Remember Seth Luther
UPDATE April 29, 2013: Today is the 150th anniversary of Seth Luther’s death. Since last year’s post, records have been found locating Luther possible final resting place in Brattleboro, Vermont. A WIKI page is in formation, and other plans to follow. Here is a great link to a 1974 essay by on Luther by Carl [...]
Happy 73rd Birthday To ‘This Land Is Your Land’
Woody Guthrie may be best known for rambling the ribbon of highway between the wheat fields and the Redwood forests but on February 23, 1940 he was on the New York island, and he penned the greatest ever American anthem. “The sun comes shining as I was strolling The wheat fields waving and the dust [...]
People’s History: Roger Williams Arrives in Boston
Roger Williams, the godfather of church/state separation and the founder of Rhode Island, arrives in the New World on this day in 1631. Sometimes called the world’s first abolitionist, the Ocean State inventor is world famous for pretty much inventing the concept of secular government. He was just 29 when he arrived in Boston and [...]
RI’s Charter First To Codify Religious Freedom
A “lively experiment” indeed. Rhode Island’s colonial charter, which celebrates its 350 anniversary this June, “holds a unique place in the evolution of human rights in the modern world,” says Rhode Island College emeritus professor Dr. Stanley Lemons. “When King Charles II approved the Charter in July 1663,” Lemons writes, “it marked the first time [...]
Remember the Battle of the Gravestones in Saylesville
In 1934, during the height of the Depression and one of the largest national strikes in history, 4 unarmed Rhode Island workers were killed by State Police and Militia Men called out by Governor TF Green to protect the Saylesville Bleachery in Lincoln, Rhode Island. It wasn’t a “strike,” he declared, but a “communist insurrection.” [...]
Labor History Society to Honor URI’s Molloy Tonight
If you believe singer Utah Phillips, the long memory is the most radical notion in this country today. It is in that vein some of us gather tonight in Providence at the Roger Williams Park Casino to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Rhode Island Labor History Society. For a quarter century Rhode Island’s organizers, [...]
Why Vote Republican?
Whenever I want to take a break from reality, I go and read a column by RI “Young” Republican Chairman Travis Rowley. Now, if you’ve managed to avoid the writings of this Brown graduate, I applaud you. But to give you the idea of his writing, it’s just the right balance of out-of-touch, denigrating, arrogant, [...]
It’s Black History Month and the Sankofa Bird Speaks
History is a clock that people use to tell their political and cultural time of day. It is also a compass that people use to find themselves on the map of human geography. History tells a people where they’ve been and what they’ve been; where they are and what they are. History tells a people [...]
Labor Day Address
1934 was a tumultuous year for the Labor Movement in the United States, as the country continued to struggle its way out of the Great Depression. The Labor battles that raged in 1934 were preceded a year earlier with a sense of hope and promise for workers struggling for the necessities of survival against brutal [...]
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