Stories Rarely Told

In honor of the Washington Monument being reopened to the public today after having been closed since the 2011 earthquake which damaged the edifice's internal structure, I would like to draw your attention to the similarities between the monument and my Keystone project.

Mainly the fact that they're both pretty cool.

But, even further than that, I would like to say that working on my project, while it has been frustrating at times, has always been a pleasure and a great growth experience for me. Just like the Washington Monument will always be a presence on the National Mall, my Keystone project will always be present in my life. Also, just as one can see the differences in the materials used in construction of the monument, one can easily see the development of my skill and my intent as this project has evolved. I've gone from seemingly random stories that I would like to tell (such as the Titanic canines one) to truly social justice-oriented posts (the Weathermen, anybody?). I believe that I have grown as a historian and as a writer and I can say that this project has been absolutely instrumental in my academic growth over the past two years.

I have now presented and submitted the final iteration of my project, so as I'm drawing it all to a close, I would just like to thank all of you who went on this journey with me. I hope I inspired somebody to think a little differently about history and storytelling. But I would also like to communicate to future me the enthusiasm I feel right now for history and for the betterment of the education system in general. 

Never stop feeling this passion. 

So, in conclusion, thank you for supporting me on this epic journey. Who knows, I may just pick this up again over the summer. In the meantime, please enjoy the presentation I gave on my project at my Honors Humanities Keystone presentation. 

There's quite a lot of pressure on me here. You see...this is number fifty of my goal of fifty blog posts. That's right-after this little gem, I'm done. I think I've talked a lot about storytelling and the importance of storytelling on my blog thus far, so I thought I'd continue that one last time by telling a story about one of my favorite storytellers-Jack Kerouac.

The boy who would become Beat Generation legend Jack Kerouac was born Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac in March of 1922 in a little industrial town called Lowell, Massachusetts. Lowell had once been a thriving textile-producing city, but by the 1920s it was dying and sinking into poverty. Jack's parents were immigrants from Quebec, Canada: so Jack spoke French before he did English. In 1926, Jack's beloved older brother, Gerard, died of rheumatic fever. This was a traumatizing experience for Jean-Louis that would both inspire and haunt his creative work. 

In 1939, upon his completion of high school, Jack was to attend Columbia University with a football scholarship. There was a prerequisite for a year of preparatory school, however; and Jack had to move to Brooklyn to attend the Horace Mann School for Boys. At the school, he became very involved in the artsy scene, dedicating himself to jazz music and creative writing.

In 1940, Jack was ready for Columbia. He trained and played some football, but broke his leg in the first major game and was relegated to the bench for the rest of the year. When the coach refused to let Jack start playing at the start of his second year despite the fact that he was completely healed, Jack quit the team and also quit college. 

He moved around a lot over the course of the next year, trying to figure out what he was going to make of himself. He went all up and down New England, tried out DC, and even ended up working on the construction crew for the Pentagon in Arlington. In 1942, Jack enlisted in the Navy. He was discharged after six months because he really did not like it (come on now, who's surprised by that?), but remained in the merchant marines for the duration of WWII.

While Jack was in the merchant marines, he was spending time in New York City again, around his old school, Columbia. It was here that he made friends with Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs; and together they would form the crux of the "Beat" poets and writers of the 1950s. 

Ginsberg and Burroughs inspired and encouraged Jack to write as much as he could, and in this time period he actually wrote a piece, his first, called Town and City. As all of his work tended to be, this piece relied very heavily on autobiographical elements. It was well-received by the literary community, and this was very good for Jack.

It was also in this time period when Jack befriended Neal Cassady and developed his spiritual, journeying side. Jack and Neal went on frequent cross-country trips together while Jack tried to develop his writing style. Something he experimented with was an unbroken train of thought-Neal liked to use this style in his letters to Jack, and Jack in turn emulated it in his writing. On these trips, Jack started writing a novel on a scroll-a long, unbroken piece of parchment to truly bring to life the long, unbroken stream that is the human train of thought. When all was said and done, Jack Kerouac had written On the Road in a time span of three weeks. 

When the Beats returned to New York, they were faced with great difficulty in finding a publisher for this epic work of Jack's. Everybody turned up their noses at the scroll! The novel was eventually published in 1957 and when it was, it became popular instantaneously. 

It was because of this overnight success that Jack was able to enjoy the accomplishment of his following works: the Dharma Bums and the Subterraneans were both published in 1958, Dr. Sax, Mexico City Blues and Maggie Cassidy came out in 1959, Book of Dreams in 1961, Big Sur in 1962, Visions of Gerard in 1963, and Vanity of Duluoz in 1968. All of Jack's works were inspired by something he had experienced in his life. For example, the Dharma Bums follows Jack and Zen poet Gary Snyder on a spiritual, soul-searching journey across the mountains of California. And Visions of Gerard is a novel all about what would have happened in the life of Jack's brother Gerard had he not died at the early age of nine. 

Sadly, though, Jack did not enjoy his new-found fame. He was one of those guys that produced art simply to produce art, so when he realized that his material was being commercialized and spectacleized, he began losing interest in the whole institution. He had also not enjoyed much success in the marriage department: he was married three times in the span of fifteen years. 

He began drinking heavily and producing more dismal and negative works. Jack also abandoned his life on the road in the late 1950s to return to the East Coast to be with his mother. The overbearing, very Catholic presence of his mother caused Jack to become more and more politically conservative (he was a vocal supporter of the War in Vietnam), which was ironic because the hippies of the 1960s were born of Jack's Beats of the 1950s. And we all know the hippies didn't approve of the war. Jack also became increasingly more Catholic in his last years, abandoning his Buddhist beliefs developed in his years of spiritual journeying. 

Jack moved with his mother and wife, Stella, to St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1969. Jack died later that year of an internal hemorrhage exacerbated by years of heavy drinking. He was 47 years old. 

Why am I talking about Jack Kerouac on this blog? He's not particularly historically significant, nor is his story especially unique or enlightening. Well...I like him. First of all, he mentions my hometown of Frederick, MD in On the Road, and the first time I read it it made me supremely excited. Jack Kerouac apparently bought a belt from a hobo in my hometown!

But what's more, I find inspiration in the fact that Jack Kerouac used his life so much in his work. As it should have become clear to you over the last 49 posts, I really like to draw from my life and my experiences to help me with my material-even if it's more non-fiction than creative. I think it is really helpful to take into consideration that a little bit of the writer's soul is in every piece of writing because they dedicate themselves to it. And that is really how I feel about this blog.

You remember how I say that we need to know where we've been to know where we're headed? Well, for me, the bringing together of these different stories has kind of been like the "where have I been?" process for me. I'm figuring out my past and what causes me to be me.

I also appreciate Jack's free prose style of writing. Just like his work, the human brain has a constant train of thoughts. And consider history in this context-it is the long, unbroken scroll on which On the Road was written.  The scroll, just like history, goes on and on. It doesn't have a break or a page turn...it just continues. 

History truly is a story. And for us to know history, we must have storytellers that can find it within themselves to provide a little bit of soul to the reader so that they can somehow find enlightenment.

I hope that I have been able to be that enlightenment for you: I have certainly put my soul into the telling of history; and whether or not it's a good thing, I'm not stopping any time soon. 

Sources:

http://www.beatmuseum.org/kerouac/jackkerouac.html

http://www.biography.com/people/jack-kerouac-9363719?page=3

http://www.jackkerouac.com/home/bio/

http://www2.lib.unc.edu/rbc/Kerouac-exhib/bio.html

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/330760.The_Subterraneans

And now on to another universally-admired American president who in reality did some pretty questionable things!

Ahh, Teddy Roosevelt. Perhaps one of his greatest and most long-lasting achievement was the inspiration and construction of the Panama Canal, which served as a great help to shipping and trade for the United States in the twentieth century.  The location of the project is simply perfect, as it prevents boats going from one shore of the US to the other from going around the tip of South America. Not only was this good for trade and general transport-it would also prove to be incredibly convenient in a time of war as American warships could also travel from coast to coast in a much shorter amount of time. 

So let's talk about how this whole thing happened. 

First of all, a little background: the US and England had been in talks to construct a canal in Panama in the mid-1800s, but after coming to the conclusion that they were both too competitive to work on the project together, they signed a treaty saying that neither would pursue a Panamanian canal any further. France, however, stepped in and began construction on a canal in the 1880s. The project eventually failed, because of the disease that befell many of the French laborers in the new tropical climate. 

When Teddy Roosevelt took office in 1901, he decided that he would renew his interest in asserting American dominance in Latin America and began talks with Colombia to cut a chunk out of Panama (at this time the area that belonged to the Panamanians was owned by Colombia). The Colombian government, unsurprisingly, said of course not and left it at that.

Roosevelt then embarked on a campaign to make Colombia give the US the land for the canal. He tried to negotiate with increasingly larger amounts of money and even flashed his "big stick:" the American fleet of warships all along South America. Eventually, when he realized that none of this was very effective, Roosevelt decided to do what American leaders would eventually become known for-sponsoring an insurrection leading to independence of a nation which somehow benefits the United States more than it really does the new country. 

Panama, with great military and financial aid from the United States, declared independence from Colombia in 1903. Of course, the new government was much more fond of the US than was the old government, so they heartily approved negotiation of a deal to build a canal in their territory. 

From that point on, chaos pretty much took over the Canal Zone (the US-controlled area of Panama). The leaders of the project remembered how much the French had suffered due to disease and change of climate and so employed approximately 30,000 workers from South America and the West Indies, who were accustomed to such weather, to prevent a similar failure from happening to them. 

The workers from the Caribbean were the most horribly treated of the bunch and were forced to do hard, laborious jobs the whites would never do. American workers, on the other hand, were always given the prime positions and were even allowed to bring their wives and children with them to the Canal Zone. Their living quarters were much nicer than that of the native laborers. It was the belief that all of these incentives would make the Americans behave like Americans should and refrain from drinking, prostitution, and all that. 

A tactic which the American overseers used to quickly build the structure was to group workers by nationality and use their cultural distrust of each other to make them compete-thus finishing the canal more quickly. It was effective, but it was certainly dirty. The people living in the Canal Zone were not happy with their conditions and their states of mind were not conducive to a pleasant work environment. 

In 1906, Teddy Roosevelt traveled to the Canal Zone, making him the first sitting president to make a diplomatic trip outside the US. He was very pleased with the progress the $400 million endeavor was making, and was especially pleased with the fact he was able to escape the United States for a while to let some nasty rumors surrounding his morality as a leader die down. 

The canal was built from 1904-1914. After the project's completion in 1914, the economic benefits were many for the United States, but very few for the Panamanians who had given their territory to make the entire thing possible. The canal even made life in Panama more difficult because it split the country in two sections, causing there to be a lack of communication and coherence between the halves. Thanks, America. 

So, just as with the previous post regarding Woodrow Wilson and the Fourteen Points, I think the story of Teddy Roosevelt and the construction of the Panama Canal is one that is idealized in the American psyche-but shouldn't necessarily be.

A lot of people worked really really hard to complete the project-or even died!-without enjoying any sort of reward or benefit from their labor. The US sponsored a revolution that did not necessarily have to happen when it did, thus weakening the resolve of the new Panamanian state. There were a lot of good things that came for the US out of the Panama canal...but nobody else enjoyed those successes.

I have said it before and I'll say it again: it is so important to have a clear understanding of what happened in the past. The popular retellings of stories do not usually reflect the actual series of events-but we, as informed Americans, should try as hard as we can to gain the real knowledge and know the true story. When we understand/accept/own up to the awful things our country has done in the past, we will be able to move forward and create new bonds and hopefully prevent atrocities from happening again. Because we need to accept history and move past it to improve.

Sources:

http://history.state.gov/milestones/1899-1913/panama-canal

http://millercenter.org/president/roosevelt/essays/biography/5

http://www.manythings.org/voa/history/149.html

http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/21st-century-pacifist/2012/sep/17/teddy-roosevelt-wanted-panama-canal-and-how-he-got/

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/teddy-roosevelt-travels-to-panama 

http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~hbf/panama.htm

http://geography.about.com/od/specificplacesofinterest/a/panamacanal.htm

http://www.ushistory.org/us/44g.asp

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/books/review/Oshinsky-t.html

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/southeastern_geographer/v053/53.1.carse.html

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/65017/julie-greene/the-canal-builders-making-americas-empire-at-the-panama-canal

I was a Model UN kid in high school. Well...I'm still technically a Model UN kid in college, but the officers of our organization are a tad dysfunctional so we never do anything. Anyway...in our education about the United Nations, we always got the same spiel: the United Nations were modeled after a short-lived intranational organization called the League of Nations, formed after Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points in 1918. 

Because the UN is good and we all know the League of Nations had good intentions...the Fourteen Points and the goals it set out must have been good too, right? Well...technically yes.

But something that is never really addressed is the fact that Woodrow Wilson never intended for the Fourteen Points to apply to non-white peoples struggling for independence from their colonizers. He was also incredibly racist. And sexist, but that's off-topic for right now. 

Here are Wilson's many points, originating from this page:

1. No more secret agreements ("Open covenants openly arrived at").

2. Free navigation of all seas.

3. An end to all economic barriers between countries.

4. Countries to reduce weapon numbers.

5. All decisions regarding the colonies should be impartial

6. The German Army is to be removed from Russia. Russia should be left to develop her own political set-up.

7. Belgium should be independent like before the war.

8. France should be fully liberated and allowed to recover Alsace-Lorraine

9. All Italians are to be allowed to live in Italy. Italy's borders are to be "along clearly recognisable lines of nationality."

10. Self-determination should be allowed for all those living in Austria-Hungary.

11. Self-determination and guarantees of independence should be allowed for the Balkan states.

12. The Turkish people should be governed by the Turkish government. Non-Turks in the old Turkish Empire should govern themselves.

13. An independent Poland should be created which should have access to the sea.

14. A League of Nations should be set up to guarantee the political and territorial independence of all states

This all sounds really great. Self-determination for all! Unless, of course, you were not a white-skinned European. 

To truly explore this topic further, we must travel back in time, to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 (where the Treaty of Versailles was written) after WWI. All of the major countries of the world are seated around a table, with the more powerful Western nations at the head, of course, and the not as powerful, non-white nations are seated at the back. Countries in attendance included China, Panama, Nicaragua, "Siam," and Brazil. 

And these smaller countries are looking to US President Wilson as a hero because of the ideas he delineated in his Fourteen Points address. Self-Determination for all nations? Yes! They were looking forward to seeing Germany's African colonies gain their independence and set a new precedence for interaction between the developed world and the developing world.

Well, what ended up happening was that Wilson was kind of disgusted that the smaller nations viewed him as a champion of the rights of self-determination. He supported the independence movements of European countries, like Italy, Poland, and Austria-Hungary. But because China, Panama, Nicaragua, and Thailand were non-white, they did not deserve these rights. Instead, according to Wilson's thinking, they needed the white man to take care of them. 

Japan even attempted to pass a Racial Equality Proposal to be inserted in the charter for the League of Nations. 11 countries voted to approve the motion, and voted against it. But the chair of the committee, the ever-accepting Woodrow Wilson, overturned the legislation and said that enough opposition in the international body as a whole had "manifested" and the proposal should be killed simply because of that.

Additionally, Germany's colonies in Africa did not gain independence either. They were given to the League as "joint properties." And Korea was not able to be rescued from Japan, despite the promise of Wilson that he would fight for the rights of all peoples with the Treaty of Versailles. And China was denied its requests of land and sovereignty as well just because the people looked different there than the ones in England. 

I think we can all concur that Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points were incredibly hypocritical. He promised one thing to the oppressed peoples of the world (which was self-determination), but failed to provide it to them.

History has painted Woodrow Wilson as a good guy and a Progressive, when in reality he was simply very racist; and though he helped bring the Western world together following WWI, he did not feel the need to incorporate the previously colonized nations into the world of power. So, by modern standards, he was really not a good guy and should not be looked up to as a model leader. 

And therein lies another danger of not carefully studying history: if you didn't know any better, you might think that President Wilson actually progressed the development of worldly society when in fact he hindered it. We must take care to understand the truth of what happened before we were around in order to have a valid understanding of the progression of people and common thought. 

Which is why everybody should care about history and take history classes and just generally be interested in what came before!

Sources:

http://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/woodrow-wilson

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/woodrow_wilson1.htm

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/wilson14.asp

http://www.shafr.org/teaching/draft-classroom-documents/wilsons-14-points/

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/doc31.htm

http://althistory.wikia.com/wiki/Fourteen_Points

http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/chinese-students-protest-treaty-versailles-may-fourth-incident-1919

http://edsitement.neh.gov/lesson-plan/great-war-evaluating-treaty-versailles

http://www.fsmitha.com/h2/ch09-impact.htm

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/345274/progressive-racism-paul-rahe

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_Equality_Proposal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_participants_to_Paris_Peace_Conference,_1919

Alright. So I've been a Girl Scout for basically my entire life. I have truly valued and appreciated the skills I have learned from the organization...in addition to cookies, we really do a lot of work to empower girls to embrace leadership positions and work with others to achieve common goals. I also know how to do super cool things like comfort young children after they've skinned their knee, sing the dreaded "Peanut Song," and tie a bandanna 200 different ways. I also know how to lead a proper flag burning ceremony, as well as how you're supposed to treat the flag when you're posting and retiring the colors. You know, I should really start putting this stuff on my resume.

And the point of me saying all this relates to the fact that we sing the song "Taps" every night during encampments. (I also live directly across from the Ft. Detrick army base and they play Taps every night at 10 pm so I have literally grown up hearing the song every night.) The story we had always been told about the origin of Taps was always so interesting to me, so I decided that I was going to do a post about it to enlighten my many readers as to the emotional history behind this staple tune....but upon my conducting some research, it turns out this story is not true!

I was dissapointed, but glad I was able to learn what really happened. Here's the commonly-known mythical origin of Taps, from this site:

It all began in 1862 during the Civil War, when Union Army Captain Robert Ellicombe was with his men near Harrison's Landing in Virginia. The Confederate Army was on the other side of the narrow strip of land.  During the night, Captain Ellicombe heard the moan of a soldier who lay mortally wounded on the field. Not knowing if it was a Union or Confederate soldier, the captain decided to risk his life and bring the stricken man back for medical attention.  Crawling on his stomach through the gunfire, the captain reached the stricken soldier and began pulling him toward his encampment. When the captain finally reached his own lines, he discovered it was actually a Confederate soldier, but the soldier was dead.  The captain lit a lantern.  Suddenly, he caught his breath and went numb with shock. In the dim light, he saw the face of the soldier. It was his own son. The boy had been studying music in the South when the war broke out. Without telling his father, he had enlisted in the Confederate Army.  The following morning, heartbroken, the father asked permission of his superiors to give his son a full military burial despite his enemy status.  His request was partially granted. The captain had asked if he could have a group of Army band members play a funeral dirge for the son at the funeral.  That request was turned down since the soldier was a Confederate. Out of respect for the father, they did say they could give him only one musician.  The captain chose a bugler. He asked the bugler to play a series of musical notes he had found on a piece of paper in the pocket of his dead son's uniform. This wish was granted. This music was the haunting melody we now know as "Taps" that is used at all military funerals. 

Beautiful, isn't it?

Well...let's talk about what actually happened. 

In 1862, during the Civil War, a man by the name of General Daniel Adams Butterfield decided that the French tune "Lights Out," which had been used to signal the end of a military day, was too formal. He wrote down some new notes, gave them to his group's bugler, and from that moment on, Taps was used as the military end-of-day call. It was officially recognized by the US Military in 1874. 

Not long after General Butterfield wrote the 24-note Taps in 1862, a man named Captain John Tidball helped Taps become customary for military funerals. A man in his company had died and was going to be buried. It is tradition to fire three volleys over the grave of a soldier, but Captain Tidball was concerned that if shots were fired during a time of war, the Confederacy might take that as a sign of aggression and begin fighting. So he concluded that the new song Taps was emotional enough to honor the dead soldier and it was performed in lieu of firing the volleys. Today, of course, both the volleys and the playing of Taps are present at all military funerals.

Although the real story of the song Taps is much less emotionally-fueled than the true origins, I think it is absolutely vital to know and share true history. There are a lot of stories in history about which we think we know the truth-but it could really be just a myth. And some of these myths might be so ingrained into the collective unconscious that they are taught in schools. 

Understanding what really happened in the past is vital to understanding who we are and where we're going. It is also so important to recognize the evolution of current traditions, because blindly following tradition is dangerous. 

Moral of the story: be curious, and investigate history. The real story might be more interesting than you think. 

Here is a performance of Taps. 

Sources:

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/Events/Traditions/Taps.aspx

http://www.west-point.org/taps/Taps.html

http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/taps.asp

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/30/136721508/historian-explains-the-origin-of-taps

My favorite thing about going to a large school like the University of Maryland is the outstanding opportunities we have to see speakers. In the two short years that I've been here, I have been able to attend lectures by Cornel West, Gloria Steinem, Paul Farmer, and John Lithgow. They also hold so many panels where professors both from this school and from other institutions come together to talk about issues related to their fields. For my Russian history class last week we had to attend a panel regarding the situation in the Ukraine. There were experts in Russian and eastern European history who could shed so much light on the conflict. These events are also wonderful for networking.

So I attended a panel this week all about radicalization in the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s in the US. It was simply fascinating, especially because this is a time period that I am incredibly interested in-plus I place emphasis on radical grassroots movements in my study of history. In short, I loved everybody who spoke on our panel and we're probably all going to be best friends. 

What I wanted to talk about in this post is a topic that they focused on quite heavily at this event, given that one of the speakers was the son of a leader of the group. In the 1960s, a group of college students (originally associated with Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)) radicalized and called themselves the Weathermen. They were a very small, very violent, not very long-lasting group that-although the execution of their goals was not perfect-had missions that are important to the study of 1960s student movements. 

SDS started up in 1962. The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964. The first SDS anti-Vietnam march was in 1965. The Black Panthers were formed in 1966. Martin Luther King, Jr and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated in 1968. Please keep these dates in mind, as there will be a quiz at the end of the post.

Only kidding. But it is so important to have context to the formation of the Weathermen organization in 1969. They did not emerge as an independent movement; the Weathermen truly began because it was reacting to events that had taken place in the United States. 

One of these big events that jump-started the Weathermen was the killing of two important figures in the Black Panthers, Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, by a police raid in Chicago in 1969. They believed that the killings were unjust and displayed how corrupt the American system was for targeting not just protesters of the government, but black protesters of the government. The more radical branch of the SDS also believed that the time for nonviolence had ended: the US was using tactics of horrific violence every day in Vietnam, so why could the American public not do the same? Furthermore, non-violence leaders like MLK were taken out by acts of violence. In the minds of what would become the Weathermen, it was time for a revolution.

Fred Hampton

So the goal of this new group was to arm students to fight for themselves and for the oppressed peoples of the world (like the Vietnamese and the blacks). And they would use any means necessary, especially incredibly violent demonstrations, to do so. 

In October 1969, the Weathermen held their first big event-a violent protest called the "Days of Rage" in Chicago. Hundreds of students came together to "bring the war home" and basically just wreak havoc in the streets of Chicago. It was a nightmare for everybody: not enough people showed up to really have the effect that the program's leaders had wanted, but the people that were there (of course) endured police violence and other brutality. This demonstration put the Weathermen on the map and in the news, but it also put them on the FBI's most-wanted list...and that's not a good place to be.

In March 1970, the Weathermen had to go into hiding and rebrand themselves as the "Weather Underground" because of a bomb explosion in a Greenwich Village apartment that killed three members. (Interesting fact--this explosion is referenced in the movie Across the Universe, and it is implied that the main character Lucy is involved with the Weathermen and helped them to build the bombs that night.) People began to fear that the Weathermen were terrorists.

A leader of the Weathermen, Bernardine Dohrn, issued a "state of war" against the United States at Berkeley in 1970. She said that the group would be adopting the "guerrilla tactics of the Viet Cong" to lead the privileged white American youths into a state of revolution. After this happened, the Weather Underground began targeting specific places to attack to prove that their war was serious: the New York City police headquarters, the United States Capitol, Department of State building, and the Pentagon were all bombed in the early part of the 1970s. Nobody was ever hurt, but the Weather Underground had certainly accomplished their goals of making people behave more militantly. 

In September 1970, the Weather Underground was responsible for breaking Timothy Leary, a psychologist and advocate for psychedelic drugs, out of prison. They took him from the US to Algeria, where he was to remain in hiding.

The Weather organization was also strongly associated with Communism and working to promote the way of thinking worldwide and achieving a global system. This alliance made the group members even more threatening for the government, who obviously felt very strongly towards Communism.

The movement mostly subsided in 1973, when the US made a deal to lessen their involvement in Vietnam. At this time, the major leaders of the Weather Underground came above ground and were sentenced to jail time, either for their acts of violence or for evading the draft or arrest.

So why is this story relevant? Well, I strongly believe that Americans are going to have to radicalize soon. We see that people, particularly students, are unhappy with the state of the world (and the education system blah) and, so far at least, nothing that anybody has done has made any substantial changes. Those substantial changes need to come; and in order to achieve them,  there must be some radicalization. 

I think the Occupy Wall Street movement of a few years ago is indicative of what is going to happen in the near future. I certainly hope that there are no  more "Days of Rage," but it will certainly be interesting to see what form the new movements take.

History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme (Mark Twain said that), and I think it's so SO important to study our history so that we know our future. The people who are going to radicalize in the next few years should look back at groups like the Weathermen and SDS and the Black Panthers, note their successes and their failures, and use their investigation to improve their own approach.

Also--are you wondering where the name "Weathermen" came from? It's a line from a Bob Dylan song, "Subterranean Homesick Blues:"

"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."

I know, I know. Super interesting. And a great song! 

Sources:

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/weatherunderground/movement.html

https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Weatherman_(organization).html

http://terrorism.about.com/od/groupsleader1/p/Weathermen.htm

http://vault.fbi.gov/Weather%20Underground%20%28Weathermen%29/Weather%20Underground%20%28Weathermen%29%20Part%201%20of%206/view

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/pacificaviet/scheertranscript.html

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/weatherunderground/film.html

One of the biggest stories in the news recently has been the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. It's a huge mystery, and while Australia believes it has found wreckage for the flight in the Indian Ocean, nobody is sure yet what has happened to this plane or the 239 souls aboard. The happenings of the past few weeks are a little too similar to the plot line of a Twilight Zone episode I watched recently for me to not be more than a little unnerved. 

But what is truly more unnerving is that history shows us that things disappear never to be heard from again pretty frequently. My favorite story of an unexplained disappearance is the Roanoke Colony in North Carolina where legitimately the entire population vanished and historians still don't have a clear idea of what happened. 

The first 150 English inhabitants arrived at Roanoke Island (off the shore of what is now North Carolina) in August 1587. Unlike previous temporary settlements in Roanoke, this wave of planters included men, women, and children. In fact, the first European child to be born in the New World was born in August 1587 in Roanoke: Virginia Dare. Virginia was the granddaughter of John White, the governor of the colony. 

The colony was overall fairly successful. The settlers were able to begin producing their own crops and formed better relations with the local Native Americans than had been expected. It was looking as if England had founded their first successful colony in the New World.

Later on in 1587, it was decided that Governor White would return to England for some new supplies needed by the community. He left, got the supplies, and set back on his return journey-however, he got stuck in the crossroads of the Spanish armada and his trip back to Roanoke was delayed. So when John White was finally able to return to his family and the rest of his comrades, it was 1590.

And by the time of his return, the entire settlement at Roanoke had disappeared. White found all the houses had been dismantled, the crops destroyed, and his people...gone. There weren't even any signs of remains from the 117 people White had expected to see upon his arrival. All he found were two carvings: one on a post that said "CROATOAN" and one on a tree that said "CRO."

Historians have never been able to figure out what happened to lost colony. 

One clue they do have, however, is that two previous settlements on the land at Roanoke failed due to, apparently, the constant threat of attack from neighboring Indian tribes. There was one exploratory mission to Roanoke and one attempted settlement (by 100 men in 1585), but both sets of people were forced to return to England because they had killed any chance of coexisting with the native population. They captured them, ransomed them, and forced them to give the settlers food. Yes, the Powahatans living on nearby Croatoan Island did not get along well with the British colonists.

Wait....did I just say Croatoan Island? 

Is that a clue because of what was carved into that post and that tree?

Modern historians say probably. But because no rescue mission or anything was sent to Croatoan at the time, we may never know. There is also a hypothesis that the Roanoke settlers were killed of by hostile Spanish forces from Florida; or they tried to go back to England and got lost at sea. What we do know is that none of the settlers were ever heard from or seen again. And, frustratingly, John White wasn't good at keeping accurate maps, so historians know the general area of where the Roanoke colony was, but they don't have the exact coordinates. 

Recent innovations in map study software and archaeological possibilities have made progress possible, however: we are digging down deeper and finding new evidence on maps so that an answer to the Roanoke colony mystery might soon be upon us.

So...history may not necessarily repeat itself-but it certainly rhymes.  These mysterious disappearances, like the plane and the colony at Roanoke, may never be explained. It's just interesting to know that, no matter the era of human or societal development, there will always be things we can't explain. 

Kind of freaky, isn't it?

Sources:

http://abcnews.go.com/International/missing-malaysia-airlines-plane-now/story?id=23049543

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/12/131208-roanoke-lost-colony-discovery-history-raleigh/

http://history.howstuffworks.com/history-vs-myth/roanoke-colony.htm

http://www.nationalcenter.org/ColonyofRoanoke.html

http://www.history.com/news/ask-history/what-happened-to-the-lost-colony-of-roanoke

Do you know how there are some people you just grow up hearing about but not really knowing who they are or their historical significance until you are much older? For me, Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton is one of those people.

There is a national shrine for Elizabeth Ann Seton at Mount St. Mary's University in Emmitsburg, MD, which is about twenty miles from where I grew up in Frederick. I would see the shrine every time I would pass through Emmitsburg on my way to Gettysburg, PA. Because I saw the name "Elizabeth Ann Seton" so many times in my childhood, it has been ingrained in my brain for quite some time; however, it was not until last year that I learned who this woman really was. 

Elizabeth Ann Bayley was born in a well-to-do family in New York in 1774. Both her mother and her sister died while Elizabeth was very young; but instead of being sullen and downcast about the situation, the young woman took it as a learning experience as to how short life is and how every moment should be cherished. Elizabeth's father also instilled in her the idea of how great humanitarian work is both for the soul and the community. 

When Elizabeth married William Seton at age 19, she was the belle of New York. Seton was a successful (and very wealthy) businessman, so the couple enjoyed a life of great luxury for a while. Unfortunately, within fifteen years, Seton's business went under and he caught and died from a case of tuberculosis. 

So Elizabeth, a young widow, had to take care of herself and her five small children in a rapidly-changing world after already having faced so many difficulties and challenges. She never let her spirit be broken, however, and always accepted what she faced as the "Will of God" and believed that she had a purpose in her life. 

In 1805, Elizabeth joined the Catholic church because she found comfort in the fact that the Virgin Mary was her mother after losing her own mother so early in life. Many of her friends and family rejected her for this, but she was confident that she had done what was right for her spirituality. 

She founded a free Catholic school in Baltimore in 1809 both to support her family and to spread the Word to others. She also did a lot of charitable work in the area, founding orphanages and multiple schools. Elizabeth amassed a fairly sizable following. In 1812, Elizabeth ratified the Rule of the Sisterhood, which created an organization to be called the Daughters of Charity. 

In 1821, at the age of 46, Elizabeth Ann Seton died of a Tuberculosis infection. She was canonized in 1975, the first woman and American-born saint in the Catholic church. She is buried at her shrine in Emmitsburg, and many schools in the area bear her name. 

I think one of the most fascinating parts of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton's legacy occurred during the Civil War. In 1863, the fighting came to Emmitsburg-located conveniently close to Gettysburg, Monocacy, and Antietam-and the Union soldiers even used Elizabeth's home as their encampment. Instead of fleeing or caring primarily for their own safety, the Sisters and Daughters of Charity, members of the woman's Catholic organization founded by Mother Seton, sought out wounded soldiers of both sides and nursed them back to health or comforted them in their last moments. 

These acts of, well, charity and complete selflessness by the Daughters of Charity are ingrained in the culture and historical background of Emmitsburg, MD. Many women perished while they were trying to save lives, but putting their own well-being at risk did not matter to them because they wanted to carry on the beliefs and traditions inspired by St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. 

I'm not Catholic, and I'm still not quite sure what the significance of canonization is. But that doesn't matter because I have now learned something truly interesting about where I come from, and I know that in the future when I pass by her shrine, I will think of the good deeds of Elizabeth Ann Seton. 

History is funny like that: we can go through our whole lives not knowing the story of the first American-born saint and not know the difference-but when we eventually find out about the history, some significance is added to our lives and our experiences. History truly enriches the present, and it is through stories not so commonly told that we are able to understand who we are and where we come from. 

Sources:

http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/Saints/saint.aspx?id=1250

http://seas1.org/

https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=180

http://www.setonshrine.org/learn-and-explore/civil-war-history-shrine/

https://www.msmary.edu/grotto/about/

So I feel like whenever we discuss the "civil rights movement" in our history classes, we automatically assume that we're talking about the African-American civil rights movement in the United States mainly in the 1950s-1970s. But, really, the question we should be asking is: "which one?"

The United States has witnessed multiple civil rights movements; and while I do agree that the African-American civil rights movement was/is a movement that was well-led and has been overall fairly successful in its aims, I do think that the struggles of other groups should be more recognized. For example, the struggle of the LGBT community has been going on for years. It hasn't been just with the gay marriage debates of late... in fact, the major start of the LGBT civil rights movement was in June 1969 with one event: the riots at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village in New York City. 

1969 was not a friendly time for New York's gay population. There were laws in place which allowed for the arrest of men in drag, required women to be wearing three "feminine articles of clothing" at all times, and prohibited two people of the same sex from dancing together. The police would often conduct raids of bars like the Stonewall Inn and arrest people they felt had broken the laws. Of course, it would be widely (or at least more) accepted now that these sorts of laws impede one's personal sexuality or gender expression and that is simply not okay for our society to accept. 

So on June 8th, 1969, the police entered the Stonewall Inn to conduct a raid as normal. Except this time, all did not go as planned because the patrons of the bar (all 200 of them) refused to cooperate and allow themselves to face arrest yet again. 

So the police told the crowd they were going to arrest them all, and to wait while the wagons arrived to take them away. Well...it was then that the situation really fell apart. 

The police allegedly beat a lesbian who had complained that her handcuffs were too tight and threw her into one of the police wagons, causing the crowd that had gathered outside the Stonewall Inn to become enraged. The people in the street began throwing coins, bottles, and bricks at the police and engaged in one might generally call riot-like activities. The police barricaded themselves inside the bar to avoid being hurt by the crowd, which rioted for almost four hours. 

The next night, an even larger crowd of protesters showed up to the Stonewall Inn to show their solidarity in the movement and, to no one's surprise, violence between the LGBT supporters and the police ensued again. The rioting again lasted until 4 in the morning. 

And the next night there was conflict between police forces and the thousands of people that gathered in the street yet again. People rioted (again) and shops in the Village were looted and set ablaze by the demonstrators. 

So the riots at the Stonewall Inn in 1969 really mark the beginning of the LGBT civil rights movement because it was the first time that the gay community had fought back against the power players (in this case, the police and the prevailing unjust laws of the time). They had finally faced enough persecution and prejudice, and they were ready to fight for their rights-literally.

It beomes clear that this struggle for rights such as freedom of expression or freedom of marriage are just as prevailing  and just as important as the struggles of the African-American civil rights movement. So why don't we talk about it more? Is it just because it's such a hot-button political topic right now and people don't want to stir trouble by talking about something that maybe some right-wingers don't believe in? This is the explanation I've come up with for this movement. 

But then we have other civil rights movements for groups such as women, immigrants, and people with disabilities-all of whom never gain as much recognition as the African-American civil rights movement. I think that the histories of all of these drives for freedom and recognition are worthy of study because people have taken advantage of their agency to change something they believed to be flawed with society. 

So now you know the story of how the LGBT civil rights movement began-it is up to you now to recognize the value of their fight and the fight of many unrecognized peoples around the world so that perhaps their movements may gain legitimacy and inertia.

In this way, the study of stories rarely told in history have a huge impact on our lives today and how we see the people around us. They may have fought much harder than we know for the rights they currently enjoy, and it would be beneficial for us to understand what they have been through. 

Sources:

http://www.civilrights.org/archives/2009/06/449-stonewall.html

http://www.thestonewallinnnyc.com/StonewallInnNYC/HISTORY.html

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-stonewall-riot

I am very proud of the fact that I am a first-generation college student. When I graduate from the University of Maryland in 2016, I will be the first person in my family to have achieved a degree, let alone a double degree with a (possible double) minor and an Honors citation and at least three great internship experiences. 

But I'm going through this interesting thing where it's like I feel that I am at a disadvantage because my parents don't have fancy law degrees from prestigious universities and they can't connect me with any of their classmates who are successful in my intended field like I know is true of some of my peers. On the other hand, I also have some difficulty with my family over the fact that I'm the first one of us to have such an education. I have to justify the financial burden my three semesters here has placed on my family already, and I also have to deal with the fact that I am now an "intellectual" in a family descended from coal miners. So this is just an interesting balance I have been working and will continue to work until I graduate. It has also inspired my topic for this post: well-known successful people who did not graduate with degrees of higher education. 

Because I do recognize the worth of an education (I'm working my butt off to get one, obviously)...but I'd also like to raise the point that one's value does not come from the amount of degrees they have on the wall in their office. So, first off:

More people dropped out from college (or just didn't go) than you might be inclined to think. 

We can discuss the Mark Zuckerbergs and the Bill Gates of the worlds-the tech guys. And there are really a lot of them. Matt Mullenweg of WordPress dropped out of the University of Houston and went on to start a huge internet company with no formal coding education. Arash Ferdowsi co-founded DropBox after dropping out of MIT as a junior. David Karp, the creator of Tumblr, never received a high school diploma. And he's now worth $200 million. I know that while I was in the college application process, the mindset was like "if you want to be successful in these technology fields, you're going to need degrees on degrees on degrees." But if you look at the history of it...maybe it's possible to still be successful without all those letters after your name?

Cornelius Vanderbilt and John D. Rockefeller, the two wealthiest men to have probably ever lived, did not receive college degrees. Vanderbilt was born into a very poor family that had to work hard to survive, so he simply inherited the hard work and never went to school to learn how to run ferry boats or become a major railroad tycoon. Similarly, Rockefeller chose to pursue business, an immediately more lucrative pursuit, over attending university. And he went on to create Standard Oil and became the world's first billionaire. So, again, these men did not do too badly for themselves without a higher degree. 

And what about those in the humanities or more creative fields? Samuel Clemens (also known as the wonderful Mark Twain) chose newspaper writing and river-boating apprenticeships to learn a future profession over going to an institution of higher-learning. Eric Arthur Blair (ahem, George Orwell) did attend boarding school at Eton College in England-so he received a very sturdy education-but his family could not pay for him to go to university, so he joined the Indian Police Service instead. Yet again, successful, famous people who did not have to have degrees from Harvard or Oxford to be respected as leaders in their fields. 

So, in conclusion, the point I'm trying to make here is that we may use our study of history to learn and understand that our notion that college is essential to worth is simply not valid. In this way, we can utilize the past and the experiences of those who have come before us to impact our decisions. now. History is alive and well, friends, if only we talked about it more.

Because higher education is wonderful. It is so great to be educated. But...it's also okay to not go to college. And despite the fact that no counselor would tell you that super wealthy and successful people didn't receive degrees-it's really true. I would simply like to see a challenge to society's notions and expectations regarding university attendance. 

The experiences of the past should always play a role in the decisions of the present, and I think this is a discussion where it is especially pertinent.  

Sources:

http://www.businessinsider.com/most-successful-college-droputs-2013-9?op=1

http://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/10/27/successful-people-that-didnt-go-to-college/

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/biography/rockefellers-john/

http://www.history.com/topics/john-d-rockefeller

http://www.stfrancis.edu/content/ba/ghkickul/stuwebs/bbios/biograph/jdr.htm

http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/speccol/digcoll/tales.shtml

http://www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/history-and-heritage/dutch_americans/cornelius-vanderbilt/

http://www.history.com/topics/mark-twain

http://georgeorwellnovels.com/biography-of-george-orwell/

http://www.biography.com/people/george-orwell-9429833?page=1

The Big Apple. The City that Never Sleeps. The City of Dreams. We're talking about New York City today, baby! That's right, I am spending my spring break in the liveliest city on earth; and through my numerous inquiries and city tours, I have come across some facts simply too interesting to keep to myself.

The road the entire world now knows as Broadway was originally the Wickquasgeck Trail, forged in the brush by the American Indian population of Manhattan Island. The trail was utilized mainly for trading purposes in the 17th through the 19th centuries-the Indians could easily travel on the Wickquasgeck with their furs to the European trading posts (this makes so much sense, because the area we now know as Broadway totally serves as a massive, incredibly expensive, modern-day trading post). The European settlers who eventually came to inhabit the island also adopted the roadway: the Dutch referred to the trail as "High Way," while the British later called it "Broad Way." The final name Broadway was adopted in 1899 and the rest is, well...history! So if you were ever wondering why Broadway seems to cut across the otherwise perfect grid of downtown Manhattan, it's because it started out as a footpath to guide those traversing the swampy horror that was New York. 

Relatedly, Wall Street is named thus because the Dutch had built a literal wall around that area of their settlement to keep both the Indians and the British off of their property. 

The Rockefellers originally commissioned Diego Rivera, the renowned (communist) Mexican muralist, to do the great artwork in the entryway of 30 Rockefeller Plaza in the 1930s. His piece included images of workers being violently beaten by police and a triumphant Vladimir Lenin. The work was ultimately vetoed, of course, and a piece featuring a triumphant Abraham Lincoln replaced it. But that doesn't mean there isn't still a communist presence in Rockefeller Plaza! Which is incredibly ironic since the Rockefellers are the poster children for capitalistic success and exploitation of the proletariat. But anyway. 

Here is the detail of Lenin in Rivera's original piece:

And here is one of the supposedly Communist works of art now on display. The hammer and sickle theme is very popular. 

There was a problem in New York in the early part of the twentieth century concerning the fact that technology was being developed that greatly increased the possible height of buildings in the city; but this technology and height combined with consequences such as lack of sunlight and oxygen to the streets below proved to be quite a conundrum. In order to allow ornery New Yorkers their skyscrapers but to also preserve the health and well-being of the pedestrians below, the city of New York passed the country's first zoning laws. In 1916, New York's zoning laws made "setbacks" obligatory in buildings reaching a certain height. Setbacks are..well...I can show you better than tell you.

Setbacks are what give buildings that tiered look. There was a formula for how tall each setback had to be given the total size of the building taken in consideration with the size of the street below. But this was enacted to provide more light and air to the street-level creatures of New York. Pretty interesting, isn't it?

The area in New York known as "Hell's Kitchen" may be renowned now for its many wonderful restaurants, but in the nineteenth century, it was known only as a really rough neighborhood. The area was home to many Irish immigrants living in slum-like conditions in large tenement buildings. But the interesting thing is, in this area of Manhattan, the buildings cannot be taller than six stories-so in relation to the rest of the city, Hell's Kitchen is pretty strange. And what about that name? Where did it come from?

Well, it is popularly said that Davy Crockett (yes, "king of the wild frontier") provided the area with its moniker when he visited in 1835. He said: "In my part of the country, when you meet an Irishman, you find a first-rate gentleman; but these are worse than savages; they are too mean to swab hell's kitchen." And it stuck. From then on, people referred to this seedy neighborhood of New York as Hell's Kitchen. 

It's clear that New York City isn't just the land of great pizza and expensive real estate: there is such a rich history here than often goes unnoticed and unrecognized. I know that learning what I did made me respect the city and its inhabitants more than I already had, and I thought that maybe by sharing the information I could inspire that same sort of reverence.

And I think that learning opportunities like the ones I had in New York City are truly all around us because history is in no way disconnected from the present: in fact, history is what inspired the present and it is why the things we know and love today are here. So maybe we should all be open to gaining more context and learning more about what in history has shaped the world we know today. 

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadway_(Manhattan)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_at_the_Crossroads

http://ci.columbia.edu/0240s/0242_2/0242_2_s7_text.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1916_Zoning_Resolution

http://www.anthropologyinpractice.com/2009/11/back-in-time-walking-wickquasgeck-trail.html

http://firstpeoples.org/wp/tag/wickquasgeck-trail/

http://www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/history-and-heritage/digital-exhibitions/a-tour-of-new-netherland/manhattan/broadway/

https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Broadway_(New_York_City).html

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/09/opinion/the-streets-where-history-lives.html

http://www.irish-society.org/Hedgemaster%20Archives/five_points.htm

I think it's a pretty well-known fact among American history students that Adolf Hitler's first true love was not making war--it was making art. In fact, many historians claim that Hitler's mean streak truly started to develop when he was rejected from studying the art of painting at the school of his dreams, the Vienna Academy of Arts. That's right, perhaps the world could have been spared of a horrible autocrat had the school appreciated his style and accepted him.

One of Adolf Hitler's pieces... So this I knew. Something that had not been made as clear to me, however, was Hilter's great obsession with art and art collecting throughout the duration of WWII. Apparently he confiscated all important or meaningful works of art from the possession of any Jewish collectors before the regime forced them into ghettos. Hitler set up his very own commission of the arts, with the goal of seizing as many culturally important pieces as he could in order to claim them for the German state. Even though Hitlers end goal seemed to be complete world domination, he went about this goal in what one might think to be a very cultured or high-class method: collection of art. I probably wouldn't have come upon this fascinating story had I not been stuck at the Miami airport for like six hours longer than we (the university of Maryland ACC Leadership Symposium delegation) had anticipated. I had completed all the schoolwork I had brought with me for the trip and the six of us Marylanders had pretty much exhausted all of our conversation topics. So I needed a new book.

The book I chose was the Monuments Men by Robert M Edsel. I had heard of this book before because the movie, starring Matt Damon, George Clooney, John Goodman, and others, had just been released a few months previously. And in my enthusiastic consumption of all movies based on books, I knew this book would be interesting to me. Monuments Men tells the story of the British and American men who were put in charge of protecting those great European works of art so desired by a Mr. Adolf Hitler. Because I am working towards curation as a future career and World War II as an area of particular specialty, I bought the book. Plus it was a five-dollar paperback with Matt Damon on the cover, so that never hurts. Anyway, the book is simply fascinating. It is a non-fiction story; but it reads like an exciting adventure novel, reminiscent of something like The Da Vinci Code. It is informative yet entertaining, which made it quite enjoyable. Another feature of Monuments Men which I enjoyed was the incorporation of Nazi military documents before some of the chapters. It sort of gave the impression of impending doom and pressure as the Germans were tightening their grip or advancing on the Allied forces of the book. Subtle, yet effective. Something I will say about this book is that the characters were difficult to distinguish from each other at first. Really, a curator at the Smithsonian who went to Harvard and a curator at the National Gallery who went to Colombia are not that different...which made things sort of tricky (Luckily, there is a glossary in the back for the cast of characters...I consulted it more times than I'd like to admit).

I'm taking a very interesting Honors Seminar right now called "Justice Matters: Law, Literature, and Film." In the class, we take texts commonly read by students in the American education system (Antigone, To Kill a Mockingbird, In Cold Blood, etc) and analyze them not only from a literary perspective but also from a law and society perspective. We then look at the film adaptations of these works and discuss the differences in representation in the law from page to screen. 

So we have this project coming up where we are supposed to take a film addressing the issue of law or justice in some way. For my presentation, I will be examining the HBO series John Adams about the fine attorney and our founding father and second President. And what I'm talking about in my presentation is something that American students of history tend to forget: which is why I'm posting about it here. (Maybe this is cheating...but I'm just going to say it's using my research and self-education wisely!)

Contrary to what many people believe or would be led to believe, John Adams did not serve as an advocate for the American colonists in the trial after the Boston Massacre-in fact, he defended the British soldiers. That's right, everybody: John Adams  testified against the "interests of the colonies" in his quest for justice. 

First, some background about the Boston Massacre-

The "State Street Massacre" took place in Boston, Massachusetts on March 5, 1770. The British soldiers guarding the Boston Customs House were approached by a rowdy group of colonists who were shouting, slinging snow and rocks, and generally inspiring unrest. The conflict between the colonists and the British had arisen due to the strict enforcement of the Townshend Acts, which placed taxes on many items, including tea and paper products. So when the horde approached the soldiers, they immediately went into defense mode. As soon as the colonists began striking the soldiers directly, the soldiers began retaliating. Three men were killed by gunfire and another eight were wounded. 

Paul Revere's famous engraving of the conflict. 

Adams took the case in defending Captain Thomas Preston and his eight men because, as a patriot, he knew that the public sentiment would be overwhelmingly against the men-but as a man of law, he knew that their trial would not be fair. In his mind, the men had their rights and deserved, at the very least, a competent defense.

Adams' argument was built upon the ideas that the colonists struck out at the soldiers first and that it was uncertain whether or not Preston had ordered his men to fire upon the mob, as the prosecution so claimed. Additionally, he brought up that the pitchforks and torches the colonists toted indeed counted as weapons, and the horde was not full of peaceful demonstrators.  

Not quite accurate. 

The court acquitted Captain Preston and six of his men of all charges, while two were found guilty and branded with an "M" on their thumbs as punishment. 

The governor of Massachusetts, understanding the discord and chaos present among the people, removed British soldiers from the entire state not long after the trial to protect the peace (however futile that effort may have been). This was seen as an even greater success to John Adams, who was a great critic of British occupation of the colonies. 

So John Adams defended the British soldiers who killed Americans that evening in 1770 and lots of people don't know about it. Why should we care? 

(Other than it's a super interesting story and it's something you wouldn't really expect out of one of the founding fathers?)

I feel like the unfortunate reason we don't learn about Adams and the Boston Massacre is because it presents him as being anti-colonist or anti-revolutionary in some considerations. We don't want to focus on the true injustice of the situation-instead we look at how the outcome affected Americans. But John Adams rose above this and was able to seek justice. Well, I would argue that we should admire, respect, and celebrate John Adams and his legacy infinitely more then we presently do because of his unwavering devotion to justice. We in our society should take a page out of Adams' book and develop the ability to objectively look at an emotionally-fueled situation and defend the just position. This is an admirable quality. 

So there you have it. I particularly like this story because there is this moral/political ambiguity, not to mention the fact that it deals with my second-favorite founding father (Thomas Jefferson is my first, in case anybody was interested). And if you would be to look to me for a moral to this story, I would say this: in history, there have been times of justice and times of injustice. It is better for us to understand the situation and defend the point of view that may not be so good for our reputations in order to do what is right. In the long run, it will work out. You never know...you might help start a new nation. 

Sources:

http://www.bostonmassacre.net/

http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/related/massacre.htm

http://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/boston-massacre

http://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/townshend-acts

http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/revolut/jb_revolut_boston_3.html

https://www.aclu.org/national-security/john-adams-and-boston-massacre

http://www.bostonmassacre.net/trial/acct-adams1.htm

Don't ask me why, but capital punishment has always been something in which I have been particularly interested, There was a point in my life that I really had my heart set on going to Harvard Law (Elle Woods style, y'all) and being the best darn lawyer out there. I would fight to right the wrongs of society, to secure justice for even the toughest cases. A few eventful seasons on my high school's mock trial team (head defense attorney, what up) later, I proceeded to exit my law stage.

Something that stuck with me, however, was how unjust I believed capital punishment to be. I guess I've always been kind of a pacifist, but I really believe that most death is superfluous. I find the sanctioned killing of a citizen by their state to be just so wrong...it could be almost the definition of injustice for me.

And through my experience debating with others, I have found that many people are really not educated on the topic...and perhaps when more people in society become aware, we will stop the death penalty.

 First of all, did you know that 140 countries worldwide have abolished the death penalty? Even Russia, a country that has been in the news lately for allegedly violating essential human rights, has a de facto ban on the death penalty. The list of countries in which the death penalty is permitted is kind of shocking, however: the United States is there, of course, along with countries like China, Afghanistan, Sudan, North Korea, and Iran. I know I see on the news every day some pundit claiming that the US is so highly developed as a nation and that we are able to secure basic human rights for our people; whereas nations like the ones I just listed are barbaric and inhumane when it comes to the treatment of their people.

But let's think about the company we keep. How can we claim to be any better than Iran or North Korea if the United States too puts its citizens to death? Maybe it would do us all well to consider the worldwide community of the death penalty and who in the world has abolished it and who continues to use it.   

Also, an assumption that many people use to support capital punishment is that  life imprisonment would simply be too costly for taxpayers, that we should just execute instead of paying for their sustenance for years and years. This proves to be incorrect, however: because of the long trial process necessary to reach a penalty of death, capital punishment is actually more expensive than life imprisonment. Yes, there is more expenditure necessary from the state for death penalty cases. 

Think of all the things we could do with the money being saved! We could improve the failing prison system! We could provide for more criminal rehabilitation! We could put more money into the law enforcement system so that these crimes are not committed in the first place!

The link I included above includes some very interesting studies regarding how much state-sponsored execution costs...and it's very telling. It is wasteful of the American society to be putting so many people to death. 

Something else that would be beneficial to consider is the fact that the justice system is flawed and that we have no idea if the people being put to death by the electric chair or lethal injection are actually guilty of the crimes for which they are accused. I mean...look at all these exonerations. All of the people that have been recognized by the courts as being not guilty after they were convicted and put to death. There are a few reasons why this happens: recent breakthroughs in DNA testing, for one, have shed new light on cases of the past and have proven that the people we have thought guilty were actually innocent. Also, the justice system proves to be very racist: if you look at this data, it is clear that the amount of African-Americans released from death row is substantially higher than the amount of whites. Thus, the legal system is quicker to believe that a minority is more likely to be guilty of a heinous crime such as first-degree murder. 

The American standard is and always has been "innocent until proven guilty," but it seems as if lately, we as a society are much less likely to give somebody the benefit of the doubt. We jump much more quickly to conclusions regarding guilt. For me personally, this is just not okay when it comes to a matter of life or death. There is a possible chance that a "criminal" could be wrongly convicted and put to death by the state. That's awful!

We look down on other nations that execute "criminals," but I don't see how we can do so if the United States does the exact same thing. Perhaps when members of American society educate themselves more with the facts that perhaps are not commonly known (such as the ones discussed above), there will be a movement in our country to do what is just and abolish the death penalty.  

Sources:

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777460.html

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130412-death-penalty-capital-punishment-culture-amnesty-international/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_capital_punishment_by_country

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty

http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=42

http://listverse.com/2010/01/12/10-convicts-presumed-innocent-after-execution/

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/executed-possibly-innocent

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-and-death-penalty