Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March
1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the United States through its Civil
War—its bloodiest war and its greatest moral, constitutional and political crisis. In
doing so, he preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal
government, and modernized the economy.
Lincoln grew up on the western frontier in Kentucky. Largely self-educated, he became
a lawyer in Illinois, a Whig Party leader, and a member of the Illinois House of
Representatives, where he served from 1834 to 1846. In 1860 Lincoln secured the
Republican Party presidential nomination as a moderate from a swing state. With very
little support in the slaveholding states of the South, he swept the North and was
elected president in 1860. His election prompted seven southern slave states to form
the Confederate States of America before he was sworn into office.
After the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, the North
enthusiastically rallied behind the Union. His primary goal was to reunite the nation.
He suspended habeas corpus, and arrested persons accused of hindering the war
effort by blocking troop trains. His complex moves toward ending slavery centered on
the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. Lincoln used the U.S. Army to protect escaped
slaves, encouraged the border states to outlaw slavery, and helped push through
Congress the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which
permanently outlawed slavery. He also made major decisions on Union war strategy;
for example: a naval blockade that shut down the South's normal trade; moves to take
control of Kentucky and Tennessee; and using gunboats to gain control of the southern
river system.
His Gettysburg Address of 1863 became an iconic endorsement of the principles of
nationalism, republicanism, equal rights, liberty, and democracy. Lincoln held a
moderate view of Reconstruction, seeking to reunite the nation speedily through a
policy of generous reconciliation in the face of lingering and bitter divisiveness. Six
days after the surrender of Confederate commanding general Robert E. Lee, Lincoln
was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer.
Lincoln has been consistently ranked both by scholars and the public as one of the
three greatest U.S. presidents.
George Washington was the first President of the United States, the
Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army during the American
Revolutionary War, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He
presided over the convention that drafted the United States Constitution, which
replaced the Articles of Confederation and remains the supreme law of the
land.
Washington established many forms in government still used today, such as the
cabinet system and inaugural address. His retirement after two terms and the
peaceful transition from his presidency to that of John Adams established a
tradition that continued up until Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to a third
term. Washington has been widely hailed as the "father of his country" even
during his lifetime.
Historians laud Washington for his selection and supervision of his generals,
encouragement of morale and ability to hold together the army, coordination
with the state governors and state militia units, relations with Congress and
attention to supplies, logistics, and training. In battle, however, Washington was
repeatedly outmaneuvered by British generals with larger armies. After victory
had been finalized in 1783, Washington resigned as Commander-in-chief rather
than seize power, proving his opposition to dictatorship and his commitment to
American republicanism.
As the leader of the first successful revolution against a colonial empire in world
history, Washington became an international icon for liberation and nationalism.
He is consistently ranked among the top three presidents of the United States,
according to polls of both scholars and the general public.
Frederick Douglass was an African-American social reformer,
orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he
became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for
his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing. He stood as a
living counter-example to slaveholders' arguments that slaves
lacked the intellectual capacity to function as independent
American citizens. Many Northerners also found it hard to believe
that such a great orator had been a slave.
Douglass wrote several autobiographies. He described his
experiences as a slave in his 1845 autobiography, Narrative of the
Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, which became a
bestseller and influential in supporting abolition, as did the
second, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855). After the Civil War,
Douglass remained an active campaigner against slavery and
wrote his last autobiography, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass.
First published in 1881 and revised in 1892, three years before his
death, it covered events through and after the Civil War. Douglass
also actively supported women's suffrage, and held several public
offices. Without his approval, Douglass became the first African
American nominated for Vice President of the United States as the
running mate and Vice Presidential nominee of Victoria Woodhull
on the impracticable, small, but far foreseeing Equal Rights Party
ticket.
A firm believer in the equality of all people, whether black,
female, Native American, or recent immigrant, Douglass famously
said, "I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to
do wrong."
Victoria Woodhull Martin (September 23, 1838 – June 9,
1927), was an American leader of the woman's suffrage
movement.
In 1872, Woodhull was the first female candidate for
President of the United States. She was also the first woman
to start a weekly newspaper and an activist for women's
rights and labor reforms. Woodhull was an advocate of free
love, by which she meant the freedom to marry, divorce, and
bear children without government interference.
At her peak of political activity in the early 1870s, Woodhull is
best known as the first woman candidate for the United
States presidency, which she ran for in 1872 from the Equal
Rights Party, supporting women's suffrage and equal rights.
She did not receive any electoral votes, and there is
conflicting evidence about popular votes.
Many of the reforms and ideals Woodhull espoused for the
working class, against what she saw as the corrupt capitalist
elite, were extremely controversial in her time. Generations
later many of these reforms have been implemented and are
now taken for granted. Some of her ideas and suggested
reforms are still debated today.
Ida B. Wells
Ida Bell Wells-Barnett (July 16, 1862 – March 25,
1931) was an African-American journalist,
newspaper editor, suffragist, sociologist, and an
early leader in the civil rights movement. She
documented lynching in the United States,
showing that it was often used as a way to
control or punish blacks who competed with
whites, rather than being based in criminal acts
by blacks, as was usually claimed by white mobs.
Her journalism and advocacy is credited with
changing laws around lynching. She was active in
women's rights and the women's suffrage
movement, establishing several notable women's
organizations. Wells was a skilled and persuasive
rhetorician, and traveled internationally on
lecture tours.
FDR
•
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (/ˈroʊzəvəlt/ ROH-zə-vəlt, his own pronunciation,[1] or /ˈroʊzəvɛlt/ ROH-zə-velt) (January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945), commonly known by his initials FDR, was an American statesman and political leader who served as the 32nd President of the United
States.[2] A Democrat, he won a record four elections and served from March 1933 to his death in April 1945. He was a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic depression and total war. A
dominant leader of the Democratic Party, he built a New Deal Coalition that realigned American politics after 1932, as his New Deal domestic policies defined American liberalism for the middle third of the 20th century.
•
Roosevelt was born in Hyde Park, New York in 1882 to a prominent New York family. He attended Groton School and Harvard College, graduating in 1903. In 1905, he married Eleanor Roosevelt, with whom he had six children. He entered politics in 1910, serving in the New York
State Senate, and then as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson. In 1920, he was the Democratic nominee for Vice-President of the United States, but was defeated by Calvin Coolidge. Roosevelt was stricken with polio in 1921, which cost him the use
of his legs and put his political career on hold for several years. After returning to political life by placing Alfred E. Smith’s name into nomination at the 1924 Democratic National Convention, Roosevelt was asked by Smith to run for Governor of New York in the 1928 election.
Roosevelt served as a reform governor from 1929 to 1932, and promoted the enactment of programs to combat the Great Depression that occurred during his governorship.
•
Roosevelt defeated incumbent Republican president Herbert Hoover in November 1932, at the depth of the Great Depression. Energized by his personal victory over polio, FDR used his persistent optimism and activism to renew the national spirit.[3] Assisted by key aide Harry
Hopkins, he worked closely with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in leading the Allies against Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan in World War II.
•
In his first hundred days in office, which began March 4, 1933, Roosevelt spearheaded major legislation and issued a profusion of executive orders that instituted the New Deal—a variety of programs designed to produce relief (government jobs for the unemployed), recovery
(economic growth), and reform (through regulation of Wall Street, banks and transportation). The economy improved rapidly from 1933 to 1937, but then relapsed into a deep recession. The bipartisan Conservative Coalition that formed in 1937 prevented his packing the
Supreme Court. For the rest of his days in office, it blocked all proposals for major liberal legislation (apart from a minimum wage law). It abolished many of the relief programs when unemployment practically vanished during the war. Most of the regulations on business
continued in effect until they ended about 1975–1985, except for the regulation of Wall Street by the still existing Securities and Exchange Commission. Along with several smaller programs, major surviving programs include the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which was
created in 1933, and Social Security, which Congress passed in 1935.
•
As World War II loomed after 1938, with the Japanese invasion of China and the aggression of Nazi Germany, Roosevelt gave strong diplomatic and financial support to China and Great Britain, while remaining officially neutral. His goal was to make America the "Arsenal of
Democracy," which would supply munitions to the Allies. In March 1941, Roosevelt, with Congressional approval, provided Lend-Lease aid to the countries fighting against Nazi Germany with the United Kingdom. With very strong national support, he made war on Japan and
Germany after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, calling it a "date which will live in infamy". He supervised the mobilization of the U.S. economy to support the Allied war effort. As an active military leader, Roosevelt implemented an overall war strategy
on two fronts that ended in the defeat of the Axis Powers and the development of the world's first nuclear bomb (commonly called the atom bomb at the time). In 1942 Roosevelt ordered the internment of 100,000 Japanese American civilians.
•
During the war, unemployment dropped to 2%, relief programs largely ended, and the industrial economy grew rapidly to new heights as millions of people moved to new jobs in war centers, and 16 million men and 300,000 women were drafted or volunteered for military
service. All economic sectors grew during the war. Farm output went from an index (by volume) of 106 in 1939 to 128 in 1943. Coal output went from 446 million tons in 1939 to 651 in 1943; oil from 1.3 billion barrels to 1.5 billion. Manufacturing output doubled, from an index of
109 in 1939 to 239 in 1943. Railroads strained to move it all to market, from an output of 13.6 billion loaded car miles in 1939 to 23.3 in 1943.[4] However, Roosevelt's health seriously declined during the war years, and he ultimately died three months into his fourth term while
vacationing at the polio treatment center he established at Warm Springs, Georgia.
•
Roosevelt dominated the American political scene during the twelve years of his presidency, and his policies and ideas continued to have significant influence for decades afterward. He orchestrated the realignment of voters that created the Fifth Party System. Roosevelt's New
Deal Coalition united labor unions, big city machines, white ethnics, African Americans, and rural white Southerners. His work also influenced the later creation of the United Nations and Bretton Woods. Roosevelt is consistently rated by scholars as one of the top three U.S.
Presidents, along with Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.
Lewis and Clark
• The Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, was the first
American expedition to cross what is now the western portion of the United States, departing in
May 1804, from near St. Louis on the Mississippi River, making their way westward through the
continental divide to the Pacific coast.
• The expedition was commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson shortly after the Louisiana
Purchase in 1803, consisting of a select group of U.S. Army volunteers under the command of
Captain Meriwether Lewis and his close friend Second Lieutenant William Clark. Their perilous
journey lasted from May 1804 to September 1806. The primary objective was to explore and map
the newly acquired territory, find a practical route across the Western half of the continent, and
establish an American presence in this territory before Britain and other European powers tried
to claim it.
• The campaign's secondary objectives were scientific and economic: to study the area's plants,
animal life, and geography, and establish trade with local Indian tribes. With maps, sketches, and
journals in hand, the expedition returned to St. Louis to report their findings to Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
•
Thomas Jefferson (April 13 [O.S. April 2] 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Father, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776), and the third
President of the United States (1801–1809). He was a spokesman for democracy, and embraced the principles of republicanism and the rights of the individual with worldwide
influence. At the beginning of the American Revolution, he served in the Continental Congress, representing Virginia, and then served as a wartime Governor of Virginia (1779–
1781). In May 1785, he became the United States Minister to France and later the first United States Secretary of State (1790–1793) serving under President George Washington.
In opposition to Alexander Hamilton's Federalism, Jefferson and his close friend, James Madison, organized the Democratic-Republican Party, and later resigned from
Washington's cabinet. Elected Vice President in 1796 in the administration of John Adams, Jefferson opposed Adams, and with Madison secretly wrote the Kentucky and Virginia
Resolutions, which attempted to nullify the Alien and Sedition Acts.
•
Elected president in what Jefferson called the "Revolution of 1800", he oversaw acquisition of the vast Louisiana Territory from France (1803), and sent out the Lewis and Clark
Expedition (1804–1806), and later three others, to explore the new west. Jefferson doubled the size of the United States during his presidency. His second term was beset with
troubles at home, such as the failed treason trial of his former Vice President Aaron Burr. When Britain threatened American shipping challenging U.S. neutrality during its war
with Napoleon, he tried economic warfare with his embargo laws, which only impeded American foreign trade. In 1803, President Jefferson initiated a process of Indian tribal
removal to the Louisiana Territory west of the Mississippi River, having opened lands for eventual American settlers. In 1807 Jefferson drafted and signed into law a bill that
banned slave importation into the United States.
•
A leader in the Enlightenment, Jefferson was a polymath in the arts, sciences, and politics. Considered an important architect in the classical tradition, he designed his home
Monticello and other notable buildings. Jefferson was keenly interested in science, invention, architecture, religion, and philosophy; he was an active member and eventual
president of the American Philosophical Society. He was conversant in French, Greek, Italian, Latin, and Spanish, and studied other languages and linguistics, interests which led
him to found the University of Virginia after his presidency. Although not a notable orator, Jefferson was a skilled writer and corresponded with many influential people in
America and Europe throughout his adult life.
•
As long as he lived, Jefferson expressed opposition to slavery, yet he owned hundreds of slaves and freed only a few of them. Historians generally believe that after the death of
his wife Jefferson had a long-term relationship with his slave, Sally Hemings, and fathered some or all of her children. Although criticized by many present-day scholars over the
issues of racism and slavery, Jefferson is consistently rated as one of the greatest U.S. presidents.
•
Martin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister, activist, humanitarian, and leader in the African-American
Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent civil disobedience based on his Christian
beliefs.
•
Dr. King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC) in 1957, serving as its first president. With the SCLC, King led an unsuccessful 1962 struggle against segregation in Albany, Georgia
(the Albany Movement), and helped organize the 1963 nonviolent protests in Birmingham, Alabama that attracted national attention following
television news coverage of the brutal police response. King also helped to organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his famous "I
Have a Dream" speech. There, he established his reputation as one of the greatest orators in American history.
•
On October 14, 1964, King received the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolence. In 1965, he helped to organize the
Selma to Montgomery marches, and the following year he and SCLC took the movement north to Chicago to work on segregated housing. In the final
years of his life, King expanded his focus to include poverty and speak against the Vietnam War, alienating many of his liberal allies with a 1967 speech
titled "Beyond Vietnam".
•
In 1968, King was planning a national occupation of Washington, D.C., to be called the Poor People's Campaign, when he was assassinated on April 4
in Memphis, Tennessee. His death was followed by riots in many U.S. cities. Allegations that James Earl Ray, the man convicted of killing King, had
been framed or acted in concert with government agents persisted for decades after the shooting.
•
King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as
a holiday in numerous cities and states beginning in 1971, and as a U.S. federal holiday in 1986. Hundreds of streets in the U.S. have been renamed in
his honor, and a county in Washington State was also renamed for him. The Martin Luther King Memorial statue on the National Mall in Washington,
D.C. was dedicated in 2011.
• Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt, Hinmatóowyalahtq̓ it in Americanist orthography, popularly known as Chief Joseph, or Young Joseph
(March 3, 1840–September 21, 1904), succeeded his father Tuekakas (Chief Joseph the Elder) as the leader of the Wal-lam-watkain (Wallowa) band of Nez Perce, a Native American tribe indigenous to the Wallowa Valley in northeastern Oregon, in the
interior Pacific Northwest region of the United States.
• He led his band during the most tumultuous period in their contemporary history when they were forcibly removed from their
ancestral lands in the Wallowa Valley by the United States federal government and forced to move northeast, onto the significantly
reduced reservation in Lapwai, Idaho Territory. A series of events that culminated in episodes of violence led those Nez Perce who
resisted removal including Joseph's band and an allied band of the Palouse tribe to take flight to attempt to reach political asylum,
ultimately with the Lakota chief Sitting Bull in Canada.
• They were pursued by the U.S. Army in a campaign led by General Oliver O. Howard. This 1,170-mile (1,900 km) fighting retreat by
the Nez Perce in 1877 became known as the Nez Perce War. The skill with which the Nez Perce fought and the manner in which
they conducted themselves in the face of incredible adversity led to widespread admiration among their military adversaries and
the American public.
• Coverage of the war in United States newspapers led to widespread recognition of Joseph and the Nez Perce. For his principled
resistance to the removal, he became renowned as a humanitarian and peacemaker. However, modern scholars like Robert McCoy
and Thomas Guthrie argue that this coverage, as well as Joseph’s speeches and writings, distorted the true nature of Joseph’s
thoughts and gave rise to a “mythical” Chief Joseph as a “red Napoleon” that served the interests of the Anglo-American narrative
of manifest destiny.
• Sacagawea (/ˌsækədʒəˈwiːə/ see below; c. 1788 – December 20, 1812; see below
for other theories about her death), also Sakakawea or Sacajawea, was a Lemhi
Shoshone woman who accompanied the Lewis and Clark Expedition as an
interpreter and guide during their exploration of the Western United States. With
the expedition, she traveled thousands of miles from North Dakota to the Pacific
Ocean between 1804 and 1806.
• While Sacagawea has been depicted as a guide for the expedition, she is recorded
as providing direction in only a few instances. Her work as an interpreter certainly
helped the party to negotiate with the Shoshone. However, her greatest value to
the mission may have been simply her presence during the arduous journey,
which showed their peaceful intent. While traveling through what is now Franklin
County, Washington, Clark noted, "The Indian woman confirmed those people of
our friendly intentions, as no woman ever accompanies a war party of Indians in
this quarter," and, "the wife of Shabono our interpeter we find reconsiles all the
Indians, as to our friendly intentions a woman with a party of men is a token of
peace."[6]
•
Alice Stokes Paul (January 11, 1885 – July 9, 1977) was an American suffragist, feminist, and women's rights activist, and the main leader and
strategist of the 1910s campaign for the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which prohibits sex discrimination in the right to vote. Along
with Lucy Burns and others, Paul strategized the events, such as the Silent Sentinels, which led the successful campaign that resulted in its passage in
1920.[1]
•
After 1920 Paul spent a half century as leader of the National Woman's Party, which fought for her Equal Rights Amendment to secure constitutional
equality for women. She won a large degree of success with the inclusion of women as a group protected against discrimination by the Civil Rights Act
of 1964. Historian David Chalmers concludes:
•
Alice Paul was challengingly militant, but despite its fight for an Equal Rights Amendment, her National Women's Party was otherwise conservative,
uninterested in social reform, race issues, birth control, and changed gender roles.[2]
•
Suffragists continued picketing outside the White House after this event and during WWI with banners containing slogans such as “Mr. President, How
Long Must Women Wait For Liberty?”.[10] Although the suffragists protested peacefully, their protests were not always met kindly. While protesting,
young men would harass and beat up the women, with the police never intervening on behalf of the protesters. Police would even arrest other men
who tried to help the women who were getting beaten. Even though they were protesting during wartime, they continued peaceful, non-destructive
protesting, so they still had some public support. Throughout this time, more protesters were arrested and sent to Occoquan, with no pardons
offered.
•
By repeating offenses, Paul purposefully strove to receive the seven-month jail sentence that started on October 20, 1917. She had previously been
incarcerated on a number of occasions for insignificant periods, but Paul did not believe that made enough of a statement about the persecution of
women in America.[11]
•
When sent to Occoquan, the women were given no special treatment and had to live in harsh conditions, with poor sanitation, infested food, and
dreadful facilities.[9] In protest of the conditions in Occoquan, Paul began a hunger strike,[12] which led to her being moved to the prison’s psychiatric
ward and force-fed raw eggs through a feeding tube. "Seems almost unthinkable now, doesn’t it?" Paul told an interviewer from American Heritage
when asked about the forced feeding. "It was shocking that a government of men could look with such extreme contempt on a movement that was
asking nothing except such a simple little thing as the right to vote."[13]
•
On the night of November 14, 1917, at Occoquan, known as the Night of Terror, a group of returning protesters was beaten by guards to the point of
unconsciousness. Some were choked and one was even stabbed between her eyes by her own banner; others received concussions, lacerations and
broken ribs. None of the protesters received medical assistance after the event and they were thrown into concrete "punishment cells."[10] Despite
the brutality of the intervention, Paul remained undaunted and on November 27 and 28, all the suffragists were released from prison.[9]
•
Paul's hunger strike, combined with the continuing demonstrations and attendant press coverage, kept pressure on the Wilson administration.[8] In
January 1918, Wilson announced that women's suffrage was urgently needed as a "war measure," and strongly urged Congress to pass the legislation.
The amendment passed the House in 1918 but the Senate was a different story. President Wilson even attended the Senate meeting and urged the
senators to pass this amendment. The amendment still fell two votes short of passing. The next year, 1919, the amendment was one vote short of
passing. In 1920 the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed and secured the vote for women. Originally, the
amendment wasn't going to pass, being short by one vote again, but the senator of Tennessee changed his vote when he received a telegram from his
mother asking him to support women’s suffrage.[3]
•
Wendell Berry (born August 5, 1934) is an American novelist, poet, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer. A prolific author, he has written dozens of novels, short stories, poems, and essays. He is an elected member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, a recipient of
The National Humanities Medal, and the Jefferson Lecturer for 2012. He is also a 2013 Fellow of The American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Berry was named the recipient of the 2013 Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award
•
On February 10, 1968, Berry delivered "A Statement Against the War in Vietnam" during the Kentucky Conference on the War and the Draft at the University of Kentucky in Lexington:[13]
•
“ We seek to preserve peace by fighting a war, or to advance freedom by subsidizing dictatorships, or to 'win the hearts and minds of the people' by poisoning their crops and burning their villages and confining them in concentration camps; we seek to uphold the 'truth' of our
cause with lies, or to answer conscientious dissent with threats and slurs and intimidations. . . . I have come to the realization that I can no longer imagine a war that I would believe to be either useful or necessary. I would be against any war.[14] ”
•
On June 3, 1979, Berry engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience against the construction of a nuclear power plant at Marble Hill, Indiana. He describes "this nearly eventless event" and expands upon his reasons for it in the essay "The Reactor and the Garden."[15]
•
On February 9, 2003, Berry's essay titled "A Citizen's Response to the National Security Strategy of the United States" was published as a full-page advertisement in The New York Times. Berry opened the essay—a critique of the G. W. Bush administration's post-9/11 international
strategy[16]—by asserting that "The new National Security Strategy published by the White House in September 2002, if carried out, would amount to a radical revision of the political character of our nation."[17]
•
On January 4, 2009, Berry and Wes Jackson, president of The Land Institute, published an op-ed article in The New York Times titled "A 50-Year Farm Bill."[18] In July 2009 Berry, Jackson and Fred Kirschenmann, of The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, gathered in
Washington DC to promote this idea.[19] Berry and Jackson wrote, "We need a 50-year farm bill that addresses forthrightly the problems of soil loss and degradation, toxic pollution, fossil-fuel dependency and the destruction of rural communities."[20]
•
Also in January 2009 Berry released a statement against the death penalty, which began, "As I am made deeply uncomfortable by the taking of a human life before birth, I am also made deeply uncomfortable by the taking of a human life after birth."[21] And in November 2009,
Berry and 38 other writers from Kentucky wrote to Gov. Steve Beshear and Attorney General Jack Conway asking them to impose a moratorium on the death penalty in that state.[22]
•
On March 2, 2009, Berry joined over 2,000 others in non-violently blocking the gates to a coal-fired power plant in Washington, D.C. No one was arrested.[23]
•
On May 22, 2009, Berry, at a listening session in Louisville, spoke against the National Animal Identification System (NAIS).[24] He said, "If you impose this program on the small farmers, who are already overburdened, you're going to have to send the police for me. I'm 75 years
old. I've about completed my responsibilities to my family. I'll lose very little in going to jail in opposition to your program – and I'll have to do it. Because I will be, in every way that I can conceive of, a non-cooperator."[25]
•
In October 2009 Berry combined with "the Berea-based Kentucky Environmental Foundation (KEF), along with several other non-profit organizations and rural electric co-op members" to petition against and protest the construction of a coal-burning power plant in Clark County,
Kentucky.[26] On February 28, 2011, the Kentucky Public Service Commission approved the cancellation of this power plant.[27]
•
On September 28, 2010, Berry participated in a rally in Louisville during an EPA hearing on how to manage coal ash. Berry said, "The EPA knows that coal ash is poison. We ask it only to believe in its own findings on this issue, and do its duty."[28]
•
Berry, with 14 other protesters, spent the weekend of February 12, 2011 locked in the Kentucky governor's office demanding an end to mountaintop removal coal mining. He was part of the environmental group Kentuckians for the Commonwealth that began their sit-in on
Friday and left at midday Monday to join about 1,000 others in a mass outdoor rally.[29][30]
•
Henry David Thoreau (see name pronunciation; July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862) was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax
resister, development critic, surveyor, and historian. A leading transcendentalist,[2] Thoreau is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon
simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay Resistance to Civil Government (also known as Civil Disobedience), an argument for disobedience
to an unjust state.
•
Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions are his writings on natural history and
philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern-day environmentalism. His
literary style interweaves close natural observation, personal experience, pointed rhetoric, symbolic meanings, and historical lore, while displaying a
poetic sensibility, philosophical austerity, and "Yankee" love of practical detail.[3] He was also deeply interested in the idea of survival in the face of
hostile elements, historical change, and natural decay; at the same time he advocated abandoning waste and illusion in order to discover life's true
essential needs.[3]
•
He was a lifelong abolitionist, delivering lectures that attacked the Fugitive Slave Law while praising the writings of Wendell Phillips and defending
abolitionist John Brown. Thoreau's philosophy of civil disobedience later influenced the political thoughts and actions of such notable figures as Leo
Tolstoy, Mohandas Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
•
Thoreau is sometimes cited as an anarchist.[4] Though Civil Disobedience seems to call for improving rather than abolishing government — "I ask for,
not at once no government, but at once a better government"[5] — the direction of this improvement points toward anarchism: "'That government is
best which governs not at all;' and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have."[5] Richard Drinnon partly
blames Thoreau for the ambiguity, noting that Thoreau's "sly satire, his liking for wide margins for his writing, and his fondness for paradox provided
ammunition for widely divergent interpretations of 'Civil Disobedience.'"[6]
• Cesar Chavez (born César Estrada Chávez, locally: [ˈsesaɾ esˈtɾaða ˈtʃaβes]; March 31, 1927 – April 23, 1993) was an American farm
worker, labor leader and civil rights activist, who, with Dolores Huerta, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (later
the United Farm Workers union, UFW).[1]
• A Mexican American, Chavez became the best known Latino American civil rights activist, and was strongly promoted by the
American labor movement, which was eager to enroll Hispanic members. His public-relations approach to unionism and aggressive
but nonviolent tactics made the farm workers' struggle a moral cause with nationwide support. By the late 1970s, his tactics had
forced growers to recognize the UFW as the bargaining agent for 50,000 field workers in California and Florida. However, by the
mid-1980s membership in the UFW had dwindled to around 15,000.[2]
• During his lifetime, Colegio Cesar Chavez was one of the few institutions named in his honor, but after his death he became a
major historical icon for the Latino community, with many schools, streets, and parks being named after him. He has since become
an icon for organized labor and leftist politics, symbolizing support for workers and for Hispanic empowerment based on grass
roots organizing. He is also famous for popularizing the slogan "Sí, se puede" (Spanish for "Yes, one can" or, roughly, "Yes, it can be
done"), which was adopted as the 2008 campaign slogan of Barack Obama. His supporters say his work led to numerous
improvements for union laborers. Although the UFW faltered after a few years, after Chavez died in 1993 he became an iconic
"folk saint" in the pantheon of Mexican Americans.[3] His birthday, March 31, has become Cesar Chavez Day, a state holiday in
California, Colorado, and Texas.
• Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson (January 31, 1919 – October 24, 1972) was an American baseball player who became the first
African American to play in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the modern era.[1] Robinson broke the baseball color line when the
Brooklyn Dodgers started him at first base on April 15, 1947. As the first major league team to play a black man since the 1880s,
the Dodgers ended racial segregation that had relegated black players to the Negro leagues for six decades.[2] The example of
Robinson's character, his use of nonviolence, and his unquestionable talent challenged the traditional basis of segregation, which
then marked many other aspects of American life, and contributed significantly to the Civil Rights Movement.[3][4]
• In addition to his cultural impact, Robinson had an exceptional baseball career. Over 10 seasons, Robinson played in six World
Series and contributed to the Dodgers' 1955 World Series championship. He was selected for six consecutive All-Star Games, from
1949 to 1954,[5] was the recipient of the inaugural MLB Rookie of the Year Award in 1947, and won the National League Most
Valuable Player Award in 1949—the first black player so honored.[6] Robinson was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.
In 1997, MLB "universally" retired his uniform number, 42, across all major league teams; he was the first pro athlete in any sport
to be so honored. Initiated for the first time on April 15, 2004, MLB has adopted a new annual tradition, "Jackie Robinson Day", on
which every player on every team wears #42.
• Robinson was also known for his pursuits outside the baseball diamond. He was the first black television analyst in MLB, and the
first black vice president of a major American corporation, Chock full o'Nuts. In the 1960s, he helped establish the Freedom
National Bank, an African-American-owned financial institution based in Harlem, New York. In recognition of his achievements on
and off the field, Robinson was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal.
•
Stephen Tyrone Colbert[10] (/koʊlˈbɛər/, né: /ˈkoʊlbərt/;[4] born May 13, 1964)[11] is an American political satirist, writer, producer, singer, television
host, actor, media critic, and comedian. From 2005 to 2014, he was the host of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, a satirical news show in which
Colbert portrayed a caricatured version of conservative political pundits. It was announced on April 10, 2014, that Colbert had been chosen to
succeed David Letterman as the host of the Late Show on CBS after Letterman retires in 2015.[12]
•
Colbert originally studied to be an actor, but became interested in improvisational theatre when he met famed Second City director Del Close while
attending Northwestern University. He first performed professionally as an understudy for Steve Carell at Second City Chicago; among his troupe
mates were comedians Paul Dinello and Amy Sedaris, with whom he developed the sketch comedy series Exit 57.
•
Colbert also wrote and performed on the short-lived Dana Carvey Show before collaborating with Sedaris and Dinello again on the cult television
series Strangers with Candy. He gained considerable attention for his role on the latter as closeted gay history teacher Chuck Noblet. His work as a
correspondent on Comedy Central's news-parody series The Daily Show first introduced him to a wide audience.
•
In 2005, he left The Daily Show to host a spin-off series, The Colbert Report. Following The Daily Show '​s news-parody concept, The Colbert Report was
a parody of personality-driven political opinion shows such as The O'Reilly Factor. The series established itself as one of Comedy Central's highestrated series, earning Colbert an invitation to perform as featured entertainer at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in 2006. Colbert
has been nominated for over twenty Primetime Emmy Awards, winning six, and has won two Grammy Awards and two Peabody Awards. He was
named one of Time '​s 100 most influential people in 2006 and 2012.[13][14] His book I Am America (And So Can You!) was number one on The New
York Times Best Seller list.
• Norman Perceval Rockwell (February 3, 1894 – November 8, 1978) was a
20th-century American painter and illustrator. His works enjoy a broad
popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of American culture.
Rockwell is most famous for the cover illustrations of everyday life
scenarios he created for The Saturday Evening Post magazine for more than
four decades.[1] Among the best-known of Rockwell's works are the Willie
Gillis series, Rosie the Riveter, The Problem We All Live With, Saying Grace
and the Four Freedoms series. He is also noted for his 64-year relationship
with the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), producing covers for their
publication Boys' Life, calendars, and other illustrations. These works
include popular images that reflect the Scout Oath and Scout Law such as
The Scoutmaster, A Scout is Reverent,[2] and A Guiding Hand [3] among
many others.
• Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Raised in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, Swift moved
to Nashville, Tennessee, at the age of 14 to pursue a career in country music. She signed with the independent label Big Machine
Records and became the youngest songwriter ever hired by the Sony/ATV Music publishing house. The release of Swift's self-titled
debut album in 2006 established her as a country music star. Her third single, "Our Song," made her the youngest person to singlehandedly write and perform a number-one song on the Hot Country Songs chart. She received a Best New Artist nomination at the
2008 Grammy Awards.
• Swift's second album, Fearless, was released in 2008. Buoyed by the pop crossover success of the singles "Love Story" and "You
Belong with Me," Fearless became the best-selling album of 2009 in the United States. The album won four Grammy Awards, with
Swift becoming the youngest ever Album of the Year winner. Swift's third and fourth albums, 2010's Speak Now and 2012's Red,
both sold over one million copies within the first week of their U.S release. Speak Now won two Grammy Awards, while Red's
singles "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and "I Knew You Were Trouble" were worldwide hits. Swift's fifth album, the
pop-focused 1989, was released in 2014. It sold more copies in its opening week than any album in the previous 12 years, and
made Swift the first and only act to have three albums sell more than one million copies in a week. The singles "Shake It Off" and
"Blank Space" both reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100.
• Swift is known for narrative songs about her personal experiences. As a songwriter, she has been honored by the Nashville
Songwriters Association and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Swift's other achievements include seven Grammy Awards, twelve
Billboard Music Awards, eleven Country Music Association Awards and seven Academy of Country Music Awards. To date, she has
sold over 27.1 million albums in the U.S. In addition to her music career, Swift has appeared as an actress in the ensemble comedy
Valentine's Day (2010), the animated film The Lorax (2012) and The Giver (2014). As a philanthropist, Swift supports arts
education, children's literacy, natural disaster relief, LGBT anti-discrimination activities and charities for sick children.
• Harvey Bernard Milk (May 22, 1930 – November 27, 1978) was an American politician who became the first openly gay person to
be elected to public office in California when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Politics and gay activism
were not his early interests; he was not open about his homosexuality and did not participate in civic matters until around the age
of 40, after his experiences in the counterculture of the 1960s.
• Milk moved from New York City to settle in San Francisco in 1972 amid a migration of gay men to the Castro District. He took
advantage of the growing political and economic power of the neighborhood to promote his interests, and ran unsuccessfully for
political office three times. His theatrical campaigns earned him increasing popularity, and Milk won a seat as a city supervisor in
1977, part of the broader social changes the city was experiencing.
• Milk served almost 11 months in office and was responsible for passing a stringent gay rights ordinance for the city. On November
27, 1978, Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by Dan White, another city supervisor who had recently resigned
but wanted his job back. Milk's election was made possible by and was a key component of a shift in San Francisco politics.
• Despite his short career in politics, Milk became an icon in San Francisco and a martyr in the gay community.[note 1] In 2002, Milk
was called "the most famous and most significantly open LGBT official ever elected in the United States".[1] Anne Kronenberg, his
final campaign manager, wrote of him: "What set Harvey apart from you or me was that he was a visionary. He imagined a
righteous world inside his head and then he set about to create it for real, for all of us."[2] Milk was posthumously awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.
• Henry Alfred Kissinger (/ˈkɪsɪndʒər/;[1] born Heinz Alfred Kissinger [haɪnts ˈalfʁɛt
ˈkɪsɪŋɐ]; May 27, 1923) is an American diplomat and political scientist. He served as
National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the
administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. For his actions negotiating
the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, he received the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize (shared with
Le Duc Tho, who refused the prize). After his term, his opinion was still sought by some
subsequent U.S. presidents and other world leaders.
• A proponent of Realpolitik, Kissinger played a prominent role in United States foreign
policy between 1969 and 1977. During this period, he pioneered the policy of détente
with the Soviet Union, orchestrated the opening of relations with the People's Republic
of China, and negotiated the Paris Peace Accords, ending American involvement in the
Vietnam War. He is the founder and chairman of Kissinger Associates, an international
consulting firm. Kissinger has been a prolific author of books in politics and international
relations with over one dozen books authored.
•
Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in
1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread Communist subversion.[1] He was noted for making claims that there were large numbers of
Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the United States federal government and elsewhere. Ultimately, his tactics and inability to substantiate his claims led him to be censured by the United States
Senate.
•
The term McCarthyism, coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy's practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist activities. Today the term is used more generally in reference to demagogic, reckless, and
unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents.[2]
•
Born and raised on a Wisconsin farm, McCarthy earned a law degree at Marquette University in 1935 and was elected as a circuit judge in 1939, the youngest in state history.[3] At age 33, McCarthy volunteered for the
United States Marine Corps and served during World War II. He successfully ran for the United States Senate in 1946, defeating Robert M. La Follette, Jr. After three largely undistinguished years in the Senate,
McCarthy rose suddenly to national fame in February 1950 when he asserted in a speech that he had a list of "members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring" who were employed in the State
Department.[4] McCarthy was never able to prove his sensational charge.
•
In succeeding years after his 1950 speech, McCarthy made additional accusations of Communist infiltration into the State Department, the administration of President Harry S. Truman, the Voice of America, and the
United States Army. He also used various charges of communism, communist sympathies, disloyalty, or homosexuality to attack a number of politicians and other individuals inside and outside of government.[5]
•
Not as widely known as McCarthy's anti-Communist crusade were his various attempts to intimidate, and expel from government positions, persons whom he accused, or threatened to publicly accuse, of
homosexuality. Former U.S. Senator Alan K. Simpson has written: "The so-called 'Red Scare' has been the main focus of most historians of that period of time. A lesser-known element...and one that harmed far more
people was the witch-hunt McCarthy and others conducted against homosexuals."[6] This anti-homosexual witch-hunt that McCarthy and others waged alongside their "Red Scare" tactics has been referred to by some
as the "Lavender Scare".[7]
•
With the highly publicized Army–McCarthy hearings of 1954, and following the death of Senator Lester Hunt of Wyoming by suicide that same year,[8] McCarthy's support and popularity faded. On December 2, 1954,
the Senate voted to censure Senator McCarthy by a vote of 67 to 22, making him one of the few senators ever to be disciplined in this fashion. McCarthy died in Bethesda Naval Hospital on May 2, 1957, at the age of
48. The official cause of death was acute hepatitis; it is widely accepted that this was caused, or at least exacerbated, by alcoholism
Isaac Stevens
•
Having been a firm supporter of Franklin Pierce's candidacy for President of the United States in 1852, Stevens was rewarded by President Pierce on March 17, 1853[2] by being
named governor of the newly created Washington Territory (a position which carried with it the title of Superintendent of Indian Affairs for that region). Stevens chose to add one
more duty as he traveled west to the territory he would govern: the government was calling for a surveyor to map an appropriate railroad route across the northern United
States, and with Stevens' engineering experience (and likely the favor of Pierce yet again) he won the bid, and spent most of 1853 moving slowly across the prairie, surveying his
way to Washington Territory, where he took up his post at Olympia as governor in November that year.
•
As a result of his expedition, Stevens wrote a third book, Report of Explorations for a Route for the Pacific Railroad near the 47th and 49th Parallels of North Latitude, from St.
Paul, Minnesota, to Puget Sound, (commissioned and published by the United States Congress) (2 vols., Washington, 1855–60).
•
Stevens was a controversial governor in his time, and has become more controversial in retrospect. He used a careful combination of intimidation and force to compel the Native
American tribes of Washington Territory to sign treaties that handed over most of their lands and rights to Stevens' government. These included the Treaty of Medicine Creek,
Treaty of Hellgate, Treaty of Neah Bay, Treaty of Point Elliott, Point No Point Treaty, and Quinault Treaty. When Stevens was met with resistance, he used the troops at his
disposal to exact vengeance. His winter campaign against the Yakama tribe, led by Chief Kamiakin, and his execution of the Nisqually chieftain Leschi (for the crime of having killed
Stevens' soldiers in open combat), among other deeds, led a number of powerful citizens in the territory to beg Pierce to remove Stevens. Territorial Judge Edward Lander and
Ezra Meeker (an influential private citizen) were both vocal in opposing Stevens—Lander was arrested as a result, and Meeker was simply ignored. Pierce sent word to Stevens of
his disapproval of Stevens' conduct, but refused to remove the governor. Those who opposed Stevens ultimately lost public support, as the majority of the citizens of Washington
Territory saw Meeker as being on the side of the "Indians", and Stevens on the side of the white settlers.
•
As a result of this public perception, Stevens was popular enough to be elected the territory's delegate to the United States Congress in 1857 and 1858. The tensions between the
whites and the Native Americans would be left for others to resolve—Stevens is often charged with responsibility for the later conflicts in eastern Washington and Idaho,
especially the war fought by the United States against Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce, but these events were decades away when Isaac Stevens left Washington for good in 1857.
• Gifford Pinchot (August 11, 1865 – October 4, 1946) was an American forester and
politician. Pinchot served as the first Chief of the United States Forest Service from 1905
until his firing in 1910, and was the 28th Governor of Pennsylvania, serving from 1923 to
1927, and again from 1931 to 1935. He was a member of the Republican Party for most
of his life, though he also joined the Progressive Party for a brief period.
• Pinchot is known for reforming the management and development of forests in the
United States and for advocating the conservation of the nation's reserves by planned
use and renewal. He called it "the art of producing from the forest whatever it can yield
for the service of man." Pinchot coined the term conservation ethic as applied to natural
resources. Pinchot's main contribution was his leadership in promoting scientific forestry
and emphasizing the controlled, profitable use of forests and other natural resources so
they would be of maximum benefit to mankind. He was the first to demonstrate the
practicality and profitability of managing forest for continuous cropping. His leadership
put conservation of forests high on America's priority list.[3]
Someone Else
There are thousands of people who
forever shaped the United States
and who’s legacies live on in our
daily lives who were not included in
this set of names.
• Is there someone else you think
should be included?
• What did they do?
• What was the impact of their life?
How does it impact us today?