zion Methodist Church in Longdale, Mississippi where where James Chaney and Mickey Schwerner spoke on Memorial Day. |
The burnt out station wagon used by the Civil Rights Workers was quickly discovered confirming the worst fears for their fate. |
Outrage over the murders help secure passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Lyndon Johnson presents Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr with a ceremonial pen following a signing ceremony at the White House. |
The faces of evil--members of the lynch mob who carried out the murders: Top Row, L-R: Deputy Cecil R. Price, Travis M. Barnette, Alton W. Roberts, Jimmy K. Arledge, Jimmy Snowden. Bottom Row, L-R: Jerry M. Sharpe, Billy W. Posey, Jimmy L. Townsend, Horace D. Barnette, and James Jordan who confessed and testified against the others |
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Old Movie fans will remember the 1970 big-budget epic The Molly Maguires with Sean Connery as Pinkerton detective and spy James McParlan and Richard Harris as a leader of the secret society of Irish coal miners. |
The Whiteboys were one of several Irish secret societies that took revenge on landlords, tax collectors, and other oppressors. |
Franklin B. Gowen, President of the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Co.was the man behind plans to break the Union and stir up then smash the Molly Maguires. |
An illustrated newspaper illustration imagined a secret Molly Maguire meeting in 1974. |
Pinkerton spy James McParlan in the 1880's. |
Four of the accused Molly Maguires are marched to their execution on June 21, 1877. |
The Molly Maguire Memorial in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania depicts a single miner awaiting the noose. |
It’s Father’s Day. Not surprisingly there are a lot fewer songs about fathers than mothers—and some of them don’t exactly paint a flattering picture of pater familias. Think Papa Was a Rolling Stone or Madonna’s Papa Don’t Preach. There is the schmaltzy O, Mine Papa from the turn of the 20th Century Yiddish theater, which Eddie Fisher turned into a surprise hit in the early 1960’s. But today’s pick is an equally sentimental ditty—That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine.
A songbook of Gene Autry's early colaborations with Jimmy Long including That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine.
In 1931 railroad telegrapher Gene Autry was struggling to emulate his hero Jimmie Rodgers as a recording artist. One of his best pals and mentorswas another Oklahoma railroader, Jimmy Long. Together they wrote and recorded That Silver Haired Daddy of Mineas a duet. It turned out to be Autry’s first hit. Four years later after establishing himself as hillbilly radio starhe reordered it again as a solo on the Vocalian label selling more than 5 million copies in the middle of the Depressionwhen record sales were generally way off. It made Autry a major star.
The poster for Tumbling Tumbleweeds, Gene Autry's first starring role for Republic Pictures. |
Republic Pictures, a B-movie mill quickly snatched Autry up and transformed him into a singing cowboy. After briefly appearing as a musical specialty act in the studio’s two-reelers, he was featured in his first staring roll in 1935’s Tumbling Tumbleweeds. Gene played a singing cowboy in a medicine show who came home after 5 years to find his father had been murdered and his best friend charged with the crime. Naturally, he had to ferret out the real bad guys. The film also featured Smiley Burnette who became Autry’s first regular side-kick and chaste love interest Lucile Browne and Black comedian Eugene Jackson as Eightball, an embarrassingly stereotyped third banana. The film was a huge hit and Autry reigned as Republic’s biggest star until he interrupted his career to serve as an Army Air Corps pilot flying C-47 cargo planes over the Hump from Indiato Burma and China.
The Green Man, pagan ruler of Midsummer. |
The Old Man as Green Man, ready to sprout oak leaves. |
My father, W. M. Murfin in Cheyenne, 1959. |
Porgy and Bess colaborators George Gershwin and DuBose Heyward in Charleston, South Carolina. |
Abbie Mitchel as Clara first sang Summertime on stage and recorded it with Gershwin. |
Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong's 1958 Verve LP was one of several collaborations between the two jazz greats. |
King's Chapel, Boston shortly before the turn of the 20th Century. |
A wood cut view of the first Anglican chapel in Boston under the shadow of Beacon Hill. |
The congregation built a small wooden church at the corner of Tremont and School Streets. It worshiped there for 60 years as the building fell into disrepair. Meanwhile the Congregational churches were building magnificent brick churches with soaring spires. When the Anglicans attempted to purchase more land adjacent to their tiny lot to build a new Church, once again the majority clergy fought them. After difficult negotiations, the land was purchased and a cornerstone for the new building was laid in 1749.
Many influential early Bostonians lie in the Burial Ground next to King's Chapel including Patriot hero Dr. Joseph Warren. It is now included on the city's Patriot Trail. |
Unable to secure an Anglican Priest after the Revolution, the church hired James Freeman of Harvard as a Lay Reader and later ordained him as Rector without laying on of hands of an Bishop which led to Freeman and the congregation being expelled from the new American Episcopal Church. |
The title page from the Book of Common Prayer edited by Freeman to omit references to the Trinity. With some adaptations if remains in use to this day at King's Chapel making it unique among member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) |
King's Chapel from a mid-20th Century tinted linen souvenir post card. |
But the Church as always remained unique, cleaving to that revised Book of Common Prayer. It has been an outpost of Christianity in denomination eventually dominated by Humanism and now embracing’s multiple Sources and theological diversity. It resisted for a long time such Unitarian Universalist innovations as chalice lighting and Flower Communion.
The interior of Kin's Chapel includes the elevated pulpit under a canopy, high pew boxes, and Louis Comfort Tiffany stained glass windows on the lower level below the balconies. |
Ministers today still preside from the high pulpit overlooking the rows of high-backed pew boxes. Light filters through beautiful Louis Comfort Tiffany stained glass windows installed in the early 20th Century. It is a vital and thriving congregation with an active social justice agenda, a renowned music program and large ministerial staff. that recently included a Rabbi.
Aloe Blacc |
The Roots with Questlove, center. |
The cast of Blackish |
Junteenth is now the largest and most widespread of all of the local Jubilee celebrations of Emancipation. |
On June 19, 1867 Major General Gordon Granger read the order announcing Emancipation in Galveston, Texas |
The first Junteenth celebration one year after the news arrived in Texas. Note the many celebrants in Union Army forage caps and fragments of uniforms. In addition to those who had served in the ranks during the war, many other collected the garments while serving as teamsters or laborers for the Army. Others acquired the gear as surplus after the war. |
Late 19th Century ladies in full finery drive a carriage decorated for a Juneteenth parade. |
In 1997, the founder of the National Juneteenth Celebration Foundation (NJCF), Ben Haith, created the Juneteenth flag. Raising of the flag ceremonies are now held in Galveston as well other cities across the country. It is raised after the U.S. flag and the national anthem and before the anthem Lift Every Voice and Sing. Here Buffalo Soldier reenactors hoist the colors. |
Colonial Militia under Col. John Stark repelled the first British assault against their hastily thrown up defenses on the left of Breed's Hill. The Battle of Bunker Hill is so famous that the most historically illiterate Americans—and there are a lot of them—have at least heard of it and can probably figure out that it was fought during the Revolutionary War. Many may recall from High School or an old Peabody and Sherman cartoon that an order was issued—“Don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes.” Whatever that meant. And most will assume it was a great American victory for George Washington. Almost all of that would be wrong or misunderstood. The real story is more complex and interesting. By mid-June 1775 the Colonial rabble-in-arms had kept the English army bottled up in Boston since April 19 when they chased them back to the city after the battles of Lexington and Concord during a costly, harassed retreat. Meanwhile the original force of Massachusetts Militia and Patriot Minutemen on the mainland surrounding the city swelled to more than 15,000 with volunteers and Militia from Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire all under the overall—but loose—command of Artemas Ward, a veteran Militia and Provincial troops colonel with combat experience in the French and Indian War. Boston was a near island in Boston Harbor where 6,000 regulars under General Thomas Gage were holed up. The bulbous shaped Peninsula was connected to the rest of the mainland by the Charlestown Neck. All that separated it from the Charlestown Peninsula on the mainland was a narrow Charles River. Gage could be resupplied by sea so that the Patriot siege, which blocked re-provision from mainland farms, was not totally effective. He had also received reinforcements including the arrival of three subordinate generals—William Howe, John Burgoyne, and Henry Clinton. Shortly after their arrival on May 25, Gage convened councils of war at which they discussed plans for a break-out. By June 12 they had arrived on a plan. First the English would seize via a boat landingand fortify Dorchester Heights located on the knob of a mushroom shaped peninsula jutting from the mainland south of Charlestown then march on Roxbury to secure the flank. Then the main body of troops would rush across the Neck and secure the highlands overlooking the city from behind the village on the salt flats of the Charlestown Peninsula. The Peninsula had been a kind of no man’s land since Clinton had retreated to the city. Dr. Joseph Warren was a much beloved senior Patriot leader. His well oiled intelligence operation inside Boston helped alert Colonial forces that General Gage planned a break-out from the besieged city. He had just been elected a general of the new Massachusetts Provisional Army, but word of his appointment never reached him. He turned down field command of the defense and on the day of the battle marched out as a civilian fighting in the ranks like a common soldier.But Boston was still just sort of an overgrown small town in which secrets were hard to keep. Fortunately for the rebels, two leading Patriots, Dr. Joseph Warren and James Otis maintained an effective intelligence operation in the city—the same one that had discovered the plans to march on Concord to seize the Patriot arsenal there. There was plenty of loose tavern talk and the civilians on whom British officers were quartered or their servants passed on information. So did the occasional visitor. One of those was a New Hampshire merchantwho returned to his home by ship. The Patriot Committee of Safety in Exeter, New Hampshire dispatched a warning to the Massachusetts Provisional Congress confirming the rumors gathered by Warren’s operation. On June 15 the Massachusetts Committee of Safetydirected General Ward to occupy and fortify the Dorchester and Charlestown Heights. Ward gathered his own senior officers for their council of war. Key to the plan was occupying and fortifying Bunker Hill, at 110 feet high the most commanding of the hills on the Heights which also included lower Breed’s Hill closer to the exit from the Neck. There had already been some preliminary excavations on Bunker Hill which would give the occupying Colonial troops a head start at digging in. From Bunker Hill the Rebels command Boston with artillery. It was a good plan with every chance of success. The next decision was the selection of a commander for the mission and units. Ward initially offered command to the highly respected Dr. Warren, who was popular with the troops. But Warren had never been a Militia officer and declined. He would join the ranks as a civilian and fight as a common soldier. Gen Israel Putnam, Colonial Commander Over-all command fell to Connecticut General Israel Putnam, who had served in Rogers Rangers in the French and Indian war. Massachusetts Militia Colonel William Prescott, a veteran of King George’s War and the Siege of Louisburg and the Battle of Fort Beausejour in the French and Indian War, was given command of the troops assigned to take the heights. He commanded 1500 Militiaman and Volunteers from his own regiment and Putnam’s Connecticut Regiment to be commanded in the field that day by Thomas Knowlton. On the night of June 16 Prescott led his men onto the Charlestown Peninsula. There he conferred with Putnam and his chief engineer Captain Richard Gridley. The three men disagreed about the best placement of defensive works. What happened is not exactly clear, but Prescott, against his original orders from Ward, decided to concentrate his troops on Breed’s Hill, closer to Boston, but lower. He set his men out to begin digging a square of fortification trencheson the top of the smaller hill. Those fortifications could not be completed before daybreak. In Boston General Clinton spotted the Rebels digging in on the Charlestown Heights while on evening reconnaissance. He recognized the need forswift action to prevent the rebels from completing their work and installing artillery. But he could not rouse Gage and Howe from over-confident disdain of their rabble enemy and get them to immediately dispatch troops. Around 4 am Royal Navy ships in the harbor also spotted activity and began lobbing shells at Breed’s Hill temporarily delayingexcavations. The fire was temporarily suspended by Admiral Samuel Graves who was irked that it was undertaken without his order. By this time Gage was finally aware of the seriousness of the situation and directed Graves to open fire from all available ships as well as from Army artillery positions on Copp’s Hill in Boston opposite Breed’s Hill. Despite a lot of noise, the soft earth of the hill top absorbed most of the damage and work was able to continue, even incorporatingshell craters into the defenses. Daylightalso alerted Prescott to a flaw in his decision to fortify Breed’s Hill—it stood relatively isolated on the salt flats and could be easily flanked. He desperately ordered the beginning of construction of breastworks running down the east side of the hill. He did not have enough men to fortify the west side. Meanwhile the English dithered. They had too many Generals. Clinton still pressed for an immediate attack. Howe and Burgoyne, both contemptuous of the Colonial rabble saw no need to rush, confident that Redcoat Regularscould sweep the defenders aside in good time. Howe was placed in command of an attack. It took Howe several hours to gather his infantry and then to inspect them on formal review. Meanwhile boats were gathered to ferry the troops across the water to a corner of the Charlestown Peninsula known as Moulton’s Point. It took several trips to bring all 1,500 men across. The plan was for Howe to lead the major assaultdriving around the left flank to take the Rebels from the rear. Brigadier General Robert Pigot on the British left flank would lead the direct assault on the hilltop redoubt, and Marine Major John Pitcairnwould command the reserve. Howe had most of his men ashore by 2 pm, but then spotted Rebels on Bunker Hill. Mistaking Prescott’s secondary defenses for a major reinforcement, the ever cautious Howe held up his attack and sent word back to Boston for reinforcements of his own. He sent some light infantry to take up forward positions on the left, alerting the Patriot army to his ultimate intentions. Then he ordered his men to break out their mess to await help. Surveying the situation, Prescott issued his own appeal for reinforcements. Among those responding were Dr. Warren and an old warhorseMilitia officer, Seth Pomeroy who also elected to fight as if a private since his own command was not engaged. Prescott ordered the Connecticut men under Knowles to occupy and hastily finish breastworks on the left which consisted of a rude dirt wall topped by fence rails and hay bales. 200 men from the 1stand 3rd New Hampshire regiments, under Colonels John Stark and James Reed arrived just in time to occupy the end of that line—the gap Howe could have used had he not dallied. They extended the line further to the low tide mark of the Mystic River. Stark placed a stake in the ground before the defenses and gave orders that no one should fire until the English passed the mark. Other reinforcements arriving to take their places in the redoubt or along the breastwork were elements of the Massachusetts regiments of Colonels Brewer, Nixon, Woodbridge, Little, and Major Moore, as well as Callender’s company of artillery. There was confusion despite the best efforts of General Putnam to straighten out the situation as subordinate commanders misunderstoodtheir orders or disobeyedthem. Some troops sent from Cambridge came under British cannon fire and balked at crossing the Neck to Charlestown. Others reached the foot of Bunker Hill but milled around uncertain of what to do. Finally at 3 pm the 47th Foot and the 1st Marines arrived from Boston to reinforce Howe. Meanwhile General Pigot’s forces including the 5th, 38th, 43rd, and 57th Regiments were taking losses from colonial sniper fire from the village on the salt flats. Admiral Graves responded with incendiary shells that set the village on fire sending up plumes of smoke. An offshore wind kept the smoke from obscuring the main battle site, although colonial observers on the mainland were unable to follow the action because of it. Howe led his attack of Light Infantry and Grenadiers on the American left. The Light Infantry attempted to make an end run along the sandy beach of the river at low tide while the Grenadiers attacked the main breastwork. A single errant Rebel shot elicited an early and ineffectual volley from the English. After that the Americans held their fire until Colonel Stark’s marker was passed. Then they set off a murderous volley. The advancing English got off one of their own. But the Rebels, shooting frombehind cover and able to steady their aim on the fence rails fired with deadly accuracywhile the British un-aimed musket fire mostly sailed over the heads of the defenders. The English took devastating losses including many officers and fell back in disarray. From an eye witness sketch--the second assault on Breeds Hill. Note the village ablaze on the left and the open ground over which the British had to advance exposing them to murderous aimed vollies from behind the defenses.On the other side of the battlefield Pigot, still taking losses from snipers, saw the disordered retreat on the left and fell back himself. Both forces regrouped on the field and changed objectives. Pigot, now reinforced with the 47th and the 1st Marines, would directly attack the redoubt at the top of the hill. Howe would shift his main attack away from the beach to concentrate on Knowles’s Connecticut men closer to the slope of the hill. The second attack was even more devastating to the British as the Colonists once again held their fire for a single, devastating volley at short range. A British action report stated that “Most of our Grenadiers and Light-infantry, the moment of presenting themselves lost three-fourths, and many nine-tenths, of their men. Some had only eight or nine men a company left ...” Pigot’s attack on the redoubt likewise was sent reeling back. By this time the Rebels were running short on ammunition. Many had entered the fight with only three to five balls for their muskets. General Putnam was urgently trying to get reinforcements from Bunker Hill to Breed’s with only limited success. The third attack focused all forces on the Redoubt. The Patriots got off another effective volley but the British were able to press on finally reaching the breastworks where their bayonets were lethally effective against the rebels who could only fight back using their muskets asclubs. Prescott ordered the redoubt abandoned and helped cover the retreat personally using his ceremonial sword to fight off bayonets. He was said to be the last man to get out. Dr. Warren was killed in the retreat. The chaos as the British finally overwhelmed the breastwork redoubt at the top of Breeds Hill in a bayonet attack is better r reflected in this depiction than in the rigid lines of advancing automatons in familiar depictions.Effective cover fire from Stark and Knowles on the flank prevented the retreat from becoming a complete rout. Most troops got over the Charlestown Neck safely and in relatively good order. But there was no question the Colonists had tactically lost the battle. At the end of the day Howe’s troops occupied the battle ground including the heights which had threatened Boston. But it was at best a Pyrrhic victory. The British lost 226 killed with over 800 wounded, including a large number of officers among them Col. James Abercrombie in command of the Grenadiers, Marine Captain Pitcairn, and virtually all of Howe’s staff officers. General Clinton confided to his diary after the action, “A few more such victories would have shortly put an end to British dominion in America.” In contrast Colonial losses were 115 dead, 305 wounded, and 30 captured. They also had proven to themselves that they could fight, at least from behind defenses, on an equal with British Regulars. Among the most regretted losses were four out of the five then irreplaceable cannon used in the battle. But the most widely mourned loss was the death of the beloved Dr. Warren. He had just been voted a Major General’s commission in the Massachusetts Provincial Army on June 15 but had not yet received it when he marched off with his musket on his shoulder. John Trumbull's heroic Death of General Warren was in the tradition of many fallen commanders paintings, notably Benjamin West's The Death of General Wolfe but it was historically wrong on most counts. Warren’s body was desecrated by the British in the days after the battle. Navy Lieutenant James Drew, of the sloop Scorpion, “…went upon the Hill again opened the dirt that was thrown over Doctor Warren, spit in his Face jump’d on his Stomach and at last cut off his Head and committed every act of violence upon his Body.” Ten months later Paul Revere recovered his friend’s body, identifying the head by a tooth he had made and placed in Warren’s jaw. He was re-buried with military honors at Grainery Burial Ground. His body was moved twice more finally coming to rest in 1855 in his family vault in Forest Hills Cemetery. Warren’s death was also commemorated in the idealized heroic painting, The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill by John Trumbull. After the initial shock of losing the Hill wore off, the Rebels began to realize what they had accomplished. The battered and ever cautious Howe refused Clinton’s urging to immediately follow up with an attack on Wards now understandably disordered main camp in Cambridge. The Colonial army had time to regroup, lick its wounds, and appreciatethat they had stood up to the vaunted Redcoat regulars. In Boston Gage was taken aback by the scope of the losses. His gloomy official reportto London predicted that “a large army must at length be employed to reduce these people” and that it would have to include hired foreign troops. Despite the accuracy of the prediction, Gage was dismissed three days after the report was received. Howe, the actualarchitect of the calamitous victory, was rewarded with overall command in the Colonies. He would never again attempt a serious break-out from Boston. General George Washington, newly appointed Commander-in-Chief of a barely formed Continental Army was in New York City on his way to assume command of the siege when he received an account of the Battle from the Massachusetts Committee on Safety. The report exaggerated British losses and papered over the difficulties Putnam had experienced trying to assert command, but it heartened the new commander. He arrived on July 2 to find the army in some disarray and a general stalemate between the two sides. He spent the next months gaining the confidence of his new command and its officers, reorganizing—basically creating—the Continental Line while trying to keep his Militia and volunteers on duty. There were a few indecisive skirmishes and both sides suffered near starvation and from small pox outbreaks over an exceptionally harsh winter. But that same snowy winter allowed the rotund young former bookseller Col. Henry Knoxto drag the heavy cannons captured at Fort Ticonderoga overland. Some of the cannon, under Knox’s command were able to begin shelling Boston on March 2, 1776. On March 5 Washington moved more cannon to the commanding Dorchester Heights in an overnight surprise operation. That placed the fleet, as well as the city under Continental guns. An astonishedHowe is said to have proclaimed, “My God, these fellows have done more work in one night than I could make my army do in three months.” It was checkmate and game over. After delays because of unfavorable winds, British boarded ships and sailed from the city on March 17. American troops, all handpicked for earlier exposure to and survival of small pox, led by Artemas Ward entered the city on March 20. The first campaign of the American Revolution has ended in less than two years with a stunning victory for the Continentals. But it might never have been possible if the defenders of Breed’s Hill had not cost the British so dearly. The battle quickly settled into legend. Even though the action occurred primarily on Breed’s Hill, Putnam and Ward stubbornly referred to it as the Battle of Bunker Hill in honor the intended target for fortification in their original plans. The name stuck. Most Americans have never heard of Breed’s Hill. But the greatest legend was the story that Col. Prescott—usually misidentified by his old Militia rank of Captain—had ordered his troops “Don’t fire until you see the Whites of their Eyes.” before the initial Redcoat assault. He assuredly never said any such thing. The notion seems to have come either from Col. Stark’s stake marker or orders being issued up and down the line to hold fire until the last possible moment to conserve ammunition and for the deadliest effect. Variations of the Whites of their eyes command had been used by several European commanders dating back to the Swedish General and King Gustavus Adolphus in the 16th Century and was said to have been repeated by General James Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham, when his troops defeated Montcalm’sFrench army below Quebec on September 13, 1759. The veterans of the French and Indian Wars among senior Colonial commanders would have been familiar with the idea and phrase. The Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown. The statue of Col. William Prescott, and undeniable hero of the engagement, was added latter reinforcing the myth that the officer had given the order, "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes"By the early 19th Century the phrase, with Prescott’s name usually attached, was a staple of school books. On June 17, 1825, the fiftieth anniversary of the battle, the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument on Breed’s Hill was laid by the Marquis de Lafayetteand orated over by Daniel Webster. The 220 foot high obelisk was completed in 1843 and dedicated on June 25, 1844. Daniel Webster again gave the main address. |
14 years old in South Carolina in 1944 and accused of a double murder and rape, George Junius Stinney, Jr. had no chance of a fair trial. |
11 year old Betty June Binnicker was the oldest of two white girls who went to pick flowers and were never seen alive again. Her skull was caved in and there was evidence she was raped. |
George Stinney, Jr. and a not much older unnamed inmate being brought into the North Carolina Death House to await execution. |
A gruesome but necessary reminder--the State of North Carolina carefully photographed Stinney's severed head to document the execution. Deep burns are plainly visible. |
George Fierson, second from right, was the local historian who investigated the case and uncovered evidence that Stinney was innocent. Lawyers Steve McKinzied, Shaun Kent, and Ray.Chandler worked on the appeal that ultimately cleared the boy. |
Ida B. Wells and the Black press including W.E.B. Du Bois’ The Crisis and the Chicago Daily Defender had long exposedlynching as a brutal tool of oppressionin the Jim Crow South. Later Billie Holiday would singabout the Strange Fruit she witnessed dangling from lamp posts and bridges on her tours of the South. Lynchings were a terrible thing, civilized people agreed, but they were a Southern thing. That’s why much of the nation was shocked to learn that on June 15, 1920 that three Black circus workers were dragged from a Duluth, Minnesota jail, beaten, and hung by a howling mob of as many as 1,500 citizens. The busy Lake Superior port and principle city of the Iron Range, with a tiny Black population of its own, seemed like the last place in the country to expect such an outrage. It was a city of hard working immigrants, most of them Finnish, Norwegian, Swede, and German. Many of them, especially the Finns, were Socialists, Wobblies, and now Communistswith roots in the labor and union movements. It was not that violence itself was unexpected there, it was just that it was not associated with the epic labor battles that had long raged across the Iron range. During the World War “decent citizens” had been worked up into a frenzy of patriotismand had come to view the immigrant radicals, most of them opposed to the war, as threats. The refusal of workers to abide by patriotic calls for labor peace and keep up the flow of vital taconite ore to the freightersand down to the steel mills of Gary and Chicago stoked more outrage. In September of 1919 a young Finish immigrant, Olli Kinkkonen, thought by a mob to be a Draft dodger, was beaten, tarred, and feathered, and lynched in a downtown park. No one was ever chargedor tried for that murder. So violence and lynching were not unknown in Duluth. 1919 had also been a year when race riots erupted in Chicago and in other Midwestern cities where waves of Blacks from the South had poured into the cities to take war time jobs. Although Duluth, with only a handful of Blacks residents, had escaped the rioting, they had not escaped the national hysteria that followed. So the stage was set for the unexpected. Lured by advertising like this for the John Robinson Circus, two young people were drawn to the grounds to watch the set up--and maybe for a romantic rendezvous. The circus was in town. On June 14 the John Robinson Circus, a mid-sized traveling show, rolled into town. As always, the arrival of the circus stirredlocal excitement. Two young people, Irene Tusken, 19, and James Sullivan, 18 were among the many who came down to the grounds where the show was being set up to watch the excitement. The Circus encouraged that—it was good for ticket sales. By design or otherwise Tusken and Sullivan, who had arrived separately, got together on the grounds. They drifted around to the relative isolation of an area behind the big top. A gang of Black roustabouts was unloading the menagerie tent nearby. What happened next is a matter of confusion and controversy. There may—or may not—have been some kind of confrontation between Sullivan and some of the roustabouts. Later that evening police received a call from Sullivan’s father claiming that his son had been attacked and robbed. The boy was questioned and told police that five or six of the workers attacked and robbed him and then raped Tusken as he was held at gun point. Tusken seemed frightened and confused, but generally went along with Sullivan’s story. All 150 Black workers from the circus were rounded upand lined up against the railroad tracks. Sullivan was brought there to identify the alleged assailants. He identified six and said a few others might have been involved. The six were taken to jail. Overnight rumors flew around town, including reports that Tusken had been murdered. In fact the story of the rape fell apart almost immediately. A doctor examining her the next morning foundno physical evidence of assault—bruising, scratches, abrasions—or of semen. The respectable press of Duluth reported the mob action but also fanned the flames by publishing exagerated claims and rumors. Local newspaper reports sensationalized the charges, rumors ran rampant. Through the day of the 15th a crowd grew around the jail until it became a mob of more than 1,000. An attack on the jail was expected. Authorities ordered deputies, guards, and police on the scene not to resist an attack with firearms. When the mob moved on the jail, police fought back as best they could with fire hoses and truncheons. But they were vastly outnumbered and after a vicious melee in which men on both sides wereinjured they were overwhelmed. In fact the resistance had only inflamed the mob who managed to seize three men—Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie. They were beaten inside the jail and then hauled to the street where they were put on sham trial. They were taken to the center of town, the corner of 1st Street and 2nd Avenue East where they were beaten again and hung from a lamp pole. The mob posed for pictures with the bodieswhich were published in the press and later sold as souvenir post cards. The three other men suspected in the rape were still in the jail. A shifting mob kept up a presence outside, threatening a new attack. But it was not until the next morning that National Guard troops arrived to secure the jail and its prisoners who were moved to the St. Louis County Jailunder heavy guard. The Duluth Ripsaw, scandal sheet which often was at odds with local authorities broke the news that the alleged rape victim was never raped at all bring the whole case into doubt.As the rape case against the victims evaporated over the next few days, the mob action drew national headlines. Most were condemning. Some Southern papers, however, openly gloatedthat Yankees were now awakening to the threat to white womanhood and were taking vigorous “corrective action.” But next door in Superior, Wisconsin the local police chief pledged that, “We are going to run all idle Negroes out of Superior and they’re going to stay out.” How many were actually rousted and deported is not certain, but all of the Blacks employed by a carnival visiting the city were fired and told to leave the city. A Grand Jury was empanelled on June 17, but despite loads of evidence including photographsand the open boasts of ringleaders, the jury had a hard time brining indictments. After a struggle, 37 were indicted for participating in the lynching, 25 for rioting, and 12 for first degree murder. Several were indicted on multiple charges. In the end only three were convicted of rioting. Of the Blacks suspected in the alleged rape and assault, the three survivors from the jail and four others were indicted for rape, but the charges against all but two were dropped. William Miller was acquitted and Max Mason was convicted and sentenced to serve seven to thirty years in prison. Amid growing public outrage, Mason was released from prison after only four years on the proviso that he leave Minnesota and never return. Somehow I suspect he was never tempted to violate that provision. Like many places after such a shameful atrocity, Duluth tried hard to forget it ever happened. Willful amnesia it’s called. But nagging reminders kept popping up. Young Minnesotan Bob Dylan wrote of the lynchings in his classic 1965 song Desolation Row. In 1965 Duluth born Bob Dylan, whose father was five years old and living two blocks from the lynching in 1920 opened his song Desolation Row with a reference to that awful night: They’re selling postcards of the hanging They’re painting the passports brown The beauty parlor is filled with sailors The circus is in town In 2003, after a long public campaign, a stunning monument to the three lynching victims was unveiled—a plaza including three seven-foot-tall bronze statues across the street from the site of the lynching. The Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial was designedand sculpted by Carla J. Stetson, in collaboration with Anthony Peyton-Porter, a California-based Black writer who had taken an interest in the case. Bas relief images of the three lynching victims over look a downtown Duluth plaza near the scene of their murders. At the dedication Warren Read, the great-grandson of one of the most prominent leaders of the lynch mob told the crowd: It was a long held family secret, and its deeply buried shame was brought to the surface and unraveled. We will never know the destinies and legacies these men would have chosen for themselves if they had been allowed to make that choice. But I know this: their existence, however brief and cruelly interrupted, is forever woven into the fabric of my own life. My son will continue to be raised in an environment of tolerance, understanding and humility, now with even more pertinence than before. Read has since written The Lyncher in Me, a memoir of his family and of his own search for reconciliation with the decedents of Elmer Jackson. |
Donald Trump practically swaddles himself in flags. It's a tell--the more and bigger flags, the greater the lies and attacks on fundamental Constitutional and American values. |
In the years after the Civil War the Grand Army of the Republic promoted flag waving as a triumphant poke-in-the-eye to defeated Confederates and as a test of patriotism in a way virtually unknown in the antebellum years. |
Immigrant children were taught to salute the flag in public schools like this one in New York City where they would be punished for speaking their native languages. Photo by Jacob Riis. |
Although the America First movement during the 1930's attracted some genuine anti-war sentiment, much of its leadership, including Charles Lindbergh, were pro-fascist. Like other right-wing movements before and since they used the flag as "proof" of their patriotism. Pictured is a mammoth Madison Square Garden America First Rally in 1937. |
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For some Black Lives Matter protesters the flag is a symbol of white privialage and historic denial of the basic humanity of Black and other People of Color. |
For some Trump supporters the Cheeto-in-charge is the flag. |
Members of PFLAG, McHenry County Pride, and the Tree of Life UU Congregation lined up for the Crystal Lake Independence Day Parade in 2015, A sound system on the red Jeep blasted Born This Way and we all bopped along the parade route. |
Lady Gaga has literally put her money where her mouth with the Born This Way Foundation which has donated millions to empower oppressed communities. |
Lady Gaga wrote Born This Way while on her 2011 Monster Ball Tour and added a performance to the second half of that tour. |
The Moors surrender the English-led Crusaders after the Siege of Lisbon. |
English longbowmen and tactics developed in battles with heavy French cavalry at Crecy and Poitiers helped the Portuguese defeat a larger Castilian invading army at the Battle of Atoleiros in 1384. |
The marriage between King John I of Portugal and Philippa of Lancaster. |
Dom Pedro, self-proclaimed Emperor of Brazil relinquished his claims on the Portuguese Crown to his daughter Maria and landed a large army in his motherland with the support of the Royal Navy in 1834. |
A cartoon mocks John Bull as a bully threatening an old and enfeebled Portugal and it little King. |
Huge and sustained left-led anti-austerity protests put Portugal at odds with the European Union (EU) After Brexit the Tory British government hopes to make Portugal one of its first partners in a new bi-lateral trade agreement. |
The Danish national flag featuring the Nordic Cross--the koffadiflaget. |
A recreation of the personal banner of William the Conqueror. Some dispute the early use of the Nordic Cross. |
Nordic flags, from left to right: the flags of Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. |
The Inuit majority of Greenland rejected the Norse Cross but maintained the colors of the Danish flag. |
The Nordic Cross was nearly overwhelmed on the War Ensign of Nazi Germany. |
A Korean map of the Hermit Kingdom. The Han is the second major river from the south pictured on the map, the water way to the capital Hanyang (modern Seoul.) |
In 1866 after eight fruitless week of battle a French expeditionary force failed to capture the citadel of Gsnghwua and was forced into a humiliating withdrawal. |
The iron hulled and screw propelled steam frigate the USS Colorado was the flagship of the American squadron on the 1971 Korean expedition. |
"Men in /white" were encountered by Admiral Roger's crew. These Korean officials later taken captive were photographed on the deck of the Colorado in their traditional attire. |
A council of war on board the USS Colorado. Admiral John Rodgers is the one leaning over the chart. |
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Korean dead in the breached citadel. |
Korean Headquarters Flag captured by marines Private Hugh Purvis, USMC, Corporal Charles Brown, and Captain McLain Tilton on board the USS Colorado after the battle. |
North Koreans re-enact the Shinmiyangyo annually and celebrate the defenders as national martyrs and heroes. |
Cassandra Vohs-Demann and Billy Seger perform Cry No More at the Tree of Life UU Congregation George Floyd parking lot vigil while observing social distancing. |
Cry No More was inspired by the 2015 murders by a white supremacist at Mother Bethel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. But it is just as timely today. |
The amazing Rhiannon Giddens. |
A museum diorama of Gandhit being thrown of a train in Natal in 1893 for refusing to give up a first class seat that he had paid for.. His first act of civil disobedience. |
Gandhi as a young lawyer in Natal, 1885 |
Gandhi remained in South Africa for another 19 years, until 1914. His experiences there as he rose to leadership of the Indian community and began his campaigns of civil disobedience and passive resistance were the cruciblein which his whole philosophy came to maturity. It is also where he came to grips with his Indian identity. Importantly, he came to consider being an Indian as something that transcended the rigid divisions between Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs, although he personally came to fully embrace the Hinduism to which he had once been indifferent.
Indian laborers organized by Gandhi and the South African Indian Congress on peaceful but defiant march in 1913. |
That set off a seven year struggle marked by brutal repression of the Indian community including beatings, shootings, and mass arrests. Gandhi himself was jailed on numerous occasions. But despite the repression the demonstrations remained resolutely non-violent. As Gandhi expected, the image of repeated brutality toward peaceful and unarmed Indians eventually raised enough public outrage that Jan Christian Smuts, the powerful ex-Boer general who had become Prime Minister of the new Union of South Africa, was forced to negotiate with his old opponent and reach a compromise favorable to the Indians. The result was the Indian Relief Act of 1914. Gandhi had shown that his policy of non-violent resistance could produce dramatic results.
Bennie Benjamin and Sol Marcus (shown) along with Eddie Seiler wrote When the Lights Go On Again. |
Vaughn Monroe and His Orchestra in an early 1940's club date. Note the Allied flags decorating the band stand. |
A poster for the York Musical Theater company's revival of the musical When the LightsGo On Again in 2015. |
American troops pinned down on Omaha Beach, June 6, 1944. |
British paratroopers loading for their missions to be dropped behind the German beach defenses and secure roads and bridges inland. |
Nearly 2 million soldiers, sailors, and airmen were involved in the total Operation Overlord, including those landed after the first day. 195,000 Naval personnel manned 6,039 vesselsincluding 1,200 warships and 15 hospital ships. The United States alone shipped 7 million tons of supplies, 14 billion pounds of material including 448,000 tons of ammunition.
A fraction of the cost--American dead at the water line on Omaha Beach |
U.S. Army Air Force B-26 Marauder medium bombers over the invasion fleet to pound German positions |
Once free, the Allied advance across France was remarkably swift. Despite setbacks like the Battle of the Bulge in December and delays in getting a bridgeheadacross the Rhine into the German heartland, by the following April British and American units from the west met up with Soviet troops from the east. Within a few days of that Hitler committed suicide, Berlin fell, and the German High Command surrendered unconditionally.
After last year's spectacular 75th anniversary ceremonies in Normandy this year's observations will be curtailed and muted due to the Coronavirus pandemic and the accelerating loss of invasion veterans. Seen here are British D-Day vets with their service escorts |
The call for the youth-led march and rally on Woodstock Square. 400 or more showed up. |
A portion of the crowd in Woodstock on Sunday listen to speakers before taking off on a march around the Square. |
Protesters in Crystal Lake lay face down with hands behind their backs in front of the City Hall.Police Headquarters. |
McHenry County Faith Leaders plan George Floyd Memorial Services at churches in McHenry County. |
A Courier & Ives print of the Lighting Express, right, on an early leg of the Transcontinental. |
When the Central Pacific RR's Leland Stanford drove the final Golden Spike to complete the link with the Union Pacific at Promontory Point, Utah in 1869 it did not actually complete a genuine uninterrupted coast-to-coast transcontinental connection. |
The coast-to-coast dash promoted Lawrence Barrett in Shakespeare's Henry V. |
Members of the transcontinental party including cast members of Henry V and reporters. Star Lawrence Barrett is third from left and press agent/organizer Henry Jarrett.is third from right. |
A commemorative silver box engraved for passengers with tickets for each leg of the transcontinental dash. |
The Lightning Express was greeted with huge crowds when it rolled into Oakland. Photo from a popular series of parlor stereoscopic cards of the trip. |
Today Amtrak coast-to-coast service claims to beat the Lighting Express time by more than three hours but admits it seldom makes the run on schedule. |
The original 1945 Broadway poster fir Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel. |
The 1956 movie poster for Carousel. |
Animator Tex Avery's Big Bad Woolf in a zoot suit--a lecherous predator of Red Riding Hood. |
Zoot suits spread from Harlem and other East Coast Black centers with the assistance of Big Band hep cats like Cab Calloway. |
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Hundreds of sailor rampaged against zoot suiters or any young Mexicans or Chicanos they could find, but as this picture shows they were joined by Army Air Corps men, Marines, and White civilian thugs. |
Zoot suiters were attacked, beaten, and publicly stripped as police looked on or actively participated. |
Pachucas were swept up by police out of dance halls and movie theaters, dragged off of buses just for their style. But the gangs of service men also sexually assaulted many which fueled Pachuco resistance and escalated the violence. |
Many of the young men swept up by police remained cheerily defiant enraging White public opinion. |
In Harlem a young street hustler named Malcolm Little was caught up in attacks on zoot suiters. |
The Los Angeles Times did everything in its power to inflame the riots as they continued, kept stoking racial animosity in every way possible throughout the War, and savagely attacked Eleanor Roosevelt for expressing concern and sympathy with the victims. |
White House wedding day. |
The lovely bride, the former Frances Folsom. |
Baby Ruth Cleveland about age 8 was a celebrity in her own right. |
The Cleveland family with their four surviving children in retirement in New Jersey. |
Aled Jones first rose to fame as a /Welsh choir boy and boy soprano recording more than a dozen album before his voice changed at age 16. He subsequently became a successful baratone, actor, and television host. |
Brand new and with your parents John and Maureen. |
Some of you clan--Papa, your Mom, Aunt Heather, and Aunt Carolynne. There are lots more. |
The day you were born everyone wore masks. |
The day you were born Papa was here to help make the world better for you. |
Cream--Ginger Baker, Jack Bruce, and Eric Clapton in 1967. |
Bruce, Baker, and Clapton reunited for the first time in 25 years for their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. |
Cream lead guitarist Eric Clapton. |
Ginger Baker revolutionized rock drumming including being the first to have an extended drum solo in a number the way the Gene Krupa did in big band jazz. |
Bruce was a lead guitarist, singer, and songwriter for Cream and a restless seeker of new musical horizons while battling addiction. |
Looting and violence in Minneapolis was started by window smashing whites, not Anti-Fascists as they pretended to be but white supremacists organized to ignite the Boogaloo--race war.. |
Otis C. Clark, a last survivor of the Tulsa Race Riot lived to finally tell his story. |
The business district of the thriving Black Greenwood neighborhood. Its prosperity and the airs of the "uppity niggas" who lived there enraged the Southern and Texas whites who had also flooded into the oil boom city and was the real cause of the riot. |
Supposedly liberal newspaper publisher and editor Richard Lloyd Jones was also a prominent leader of the Tulsa Unitarian church. His editorial is considered by many historians to be the "signal" for a lynch mob to march on the courthouse. Shown later in life, he remained for decades a respected Tulsa community leader and today the airport is named for him. |
Whoever labeled this picture now in the collection of the Tulsa Historical Society was not ashamed to boast about the intent of the riot. |
The National Guard marches Blacks detained to a Bull Pen at a local sports stadium. |
The Tusa Race Riot memorial |
The Memorial Day Massacre--American Tragedy, 1937, by Philip Evergood was based on a press photograph. |
Little Steel strikers remembered Youngstown 21 years earlier. |
Many of the surviving press photos--the police confiscated and destroyed as much film as they could lay their hands on--was damaged. Still, they tell an unmistakable story. Police continue to beat the helpless in the pile while launching more tear gas as firing at those still fleeing. |
The rabidly anti-union Tribune spread the lie that Communist radicals had attacked police. They threatened their own reporters who knew better. |
The Ladies Day massacre outside of the Youngstown Sheet and Tube plant later in July showed that Little Steel Bosses were still committed to smashing the strike with brutal force. |
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The Republic Steel Memorial Day Massacre Sculpture, created by former Republic Steel employee Edward Blazak, was dedicated in 1981. Originally located near the main gate at 116th Street and Burley Avenue, it was rededicated in 2008 and relocated to 11659 South Avenue O, at the southwest corner of the grounds of a Chicago Fire Department station. |
This poster is being sold to raise money for the ACLU's continued responses to police violence and murder; |
AbelMeeropol cited this photograph of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, August 7, 1930, as inspiring his poem. |
Abel Meeropol wrote the kyric and music for Strange Fruit and first sang with his wife Anne at a Madison Square Garden rally 1939. |
The movie poster for the melodramatic bio-pic Lady Sings the Blues. The extraordinary honors for Holiday’s masterpiece recording include: election to the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1978; Best Song of the Century by Time magazine in 1999; one of 50 recordings chosen that in 2002 to add to the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress; one of the Top 20 Political Songs by The New Statesman in 2010; as the #1 of 100 Songs of the South by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2011; and t was also included in the list of Songs of the Century by the Recording Industry of America and the National Endowment for the Arts. Once described a “declaration of war” and “the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement,” Strange Fruit horribly relevant yet again. |
Inventor Charles P. Strite with his patent number enjoying toast from his invention. |
A side opening exposed filament two slice toaster. The bread had to be flipped to toast both sides. |
The instruction booklet for the first single-slice Toastmaster for home use. |
The classic art deco design of the two-slice Toastmaster pop-up was little changed for decades. |
A vintage GE toaster oven and broiler. |
The first British sheet music for We'll Meet Again surprisingly did not feature Vera Lynn or an explicit war time context. That was quickly remedied in subsequent issues. |
Lynn sharing tea with soldiers and sailors from a YMCA special train car. The troops adored her. |
We'll Meet Again and Vera Lynn were invoked by the Queen in her rare special TV broadcast about the Coronavirus emergency. Just 9 years younger than Lynn, she was herself a World War II veteran. |
Sojourner Truth giving her famous speech at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in Akron in 1851. |
Sojourner Truth's association with the religious fraudster Robert Mathews led to her indictment for the murder of her previous employer. After a sensational trial se was aquitted. |
The front piece and title page of the first edition of Sojourner Truth's memoirs. |
Sojourner Truth in her later years. |
The Sojourner Truth Memorial statue in Florence, Michigan. |
Amelia Bloomer as a young woman in Seneca Falls, New York. |
Bloomer came into full ownership of the early newspaper for women The Lilly making her the first woman to publish a newspaper in the United States. |
Amelia Bloomer posed for this daguerreotype in the outfit that was begining to be named for her in 1851. |
Bloomers were ridiculed in cartoons on both side of the Atlantic. Most of them, like this one from England in 1851, suggested that wearing the garment would result in role reversal and the emasculation of men. |
Bloomers made something of a comeback after suffragist Lucy Stone extolled them at the World's Colombian Exposition in Chicago and got another boost from the bicycle craze around the turn of the 20th Century. |
Bloomer in Council Bluff, Iowa--no longer wearing Bloomers a a leading suffragist. |
The official seal of the re-chartered Civil Air Patrol in 1948. |
A World War II recruiting poster for the Civil Air Patrol under the Office of Civilian Defense. |
Flying mostly single engine private planes, CAP pilots served the cause by acting as couriers and occasional transportation of individual personnel, flying border surveillance, and participating in searchand rescue missions for the many military planes that went down in accidents over the U.S. But its most memorable role came in anti-submarine patrol and warfare. CAP costal patrol pilots flew 24 million miles, located 173 enemy submarines, attacked 57, hit 10 and sank two. Sixty-four members of the CAP, mostly pilots and observers, were killed on duty during the war.
A CAP plane making a bombing run in anti-submarine action. |
Despite the success of the program and the eagerness of war time volunteers to continue service, the Defense Department was reluctant to continue the program. They worried about civilian pilots coming under the jurisdiction of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and liability for civilian losses.
Dad drove through the long parade ground at Frances E. Warren Air Force Base, former Ft. Russell, a cavalry post, on my way to my first CAP meeting. |
A CAP Wyoming Wing shoulder patch. |
At my first official meeting I was thrilled when during inspection the Senior Member in charge told me not to come back without shaving the downy fuzz from my cheeks. Never felt so grown up.
The Wyoming Wing had one air plane--it's pilots flew their own air craft on many missions--a World War II Stinson L-5. This one is shown in it Army Air Corps markings. |
New Jersey CAP cadets shown in front of a C-47 transport in the 1950.s. A few years later our uniforms were much the same except we wore Air Force blue overseas caps and sometimes wore open collar short sleeve sun tans as well. |
Despite my shortcomings, I advanced through the ranks. Near the end of my second year I had made staff sergeant. And then because all but one of our Cadet officers transferred out with their parents on active Air Force duty, I was made temporary second lieutenant and appointed Flight Adjutant. I fairly burst with pride when I pinned the round pips of rank to the epaulets of a brand new full length Class A blouse.
During CAP summer encampment at Lowry AFB in Colorado we stayed in barracks like these and marched in formation to mess and classes. |
The original sheet music acknowleged Patrick Gilmore's band but credited his alias Louis Lambert as the writer. |
Patrick Gilmore and his band in the 1870's. |
The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem. |
An early 20th Century Decoration Day post card. |
Former slaves in Charleston, South Carolina form up for the dedication of the cemetery they built for the graves of Union prisoners of war on May 1, 1865. Some consider this the first Memorial Day. |
This dramatic and impressive equestrian monument to General John A. Logan, Civil War hero and first Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, sits atop a prominent mound in Grant Park in down town Chicago. Ironically it became a rallying point for anti-war demonstrators during the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the scene of a bloody police charge. |
A Confederate Memorial Day ceremony at the Woodington Universalist Church in Lenoir County, North Carolina 1920. |
Comemorated on a U.S. Postage stamp, Moina Mitchell was inspired by the popular poem In Flanders Fields to make and sell paper poppies to raise funds for the relief of Belgian and French refugees and war orphans in the Great War. After the war she approached the Veterans of Foreign Wars who began selling their Buddy Poppies in 1922. |
A Boy Scout planted flags on soldiers' graves at a National Cemetery. |
A golfing Trump superimposed over the Sunday New York Times front page filled with the names of Coronavirus victims. |
Almost everything is wrong with this 19th Century depiction of the sale of Manhattan Island to the Dutch under Peter Minuit including the squatting Canarsie tribe being depicted in Plains Indian attire and the trade goods offered by the Europeans. |
Peter Minuit--a colonial governor for both Dutch and Swedish mercantile firms. |
Descendants of the Canarsie sill living in Brooklyn participated in this 1937 re-enactment of their real estate scam at a public school. |
A traditional eastern Lanape Village before their culture was disrupted and they were forced out of their original range. |
Massacre of the Praying Indians by the Pennsylvania Militia and their native scouts. |
A Delaware couple in the late 19th Century, probably in Indian Territory (Oklahoma). Their dress was reflective of cultural contact with other tribes and adaptations in their generations of being pushed ever west. |
The sheet music for You are My Sunshine clearly identifies Jimmie Davis as one of the songwriters. |
Jimmie Davis in his first term as Louisiana Governor. |
It's not every low budget western from a Poverty Row studio that could boast of a sitting governor as one of its stars. |
In his second term as Governor Davis was still riding Sunshine to the Louisiana capitol building in Baton Rouge, the modern skyscraper build by Huey Long. |
The bombing of civilians at Guernica during the Spanish Revolution shocked the world but became the model of modern war. |
Israeli bombing of densely populated Gaza is terrorism on a grand scale in retaliation for the primitive terrorism of home made and largely ineffective rockets. |
A "grainy photo on page six of a million tires burning..." |
There may be taller buildings. There may even be more beautiful buildings. There are certainly more profitable usesfor prime Manhattan real estate. But maybe no building in New York City is more justifiably admired and beloved than the Main Branch of the New York Public Library which opened its doors for the first time on this date in 1911 at 5th Avenue and 42nd Street. It was recently named the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building in honor of the billionaire banker who pledged $100 million to restoration and repair of the structure. It hardly put a dent in his personal fortune. Schwarzman made headlines in 2012 when he compared President Barack Obama’s proposal to raise taxes to “Hitler’s invasion of Poland.” Luckily, no one outside his immediate family and his billionaire buddy former Mayor Michael Bloomberg ever uses that name for the iconic building. Several smaller libraries were consolidated into a new city institution in the late 19th Century. Big gifts from a bequest by former Governor and Democratic Presidential Candidate Samuel J. Tilden and from library patron and steel magnate Andrew Carnegie made possible the erection of an imposing building. A rough design of the building was developed by the System’s first Superintendent, Dr. John Shaw Billings. His vision was the basis for a well-publicized competition among the top architectsin the country. A relatively little known firm, Carrère and Hastings,won for its Beaux-Arts design. In this 1920's cartoon famous writers are depicted using the Reading Room. The most recognizable is James Joyce with the dramatic wing on his hat. Construction beganin 1897 and the cornerstone laid in 1902. It was the largest marble building ever constructed in the United States with walls three feet thick. It cost a hefty $9 million when that was an almost unimaginable sum. It took 14 years for master craftsmen, many of them European trained masons, to complete the building. It took more than a year just to move in and shelve on miles of book cases from the collections of the consolidated libraries. President William Howard Taft joined Governor John Alden Dix and Mayor William Jay Gaynor for the opening ceremonies. New York Herald coverage of the library dedication. The library was not only immediately one of the largest in the world, it was noted for an efficient system to produce volumes from the vast stacks and deliver them into the hands of patrons within moments. The first book checked out, a scholarly study of the ethical works of Friedrich Nietzsche and Leo Tolstoy in German was in the hands of the library patron in just 11 minutes. The most famous feature of the library is the grand and vast Rose Main Reading Room. Walls are lined with reference books, two rows of large tables accommodate readers, researchers, and students and the room is appointed with crystal chandeliers, brass lamps, and comfortable chairs. On sunny days the room is flooded with light from a row of large arched windows. The room has been featured in movies, described in novels, and memorialized in poemsby the likes of E. B. White and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
Almost as famous are the two proud lions which flank the wide stairsto the main entrance. Original named, Leo Astor and Leo Lenox in honor of two of the library’s principal founders, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia dubbed them Patienceand Fortitude during the Great Depression when the great reading rooms were filled with the out-of-workpassing the time away in self-improvementand when some of the homeless reportedly found ways to sleep in the stacks. One of the Library's famed pair of guardian lions. It took until the 1970 for continual acquisitions to fill up the generous space that had been included in the original designs. In the 1980’s the building was expanded by 125,000 square feet and literally miles of new shelf space by constructing an underground addition below Bryant Park. Work began in 2007 to clean and restore the begrimed and damaged exterior of the building and remodeling continued inside. More work with Schwarzman’s—and other donors—money continues to be done. Meanwhile Mayor Bloomberg slashed the operating budget of the Library, closed many branches, and reduced hours open to the public. Money for new acquisitions was cut to the bone. The grand and beloved edifice is in danger of rotting from the inside byneglect. |
Fats Waller hitting the keys at home. Note the portrait of the Black World War I officer on the wall--maybe the pilot who flew his ashes? |
Fats Waller at the piano in an iconic image--bowler hat and eubulent personality.. |
Waller recorded several sides on the Hammond electric organ helping to popularize the instrument in American homes. Earlier he had also recorded on pipe organs. |
Waller was an early radio star--one of the few Black performers to headline shows on network radio in the early 1930's. |
Waller took his radio studio band on tour as the nucleolus of Fats Waller and His Rhythm . |
Waller was always most at home in Harlem. Seen here grabbing a hot dog lunch off of a street peddler's cart. |
Waller on the set with Bill "Bojangles" Robinson on the set of Stormy Weather just weeks before his death. |
Waller's 1943 funeral at Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Jr.'s Absyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. |
The original Broadway cast album cover for Ain't Misbehavin' , the show that made Nell Carter and Andre DeShields stars. |
The album cover from Abbey Road might feature the most iconic image in rock and roll. |
Were Harrison and Lennon channeling old West gunfighters or Hasidic Jews in this promotional photo shoot for the Abbey Road album? |
In high cowboy blue jean splendor for Cheyenne Frontier Days circa 1958 or '59--Tim Murfin, next door neighbor Sharon Niddlekoff, Patrick, and cousin Linda Strom.. |
At an IWW CTA fair hike picket in Chicago in 1970--boot cut jeans and a fringed leather hippie sash for flare. |
The khaki years--walking with the Democrats in the 2015 Crystal Lake Independence Day parade. |
The Old Man back in jeans in the fall of 2018. |
Levi Strauss about the time he was establishing himself in San Francisco. |
Employees of Levi Strauss & Company circa 1880--mostly office workers and clerks but three men sitting on or standing by a crate are wearing the company's signature jeans both over and tucked into boots. |
Hard working miners seldom looked this neat in Levi's product as in this advertisement . Note denim blouse--the ancestor of today's popular jean jackets. |
Levi Strauss' trademark and label advertised the rugged strength of the pants. |
The Master of the Blue Jeans portrayed this beggar boy in a tattered jean jacket circa 1600. |
It turned out that James Dean's jeans made a more enduring fashion statement than his red jacket in Rebel Without a Cause. |
The continuing fashion for tattered and pre-ripped jeans remains a profound mystery to the Old Man. |
John Prine and Iris DeMent. |
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A late 19th Century official Post Office post card with decorative images. |
A Private Mailing Card authorized by Congress. |
An example of the hyper-local post cards issued by small town printers--an early 20th Century view of the Woodstock, Illinois Presbyterian Church, one of a series featuring every church in town. |
The fore runner of Mad Magazine's Alfred E. Newman was featured on several novelty post cards |
A hand tinted linen post card of the Wyoming State Capitol building in my old home town of Cheyenne. I have a framed copy hanging in my home study. |
A contemporary stock glossy print souvenir post card. |
The Animals in 1965-- Eric Burdon, vocals'Alan Price, Keyboards' Chas Chandler,bass; Hilton Valentine, guitar; John Steel, drums. |
Eric Burdon circa 1968. |
Burdon still going strong in 2018. |
We Gotta Get Out of this Place was voted the #1 by the troops themselves like the grunt in Ken Burns' and Lynn Novick’s documentary series The Vietnam War |
Stunned family and community members gather at the wreckage of Bath School. |
Andrew Kehoe and his wife Nellie in their Michigan farm house. |
The mangled wreckage of Kehoe;s truck after the second explosion. |
Headlines from the newspaper in near-by Lansing, Michigan. |
The Bath Consolidated School District building, the modern pride of the rural community, before the bombing. |
The sign Kehoe left on his fence to greet responders to the fires and explosions at his farm. |
The Serendipity Singers' self-titled debut album on Philips was a big hit. |
The group was a popular TV attraction. Here they host an episode of Hullabaloo. |
The New Main Street Singers featuring John Michael Higgins and Jane Lynch on the left in the movie A Mighty Wind were modeled on the Serendipity Singers. |
John Philip Holland in the conning tower of one of his submarines. |
David Bushells Turtle submarine |
Robert Fulton demonstrating the Nautilus for French officers in 1800. |
The ill-fated CSS Hunley on dock awaiting deployment. |
he Fenian Ram on display with a memorial to Holland. Her capabilities piqued the interest of the U.S. Navy. |
The launch of the HMS Holland I at Vickers Ship Yard, October 2, 1901. |
John Philip Holland late in life. |
The original sleeve from Utah Phillips' album Good Though on Philo Records, 1973, |
Utahy's 1974 songbook Starlight on the Rails & Other Songs. |
Utah Phillips a folk elder, Wobbly Old Timer, and transmitter of an oral tradition of resistance and solidarity. |
Pharmacist, teetotaler, and entrepreneur Charles Elmer Hires. |
An early ad for Hires' Root Beer--for just a quarter the box could make 5 gallons of root beer at home when mixed with water, sugar and yeast. |
As late as the 1920's Hires was still marketing his root beer in the home mix box along side of bottled and soda fountain versions. |
Snoopy quaffing a few root beers with Bill Mauldin was an annual Veterans Day feature in Peanuts. |
We owe the now very hard to find root beer in a frosty mug of A&W and other popular drive in root beer stands. |
Somewhere Over the Rainbow collaborators Yip Harburg (left) and Harold Arlen. |
Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale sang Over the Rainbow as a tornado threatened in the opening black-and-white sequence of The Wizard of Oz in 1939. |
L. Frank Baum looking far more prosperous than he ever was. No matter how much money the Oz books and their stage adaptions made him, he promptly lost the cash in one failed business venture after another. |
Baum as a very unhappy military school cadet in 1868. |
Baum--young actor and playwright, 1881 |
In 1900 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz made Baum famous. The characters were symbolic--the Scarecrow stood for embattled farmers, the Tin Man industrial workers, and the Cowardly Lion the working class unaware of its own power and cowed mirage of invincibility of the robber Barron ruling class--the Wizard himself. |
His Magesty the Scarecrow of Oz was one of the most successful of the films written and directed by Baum for his own movie studio. The earliest version of Wonderful Wizard of Oz came to the screen in 1902 and there was another version in 1910. After Baum's death comic Larry Semon starred in another version in 1925, all long before the MGM Technicolor musical extravaganza in 1939. |
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When engaging in seasonal fishing in Norther California lakes, Pomo bands built tule reed structures like this. Elsewhere the built a variety of crude huts out of whatever materials were available. |
Nathaniel Lyon as a Brigadier General and Commander of the Department of the West during the Civil War. |
As brief as it is, the original Bloody Island historical maker was riddled with errors and glorified the massacre as a battle. Protesters have smeared the marker with red paint in protest. A more historically correct marker was erected near the passing highway in 2005 by the state of California and the decedents of a Pomo girl who survived the massacre by hiding in the lake and breathing through a tule reed. |
A more historically correct marker was erected near the passing highway in 2005 by the state of California and the decedents of a Pomo girl who survived the massacre by hiding in the lake and breathing through a tule reed. |
A re-issue of Garnett's first album more prominantly featured the title of her big hit. |
Garnett was a perfect '60's groovy chick with big talent. |
Robert Smalls was just 23 years old when he stole the CSS Planter and delivered her, the crew, and his family to the Union. |
The Planter as a Confederate supply ship and converted to a gun boat commanded by Robert Smalls in U.S. Army service. |
Smalls and members of his crew, including his brother, were celebrated in the North, especially in the Radical Republican press. |
Prosperous businessman, respected South Carolina Republican leader, and four times United States Congressman Robert Smalls. |
Smalls at a 1911 Republican Party event. |
Florence Nightingale--The Lady with the Lamp of the Crimean War. |
Clara Barton, America's Angel of the Battlefield, was inspired by Nightingale but very different from her. |
Florence Nightingale as a teen age beauty about the time she renounced romance and declared her determination to pursue nursing. |
Nightingale rejected the services of Jamaican traditional healer/doctor Mary Seacole who made it to the Crimea on her own and served much closer to the front lines than Florence. After brief recognition the memory of her service was nearly erased by Nightngale's fame. |
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Florence Nightingale after her return from the war. After the Queen herself she was the most famous and admired woman in Britain. |
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Irving Berlin--American master song smith. |
Berlin in costume in some sort of parade in New York City in 1911, his break-out year with Alexanders Rag Time Band. |
The Easter Parade number with Clifton Webb and Marilyn Miller from As Thousands Cheer on Broadway in 1933. |
Berlin and bride Dorothy depart on their ill-fated honeymoon to Cuba. |
Berlin and his second wife Ellin MacKay at their New York City Hall wedding--the beginning of an enduring 63-year marriage. |
Berlin never gave up his love of singing his own songs. This is from a 1930's outdoor concert and radio broadcast. |
Peace organizations have used Julia Ward Howe's Proclamation with material like this circulated by the Peace Alliance. |
Anna Jarvis of West Virgina was the true Mother of Mother's Day |
Another Mother for Peace, most famous for this iconic poster, used JuliaWard Howe's Proclamation during the Vietnam Era. |
The Black Lives of UU's Mother's Day bail out campaign had become an annual event. |
Front line maternity ward medical staff bring comfort to new moms who had to give birth without the partners and families during Coronavirus quarenteen. |
Frainkie Laine was featured on the sheet music for That Lucky Old Sun. |
A grizzled Johnny Cash in his late years. |
Alexander Popov--Russia's claimant as the inventor of radio. |
A recreation of Popov's Lightning Detector. |
Popov's main rival for the title of Father of Radio--Marconi with his radiotelegraph equipment. |
A poster for a 1948 Soviet bio-pic about Popov references the dramatic communication with the stranded General-Admiral Apraksin. |
One of several Soviet era or Russian postage stamps honoring Popov and/or Radio Day. |
The original Disney theatrical poster for Song of the South featured only the white actors and cartoon characters so the film could be advertised and shown in the segregated South. |
Ingrid Bergman presented James Baskett with his Special Oscar. |
A French post card depicting the German surrender at Reims from a painting by Lucien Jonas for the Musee de l' Armee in Paris. |
Celebrating after the German surrender at Reims were General Ivan Susloparov, General Walter Bedell Smith, Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Royal Air Force Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder. |
When the news of the surrender broke there were joyous street celebrations like this one in London. |
Isolated German units continued to surrender for about a week. |
The less dramatic and nearly forgotten final official end to World War II with the signing of Treaty on the Final Settlement with respect to Germany in 1990. Seen Left to right: Roland Dumas (France), Eduard Shevardnadze (USSR), James Baker (USA), Mikhail Gorbachev (USSR), Hans-Dietrich Genscher (FRG), Lothar de Maizière (GDR) and Douglas Hurd (United Kingdom). |
Lerner & Loewe's struggles to get Camelot on Broadway were chronicled in a Time cover piece. |
The original Broadway Camelot poster. |
Thanks to newsreels, dozens of photographers, and the chilling live radio coverage, for the first time Americans and people from around the world were witnesses to a great disaster. The impact was profound. |
German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin invented and developed the dirigible--a semi-rigid lighter than aircraft capable of long distance flight and significant lift for military, passenger, or freight service. |
The Navy's Macon was an aircraft carrier which could launch and retrieve Sparrow Hawk scout biplanes from the exterior platforms on either side of the ship. The idea was to be able to cover wide areas giving the Navy long distance eyes in search of any enemy fleet, in anti-submarine operations, or for search and rescue. She and her sister the Akron represented the pinnacle of military development of the dirigibles. |
Last triumphant moments for the sleek symbol of Nazi pride--the Hindenburg soars over New York City on May 6, 1937. |
His clothing burned off Walter Banholzer is led away for medical assistance by a Navy ground crewman and a Zepplin company steward, both as shocked, stunned, and traumatized as the survivors of the crash. |
Rev. Dan Larsen at the pulpit of the old Congregational Unitarian Church in Woodstock for the dedication of the new UU sources windows in the social room. |
Rev. Dan Larsen helping to lead McHenry County's first immigrant justice march from Woodstock Square to the County Government complex with Magier Rivera and Carlos Acosta. |
Rev. Dan Larsen leading a silent march from the Congregational Unitarian Church to the Woodstock Square Civil War Monument in 2012. Larsen always made the Memorial Day services about all the war dead--veterans, non-combatants, collateral damage, and even enemies united in death. |
Rev. Larsen asked “How Do We Support Our Troops?” He argued that, for him, the best way to support the troops is to end the war so they “don’t have to be killed and don’t have to kill.” |
During the Tree of Life Congregations campaign for marriage equality, Minister Emeritus Dan Larsen (center in tan coat) participated in a road-side vigil in McHenry. |
Dan Larsen in a Tree of Life directory photo. |
The sleeve to Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's single Ohio. |
Holly Near in the mid 1970's. |
Ohio National Guardmen take aim on retreating student demonstrators on the Kent State campus. Note the officer with the pistol who may have given an order or signal to tire. |
John Filo's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of 15 year-old Florida runaway Mary Ann Vecchio kneeling over the body of Jeffrey Miller. |
The paperback edition of James A. Michener's early book on the tragedy. |
A poster for the May 4th student strike against the invasion of Cambodia and on-going War in Vietnam. |
The Official Kent State University commemoration logo. |
Students rallied on the Northwestern campus. The night of May 4 they erupted onto Sheridan Road and erected barricades that stayed in place for days. Some students from near-by Kendall College went over to join them. |
This banner hanging from an occupied campus building somewhere in America summarized the mood of outrage and defiance that swept campuses. |
A peaceful Kent State student strike march much like the one in Chicago. |
Fugitive slaves following the North Star to freedom. Black spirituals like Down to the River to Pray and Follow the Drinking Gourd contained coded instructions. |
Down to the River has been associated with full emersion baptism. |
Tiffany Goodrick. |
An Irish Beltane bon fire. |
The Earth Goddess and the Green Man. |
Loreena McKennitt. |