Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Making It Work Before The Movement: African-American Community And Resistance In 1940s And 1950s Portland, Maine, Justus Hillebrand
Making It Work Before The Movement: African-American Community And Resistance In 1940s And 1950s Portland, Maine, Justus Hillebrand
Maine History
African Americans in Portland, Maine, in the 1940s and 1950s made up less than 0.5% of the population. As a consequence, discourse on race was more subtle than it was in other parts of the country. The Portland black community, as in other small northern New England cities, lacked the numbers for broad public or political action. Instead, African Americans developed individual and informal strategies of resistance aimed at broadening opportunities in education, employment, and housing. African Americans “made it work” by congregating in their own church, persevering in their own educational goals, operating their own businesses, and owning their …
Elijah Lovejoy’S Oration On The Fiftieth Anniversary Of American Independence: An Essay Discovered, William G. Chrystal
Elijah Lovejoy’S Oration On The Fiftieth Anniversary Of American Independence: An Essay Discovered, William G. Chrystal
Maine History
On July 4, 1826, the American republic celebrated its fiftieth anniversary with great fanfare. In this research note, the author provides a transcript of an oration delivered in China, Maine on that day. The speaker was local schoolmaster Elijah P. Lovejoy, better known for his tragic death eleven years later. By then an abolitionist newspaper editor in Alton, Illinois, Lovejoy was killed in 1837 by a pro-slavery mob. Lovejoy’s 1826 oration, then, serves as both a compelling look at the celebration of America’s Jubilee in rural Maine and an early example of the ideological convictions which led Lovejoy to abolitionism. …