Showing posts with label activist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label activist. Show all posts

June 27 - Happy Birthday, Helen Keller

Posted on June 27, 2021

This is an update of my post published on June 27, 2010:




Born in Alabama on this day in 1880, Helen Keller became blind and deaf while she was just a baby, due to an illness. Since she was unable to see or hear, she didn't learn to talk. Thanks to her remarkable teacher, Anne Sullivan, Keller learned to communicate by touch in sign language. She learned to read and write in Braille, and later she learned to speak. Eventually she learned five languages!



From those difficult childhood beginnings, would you have guessed that Keller's Wikipedia bio would list her as a college grad (Radcliffe College, which is part of Harvard University), the author of 14 books, an activist (working on causes as varied as rights for those with disabilities, women's suffrage, labor rights, and world peace), and a lecturer who traveled to 35 nations in the world? Wow! 



Keller was a supporter of the NAACP and one of the original members of the ACLU; she wrote an autobiography and has been the subject of movies and plays. Her birthplace in Alabama is a museum, her birthday is celebrated in Pennsylvania, she is a member of both the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame and the Alabama Writers' Hall of Fame, and she appears on the Alabama state quarter!




When I was checking to see if Helen Keller really said the quotes attributed to her, I noticed some huge raves from some really important peeps:

U.K. Prime Minister Winston Churchill called Keller "the greatest woman of our age." Albert Einstein told her "I have been a great admirer of you always." 

Ultra-famous author Mark Twain said TO Keller, "I am charmed with your book - enchanted!" And Twain said ABOUT Keller that she was on of the two greatest characters in the 19th Century - alongside Napoleon Bonaparte! He went on, "Napoleon tried to conquer the world by physical force and failed. Helen tried to conquer the world by power of mind — and succeeded!"




Also on this date:











(Last Sunday in June)



(Last Sunday in June)





Plan ahead:



Check out my Pinterest boards for:

And here are my Pinterest boards for:





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March 31 - Cesar Chavez Day

 Posted on March 31, 2021

This is an update of my post published on March 31, 2010:



Today is a holiday in eight U.S. states, including mine (California)! It honors Cesar Chavez, who was born on this day in 1927 and died in 1993. State offices and some schools and colleges are closed.

You may not know who Cesar Chavez was. Well, he was a Mexican American farm worker who became a labor leader and civil rights activist. Along with Dolores Huerta, he started the United Farm Workers labor union, and their work helped make a huge improvement in the lives of many.


Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez helped make
a big difference for a lot of people.

And like Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Jr., Chavez emphasized peaceful demonstrations and peaceful, constructive action at a time when there was a lot of tension and even violence during some other protest movements.

Cesar Chavez was saying “Yes, we can!” long before the Barack Obama presidential campaign—but it was in Spanish: “Si, se puede.”



Chavez helped prove that grassroots efforts to register voters, to gain signatures on petitions, and to persuade voters and consumers to support the workers' cause and stand up to monied interests—he proved that all of the things that many people said were impossible, could and did happen.



As Randy Shaw wrote on BeyondChron, Chavez and those who worked with him were able to unite students, women, clergy, and workers to make needed changes and to win human rights.

Robert Kennedy supported Chavez's civil rights efforts, and in return Chavez and his organization supported Kennedy's run for presidency. It is the UFW that is credited with winning the California primary for Kennedy (who was tragically assassinated the night of the victory).



Learn more about Chavez.

There is a nice bio here with lots of photos.

And this is one of many YouTube videos about him.

Chavez is buried at the National Chavez Center.

Learn some Spanish.
Chavez started his civil rights work to gain rights to better, healthier working conditions for migrant farm workers who went from farm to farm, region to region, picking fruits and vegetables. How about, in honor of Chavez, learning some Spanish words for fruits and vegetables? You can also have a big fruit salad and a big green salad for lunch today!


You can learn the Spanish food words here and here.



Boycott
I remember, as a kid, we couldn't eat grapes. For years!

Some grape growers in California at the time treated their migrant workers horribly. The working and living conditions were very unhealthy, and the pay was unbelievably low—an entire family might get paid just twenty cents for three hours of work!

Things were bad, so Chavez and the UFW organized strikes—which means organized refusals to work until certain conditions were changed—and also a large protest march to California's capital, Sacramento. However, those actions weren't enough. Chavez asked the wider community—the people all across America—to support their efforts to win human rights. He called for a boycott of all table grapes.




A boycott is when people refuse to buy a certain product. Chavez asked all of us to join in his protest against the grape growers, and he persuaded many in the U.S. to support him. My parents were among those persuaded. For years, until the growers finally singed union contracts, we just didn't buy or eat grapes!

Here is some of Chavez's wisdom:











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August 23 – Happy Birthday, Malvina Reynolds

Posted on August 23, 2020

Born on this date in 1900, Malvina Reynolds was a true Turn-of-the-Century child! Her parents were Jewish socialists who immigrated to the U.S. before Malvina was born.

Reynolds was born and raised in San Francisco, California, and she wasn't allowed to get her high school diploma because her parents were opposed to the U.S. involvement in World War I. Not getting the diploma didn't stand in Reynolds's way, though; she went to UC Berkeley and earned a BA and MA in English. She married a carpenter and union organizer, raised a child, and earned a Doctorate in 1939.

But she wasn't able to find a job teaching at the college level, despite her PhD. She was a woman; she was Jewish; she was socialist. And the nation was suffering from the Great Depression! So....

Reynolds got a job as a social worker, wrote a column for a Marxist newspaper, worked in a factory making bombs (!), and eventually took over her father's tailor shop.

That tailor shop was located in Southern California (Long Beach, to be exact). And Reynolds began to meet some famous people like folk singer Pete Seeger. All of a sudden - in her late 40s - she launched a songwriting career!

Reynolds wrote songs recorded by amazing musicians such as Harry Belafonte, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Judy Collins, Marianne Faithful, the Seekers, the Searchers, the Limeliters, and others. She wrote songs for Women for Peace, for the Nestle Boycott, and for a variety of sit-ins and protests.




She even wrote songs for Sesame Street!

Reynolds played a songwriting character
named Kate on Sesame Street!

Reynolds's most famous songs are Little Boxes (about the development of suburbia) and What Have They Done to the Rain? (about nuclear fallout).
When Reynolds drove by Daly City, south of San Francisco,
she turned the wheel over to her husband and wrote the
song "Little Boxes"!


Pretty rad to have such a successful music career so late in life!


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