Thomas Dorr – RI Future

Today the Senate Judiciary Committee will be hearing testimony on Senate Bill 2641, which would repeal the Voter ID law. I will be testifying on the bill, and here’s what I’ll be saying:

Outside the Senate Chambers stands a new statue of former Rhode Island Governor Thomas Wilson Dorr. Arguably, next to Roger Williams, no Rhode Islander has done more for the cause of human rights, freedom and democracy. In 1840, a mere 8,621 men voted in the presidential election, because at that time only white male landowners had the right to vote. In response, Dorr lead a rebellion, which was unsuccessful in that he never won a battle, but he did win the war. Due to his efforts, voting rights were expanded and in 1844 12,296 white men were allowed to vote, whether they owned land or not.

Dorr suffered for his actions. He was sentenced to prison, and though he was later released and pardoned, his health was broken and he died at the age of 49. Thomas Wilson Dorr literally gave his life for the cause of enfranchisement.

In 2012, Nate Silver, the statistician who consistently astounds with the accuracy of his election predictions, estimated that the Rhode Island Voter ID law effectively disenfranchised .8% of voters, which translates to 6,704 voters losing their franchise. In essence, this body, the Rhode Island State Senate, in cooperation with the Rhode Island House of Representatives and the signature of Governor Chafee, disenfranchised nearly twice the number of voters Rhode Island hero Thomas Wilson Dorr gave his life to enfranchise.

Every day the Senators in this room have the opportunity to pass that new statue outside the Senate Chambers where, I put it to you, the steely gaze of Thomas Wilson Dorr is harshly judging you from across time. The Voter ID law stands in sharp contrast to the spirit and history of Rhode Island. I strongly urge this body to repeal this law.

A Facebook friend of mine posted this piece of crap BuzzFeed list apparently sponsored by Mini USA purporting to be “11 Awesome Facts You Never Knew About Rhode Island”. Of course, there’s tons of cool stuff here, but whoever is in Mini USA’s research department couldn’t be bothered to even correctly pull facts off of our Wikipedia page.

I figured since I actually live here and actually LOVE my state, I could do better. So here’s 11 Actually Awesome Facts About Rhode Island. We know most of them, but this is for non-Rhode Islanders.

1. The Narragansett language is the origin of words like “moose”, “squash” and “pow-wow”. You can thank them yourself for having such great words if you’re ever in the area.

If you're British, you call this a "marrow" (via Wikimedia Commons) — If you’re British, you call this a “marrow”. “Squash” is objectively better. (via Wikimedia Commons)

2. RI has a state drink, and it’s coffee milk (suck it, Indiana). It’s made like chocolate milk, you mix syrup into the milk. We have multiple brands of coffee syrup. You can try Autocrat and Eclipse by Autocrat, or try Dave’s Coffee Syrup.*

Autocrat and Eclipse are both made by Autocrat (via Wikimedia Commons) — I see there’s “gourmet” coffee syrup as well. (via Wikimedia Commons)

3. The shore is publicly-owned for all Rhode Islanders, according to our constitution. The shore in this case goes up to the “mean high water line” although there’s a debate about that. In short, in RI, you can’t own the ocean.

scarborough beach — It’s a constitutional right in RI to gather seaweed from the shore. (via RI Dept. of Parks and Recreation)

4. One of our governors invented sideburns. They’re named after him. But backwards.

Ambrose Burnside. You wish you had those sideburns. (via Wikimedia Commons)

5. Pell Grants are named after Sen. Claiborne Pell, who was the primary sponsor in the U.S. Senate. So millions of Americans can read BuzzFeed articles like Mini USA’s about RI and go “do they not know what ‘awesome’ means?” thanks to Sen. Pell.

6. The RI State House has the fourth largest self-supporting dome in the whole world; after St. Peter’s Basilica, the Minnesota State Capitol, and the Taj Mahal.* The dome was the third largest when it was completed, but by then, Minnesota had already got jealous.

RI State House (north facade) — You might remember it from the movie Amistad; it played the U.S. Capitol. A building of many talents. (via Wikimedia Commons)

7. We have the First Baptist Church in America. Like, it’s literally the first. So you can go to your first Baptist church in wherever you live in not-Rhode Island, and while it might be the first in your area, it’s not The First. Also, first synagogue in America as well.

Providence First Baptist Church — (via Wikimedia Commons)

8. Thomas Dorr, the guy who led a rebellion against our actual government? We count him as our 16th governor. He’s even got a special governor decoration on his grave.

Thomas W Dorr — Try to do what he did, and see if they call you Governor after. (via Wikimedia Commons)

9. Rhode Island and Providence Plantations isn’t just a quirky, longest name for a state. It also describes the first two areas under British rule in the state. Rhode Island (now called Aquidneck Island to distinguish it; yes, Rhode Island is an island) and Providence Plantations (now a number of towns and cities in the northern part of the state). For a long time, we couldn’t agree on a capital, and just swapped it between the two places, until 1901.

Aquidneck Island — That’s the official “Rhode Island” in red. Whether it’s named after the Isle of Rhodes is debatable. (via Wikimedia Commons)

10. Rhode Islanders burned a British warship and shot one of its officers in 1772, over a year and a half before Bostonians were inspired to toss tea into harbors.

Gaspee Affair — Now that is an act of war. (via Wikimedia Commons)

11. If you confuse Rhode Island with Long Island, a good Rhode Islander will ruthlessly lead you on as though Long Island is a new state. Virtually every Rhode Islander has a story like this.

Confused Guy — Yeah, I’ve had this look before. (via Wikimedia Commons)

*EDITS: An earlier version forgot about Dave’s Coffee Syrup, and incorrectly stated that there were only two brands of coffee syrup. Thanks to Kathy DiPina for the catch! And RI Grad also points out that I wrote unsupported instead of self-supported.

Tag: Thomas Dorr

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