Welcome to the conversation!


Welcome to the conversation!

Harriet Beecher Stowe's (1811-1896) best-selling anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), made her the most famous American woman of the 19th century and galvanized the abolition movement before the Civil War.

The Stowe Center is a 21st-century museum and program center using Stowe's story to inspire social justice and positive change.

The Salons at Stowe programs are a forum to connect the challenging issues (race, gender and class) that impelled Stowe to write and act with the contemporary face of those same issues. The Salon format is based on a robust level of audience participation, with the explicit goal of promoting civic engagement. Recent topics included: Teaching Acceptance; Is Prison the New Slavery; Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North; Creativity and Change; Race, Gender and Politics Today; How to be an Advocate

This blog will expand the reach of these community conversations to the online audience. Add your posts and comments to keep the conversation going! Commit to action by clicking HERE to stay up to date on Salon and social justice news.

For updates on Stowe Center programs and events, sign up for our enews at http://harrietbeecherstowe.org/email.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

150th Anniversary of the Gettysburg Address

Seven score and 10 years ago today, President Abraham Lincoln arrived in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, four months after the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. That day, November 19, 1863, he delivered the Gettysburg Address consecrating the hallowed grounds before him, "with a faraway look in his eyes as if appealing from the few thousands before him to the invisible audience of countless millions whom his words were to reach.”  Perhaps the best known speech in American history, documentarian Ken Burns has called it "one of the most important declarations ever made on human equality."

In celebration of the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, Burns is creating a documentary about boys at Greenwood School in Vermont who memorize and recite the Address to challenge themselves personally, academically, and socially. In conjunction, Burns is challenging every American to recite the Address and share a recording of themselves. He has already recorded many leading politicians, musicians, comedians, actors, business leaders, and more, and created "The Address Mashup" below.

 

Part of Burns' effort is to consider the relevance of the Gettysburg Address today. What does it say about human rights and equality, as it hearkens back to the "Liberty, and...proposition that all men are created equal" of the Declaration of Independence? As we also honor the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s I Have A Dream speech, what do the two speeches mean to our generation? Share your reactions to the video and these questions in the Comments section below. 

No comments: