Bio:

 History isn't what happened, but a story of what happened. And there are always different versions, different stories, about the same events. One version might revolve mainly around a specific set of facts while another version might minimize them or not include them at all.
      Like stories, each of these different versions of history contain different lessons. Some histories tell us that ourleaders, at least, have always tried to do right for everyone. Others remark that the emperors don't have the slaves' best interests at heart. Some teach us that this is both what has always been and what always will be. Others counsel that we shouldn't mistake transient dominance for intrinsic superiority. Lastly, some histories paint a picture where only the elites have the power to change the world, while others point out that social change is rarely commanded from the top down.

       Regardless of the value of these many lessons, History isn't what happened, but the stories of what happened and the lessons these stories include. The very selection of which histories to teach in a society shapes our view of how what is came to be and, in turn, what we understand as possible. This choice of which history to teach can never be "neutral" or "objective." Those who choose, either following a set agenda or guided by hidden prejudices, serve their interests. Their interests could be to continue this world as it now stands or to make a new world. 
      We cannot simply be passive. We must choose whose interests are best: those who want to keep things going as they are or those who want to work to make a better world. If we choose the latter, we must seek out the tools we will need. History is just one tool to shape our understanding of our world. And every tool is a weapon if you hold it right.

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From Resistance to Revolution : A compilation of literary works, p...

By: by Historyisaweapon Org

A compilation of literary works, poems, letters, and speeches on resistance and revolution.

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Raising Our Voices : Compiled articles and speeches: Compiled arti...

By: by Historyisaweapon Org, Compiler

A compilation of articles, poems, speeches, and other literary works on women's rights, economics, human rights, and a variety of topics.

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Wall Street Owns The Country

By: by Mary Elizabeth Lease

A Speech by Mary Elizabeth Lease (circa 1890)

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Annals of the Great Strikes in the United States

By: by J. A. Dacus

J. A. Dacus, Annals of the Great Strikes in the United States (1877). In J A Dacus, Annals of the Great Strikes in the United States: A Reliable History and Graphic Description of the Causes and Thrilling Events of the Labor Strikes and Riots of 1877(St Louis: Scammell and Company, 1877), pp. 21—23, 42-43, 98-99.

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First Annual Meeting of the American Equal Rights Association

By: by Sojourner Truth

First Annual Meeting of the American Equal Rights Association (First Speech) at the Church of the Puritans, New York City on May 9, 1867. Published in the New York Tribute, 10 May 1867: 8. Truth's Speech has also been called, "Keeping the Thing Going While Things Are Stirring".

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Martin Delany's Advice to Former Slaves

By: by Edward M. Stoeber

Martin Delanys Advice to Former Slaves (July 23. 1865). The speech was reported in the letter of Lieutenant Edward M. Stoeber to Major S. M. Taylor of the Bureau Refugees, Freed men, and Abandoned Lands South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, sent from Beaufort, S.C., July 24, 1865. Printed in pan in Ira Berlin, Steven Hahn, Steven F. Miller, Joseph P. Reidy, and Leslie S. Rowland, "The Terrain of Freedom: The Struggle over the Meaning of Free Labor in the U.S. South," His...

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"Voting by Classes"

By: by Mechanic (Unknown)

"Mechanic" (Unknown), "Voting by Classes" (October 13, 1863) . In Columbus [Georgia] Daily Sun, October 13,1863, p. 1.

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The Great Riots of New York

By: by Joel Tyler Headley

Joel Tyler Headley, The Great Riots of New York (1873). First printed as The Great Riots of New York, 1712 to 1873: Including a Full and Complete Account of The Four Days' Draft Riot of 1863 (New York: E. B. Treat, 1873). Reprinted as Joel Tyler Headley, The Great Riots of New York: 1712-1873 (New York: Thunders Mouth Press, 2004), pp. 109-13.

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Declaration of Sentiments

By: by Elizabeth Cady Stanton

In 1848, a historic assembly of women gathered in Seneca Falls, New York, the home of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Stanton organized the Seneca Falls Convention with Lucretia Mott, who, like her, had been excluded from the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London eight years earlier. Modeling her declaration closely on the Declaration of Independence, Stanton extended it to list the grievances of women. The Declaration also called for the right for women to vote, a radical dem...

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John Brown's Last Speech

By: by John Brown

On October, 16, 1859, John Brown and nearly two dozen comrades seized the armory at Harper's Ferry in West Virginia, hoping to use its massive arsenal in the struggle to forcibly end slavery. Captured and brought to trial at nearby Charles Town, Brown was found guilty of treason. One month before his execution, John Brown addressed a courtroom in Charlestown, West Virginia, defending his role in the action at Harper's Ferry. Henry David Thoreau, although himself did not ...

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The Impending Crisis of the South

By: by Hinton Rowan Helper

Hinton Rowan Helper, The Impending Crisis of the South (1857). First printed in New York by Burdick Brothers in 1857. Reprinted in Hinton Rowan Helper, The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It, ed. George M. Frederickson (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1968), pp. 42-46.

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Marriage Protest of Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell

By: by Lucy Stone; Henry B. Blackwell

Marriage Protest of Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell (May 1, 1855). Quoted in T. W. Higginson, "Marriage of Lucy Stone Under Protest," The Liberator (Boston, Massachusetts), vol. 25, no. 18 (Whole no. 1085) (May 4, 1855), p. 71.

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Fourth of July Address at Reidsville, New York

By: by John Quinney

From Great Documents in American Indian History, Edited by Moquin, Wayne and Charles Van Doren (1973).

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"Speech of Reverend Theodore Parker at the Faneuil Hall Meeting"

By: by Theodore Parker

Reverend Theodore Parker, "Speech of Theodore Parker at the Faneuii Hall Meeting" (May26,1854). In Charles Emery Stevens, Anthony Burns: A History (Boston: John P. Jewett and Company, 1856), pp. 289-95.

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America

By: by James Monroe Whitfield

"America" is a poem in American and Other Poems, published in 1853 by J.S. Leavitt.

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What Time of Night It Is

By: by Sojourner Truth

This report is from volume 1 of Stanton, Anthony, and Gage's History of Woman Suffrage. It is a brief account of Sojourner Truth's address at the convention of 1853 in New York. It is sometimes called the Mob Convention, because the audience consistently hissed at the speakers throughout the convention. The text, like many others of Truth's were written later from memory and from newspaper reports.

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The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro

By: by Frederick Douglass

A speech given at Rochester, New York, July 5, 1852.

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Ain't I A Woman?

By: by Sojourner Truth

Delivered 1851 at the Women's Convention in Akron, Ohio

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On the Duty of Civil Disobedience : original title: Resistance to ...

By: by Henry David Thoreau

In 1848, Thoreau gave lectures at the Concord Lyceum entitled "The Rights and Duties of the Individual in relation to Government". This formed the basis for his essay, which was first published under the title Resistance to Civil Government in 1849 in an anthology called Æsthetic Papers.

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Woman in the Nineteenth Century

By: by S. Margaret Fuller Ossoli

S. Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845). In S. Margaret Fuller Ossoli. Woman in the Nineteenth Century: And, Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition and Duties. of Woman, Arthur B. Fuller ed. (New York: Greeley and McElrath, 1845), pp. 25-30.

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