May 17th marks the anniversary of when nine Catholic activists burned 378 draft files in the parking lot of the Catonsville draft board to protest the Vietnam War. Little did they know the ripple effects of their actions.  May 6th on MHC’s radio segment, Humanities Connection, Dr. Theodore Gonzalves, Department Chair of UMBC’s American Studies Department, provided a reflection about the power of symbolism, and how we think about social protest, civic duty, and citizenship for our time. A MHC grant provided support for film screenings, panel discussions, and other public dialogue opportunities in conjunction with UMBC project, titled “Looking Forward from the 45th Anniversary of the Catonsville Nine Actions.”

Blood and fire are two of the most powerful symbols in all of human history. They’ve found their way into just about every aspect of popular culture – from films about vampires to songs with images of eternal flames or sparkling embers. Those symbols actually have long histories in just about every cultural tradition. And that makes sense, especially because blood and fire capture experiences that everyone has tried to comprehend. Blood has come to symbolize life itself, flowing through all of human and animal worlds. Fire has been attached to everything from nature’s sometimes inevitable destruction to man-made carelessness. It should come as no surprise that those very same symbols played a key role in Baltimore’s history of social protest and activism.

The Catonsville Nine

In October of 1967, a group of four men, later known as “The Baltimore Four,” who were inspired by their Christian faith, performed a unique act of protest against the Vietnam War era draft. They poured blood over draft files in order to, as they claimed, anoint them. One of the main figures behind the act was Philip Berrigan, a Catholic priest, who said: “This sacrificial and constructive act is meant to protest the pitiful waste of American and Vietnamese blood in Indochina.” The men were subsequently arrested.

In the following year, while awaiting trial, two of the members of the original Baltimore Four decided it was necessary to escalate the tactic. For the members of the group, repeating the pouring of blood wasn’t enough. What was needed was another kind of symbol that could capture people’s attention. The group expanded and the tactic changed from blood to fire.

With an improvised recipe of home-made napalm—a key part of the U.S. arsenal used in Vietnam—the Catonsville Nine burned nearly 400 draft records dragged from a government office in Baltimore County. Like the original Baltimore Four, the Catonsville Nine didn’t run from the police. Instead, they torched the documents, read a statement that called out the effects of U.S. violence in Latin America and Southeast Asia, and recited the Lord’s Prayer. They were tried in federal court in October 1968.

• Listen to Dr. Gonzalves’ essay in a podcast on WYPR 88.1fm.

The subsequent trial of the Nine was met with thousands pouring into Baltimore to support or denounce the group. Celebrated radical lawyer William Kuntsler led the defense team. The Nine were eventually convicted of destroying government property, a charge they never contested, and nearly half the group went underground to evade their jail sentence.

The actions of the Catonsville Nine inspired hundreds of other groups to oppose government policies – from Washington DC to Chicago, Harrisburg, Camden, and many more. A new tone had been set. Unchecked, a fire can grow out of control. Certainly, that was part of the power of that symbol. The Nine asked us to consider making an active comparison between the burning of paper and the burning of so many human lives.

You can catch MHC’s Humanities Connection each Monday at 5:45pm on WYPR (or WYPO in Ocean City), your NPR News station. Click here to learn about upcoming episodes. Click here to discover listen to podcasts of previous episodes.

The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum received grant support from MHC in 2012 for a series of Community Conversations. Inspired by MHC’s Let’s Be Shore project, “State of the Oyster“ dialogues focus on  water quality and its affect Oyster industry on the Eastern Shore. In this post, Robert Forloney, Director of the Center of Chesapeake Studies at the Chesapeake Maritime Museum, tells us about the series.  We encourage you to visit the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels and attend a free community conversation.

As the Director of the Center for Chesapeake Studies (CCS) at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum (CBMM) I have been involved with the Maryland Humanities Council’s (MHC) Practicing Democracy initiative’s Let’s Be Shore project initiative in a variety of ways over the past year.

Among other roles, I have had the pleasure to serve as a local community leader to assist with the planning  of public dialogues  and participated in a forum at the Talbot County Free Library as part of the Chesapeake Film Festival.   We also partnered with Let’s Be Shore as part of our annual Chesapeake Folk Festival by providing a site for the Let’s Be Shore sharing station as well as hosting a panel discussion with a diverse audience.  These MHC programs tie in very closely to the work that the Center for Chesapeake Studies is now undertaking with regard to public discussion and outreach to new audiences.

State of the Oyster, the first series in CCS’s new initiative titled Community Conversations, will focus on the status of the oyster fishery and its past, present, and future significance to different Bay communities.  Scheduled for four Sunday afternoons in late winter 2013, these programs will pose the question of whether and how oyster production can continue as a backbone of the region’s culture and economy. While biological dimensions of the “oyster question” will be addressed, the primary focus will be on the cultural and social dynamics of this issue. One of the most significant goals of the project is to host public forums where stakeholders holding different, and in some cases conflicting, perspectives can have meaningful conversations.  The hope is to use the formal presentations as a catalyst for open and civil dialogue about topics important to the community as a whole.   A “Civic Engagement” grant from The Maryland Humanities Council provided funding for this innovative project which will also include an art exhibition, original video production and new research as part of the overall program.

Each session will examine a particular aspect of this complicated topic: the social history of Chesapeake oyster production and conservation; the causes of the oyster crash; the traditions, expertise, and perspectives of watermen; and the possibilities and consequences for addressing the imperiled state of oystering. Programs will include presentations by historians and scientists as well as oyster harvesters and processors followed by , questions and comments from the audience and mediated group discussions between the presenters and the public. Throughout the duration of this project, photographs and paintings depicting the daily activities of watermen will be on display and will provide a stimulus for reflection and conversation.  Video clips of watermen engaged in activities such as tonging, the inner workings of processing plants, and scientists engaged in actual field work will be shown at the beginning of each program in order to provide context for the topics discussed.
In order to address the various problems caused by the decline in the Chesapeake Bay’s oyster population in depth, we have divided this program into four, separate sessions:

Sunday, February 24th, 2pm-4pm
We will focus on the social history of oyster production and conservation during “Oysters and People” in order to address the long-term interactions between oysters and the region’s human inhabitants. This panel will include a historian, a folklorist, and an oyster biologist.

Sunday, March 3rd , 4pm-6pm
“How Did We Get Here?” will debate the various factors that have contributed to the decline of the Chesapeake oyster populations and will include showing excerpts from the SeaGrant film, “Who Killed Crassostrea Virginica,” as well as presentations by researchers and watermen.

Sunday, March 10th, 2pm-4pm
This panel consists of watermen and women who will present their experience-based perspectives on the history and future of Chesapeake oystering. During “Watermen: Traditions and Perspectives,”  participants will hear directly from these men and women what it is like to make a living under today’s difficult circumstances, the changes that have seen in their lifetimes, and their ideas about the future of the industry.

Sunday, March 17th, 2pm-4pm
This session is called “State of the Oyster: Possibilities and Consequences.”  A panel of watermen, oyster researchers, and oyster farmers will discuss the future. This includes aquaculture, reclaiming shell and moving seed, disease research and mitigation, and sanctuaries. The focus of this final session will be on how the cultural worlds within which watermen are enmeshed can be part of each of these proposed solutions.
While we recognize that no one program can settle these questions once and for all, our goal is to use a humanities-based, dialogue-centered approach to encourage respectful engagement, facilitate listening, and generate better public understanding.  The idea is to engage with others who think, feel, and believe differently.  Please join us as we look beneath the surface of these complex issues.

    Watch the Let’s Be Shore video portrait of Johnny Schockley, Oyster Aquaculture

State of the Oyster programs are open to all free of charge.  The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum is located at 213 Talbot Street in St. Michaels. For more information please visit:  www.cbmm.org

Robert Forloney is currently the Director of the Center of Chesapeake Studies at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in Saint Michaels.  He has worked in the field a variety of ways over the past fifteen years as a teacher for the New York City Museum School as well as an educator, administrator and consultant at institutions such as the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Museum of the City of New York, the Morgan Library, American Museum of Natural History, the Museum of Modern Art and the South Street Seaport Museum.  Whether working at an art institution or a history museum, Robert attempts to make objects and images accessible to audiences through facilitating conversations as well as utilizing experiential learning techniques.

http://www.cbmm.org/stateoftheoyster/index.htm

Throughout the year, MHC will re-post from our blog on www.letsbeshore.org.  This post, from June 9, was contributed by Kate Livie of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.  Click here to read or subscribe to Let’s Be Shore blog posts.

Bay Heritage, Family Legacy, by Katie Livie

“Tell me some words that described the Chesapeake Bay,” I say to the group of students clustered in an Indian-style semi-circle at my feet. They wave their hands, eager to respond, and as I point to each in turn, they share their one-word assessments:

“Brown.”
“Brackish.”
“Polluted.”
“Sick.”
“Dirty.”
“Crabs!”

As I listen to these kids describe the Chesapeake they’re familiar with, I remember opening my eyes underwater in the Chester River as a child, like them. The water swirled with eddies of sediment, and my hands, parting the current before me, looked as pallid as the underbelly of a perch. Emerging from the waterside, my sister and I would look at each other and laugh: silt mustaches, like the remnants of a glass of chocolate milk, would cling to our upper lips as a thick particulate ring.  I wouldn’t have described the Chesapeake I knew then as dirty, even though it was, or polluted. I would have said, “swimming,” or “crabbing,” or “fun.”  All of my associations with the Bay came from first-hand experiences, and most of them were magical: swimming at Cacaway Island, waiting with a dipnet for a dangling jimmy to emerge on a slow trotline, screaming into the wind as the Whaler plowed through rolling wake at the turn on Devil’s Reach.  Listening to my students at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, Maryland,  I’m struck by two things: how far away most kids today are from the intimate and wonderful relationship I enjoyed with the Chesapeake as a child, and the inevitable question: will my grandchildren know even a shadow of the Bay I love?

I know I’m a rarity around here these days––a professional young adult committed to making the Eastern Shore my permanent home. So many of us from the next generation have moved away to follow jobs and the promise of opportunity, but a number of young folk have listened to the siren call of our roots and come back to settle in our hometowns. It’s a compromise, of course. You give up big concerts and ethnic food and the promise of a plethora of well-paying professional opportunities for the languid summer days, familiar faces and crooked brick sidewalks of home.

There is never a day that I doubt my decision–it just feels right. Watching an ombre sunset of oranges and pinks over the salt meadows at Eastern Neck Island, I know continuing my family’s legacy along the Chester and deepening my roots was an inevitability rather than a choice. But accepting my place in the line of six generations of Bay residents comes with responsibility as well as rewards. At this watershed point in history (all puns intended), how will we Chesapeake people shape the future of the Eastern Shore we love so well?

As the director of education at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, this thought is a constant thread through the weft of my professional as well as personal life.  Just as our lives along the Bay’s edges are defined by the constant presence of the Bay and its tributaries, so too is the Chesapeake Bay increasingly defined by the people living in its watershed.  Our population swells with each successive decade in the area surrounding the Bay, and in response, the quality of the water, and abundance of wildlife, and the lush acreage of marsh meadow both above and below the waterline attenuate accordingly.

When you live on the Eastern Shore, the signs are hard to ignore because they’re everywhere. If we haven’t yet reached the tipping point from which we can never return, we soon will. Every summer, the dead zones, fed by a thick blanket of human, animal, and chemical waste, stretch their suffocating boundaries farther– and the fish they kill float tumescently on the water when I run my dogs out at Sassafras. The oyster population, once one of the Bay’s keystone animals, hovers at one percent of its original number– and the native oysters we shuck at Thanksgiving are thick and furrowed with MSX and Dermo.  Even watermen, in my childhood as natural and expected a part of the Bay landscape as the blue heron, have been forced away from the coves and creeks where they once made their daily bread. Nowadays, just a few communities struggle on, and people come to museums like mine to see the tools and traditions that watermen developed in response to the thriving ribbons of life that used to pulse through the estuary.

But in spite of everything, and even if the words my students use to describe the Bay they know are accurate, it isn’t too late for us to change. It isn’t past the point where we can all agree that maybe we’re going about this the wrong way. There needs to be a balance between what is sustainable for us as humans, and what is sustainable for the Chesapeake’s environment. Ideally the balance would weigh both goals, human and environmental, as equally important. It’s an approach that makes sense, especially when you consider how irrevocably entangled we are now, and have always been, with our landscape in the Bay.

I believe the first step towards finding that harmonious balance is to foster that old Bay magic I know so well from my childhood as a semi-aquatic creature.  It’s not really about turning off light bulbs, or recycling, or making sure that your toilet saves water, despite what all those ‘Save the Bay’ campaigns have told you. That can come later. The first step toward Chesapeake stewardship is first and foremost about feeling a passionate sense of respect and regard for this Eastern Shore place where we’ve been so lucky to settle. By awakening engagement in the people that live in the watershed, and encouraging the feeling in individuals that the Bay is just a little bit theirs alone to treasure, we can encourage stewardship. Those opportunities to spark a connection with the land and water are easy enough to find, too: they’re present in every osprey whistle, every snapping turtle laying eggs in your driveway, and every snap of the crab’s claws as it hides under your picnic table to avoid the cookpot.  Because its those moments that make this Eastern Shore place worth saving: for our kids and for ourselves.

Kate Livie at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum

Kate Livie is a Chestertown resident who is also the director of education at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, where she has worked in various capacities since 2008.

Join MHC at the Chesapeake Folk Festival in  St. Michael’s on July 28. While you are there, stop by the Let’s Be Shore sharing station or attend the free Let’s Be Shore panel discussion at 3pm.

“How did you end up in Cecil County?” It’s my favorite question to ask. Whether you’re a “from here” or a “come here,” there’s always a story to answer that question.

My journey to Cecil County was many years in the making, having grown up a Navy-brat moving from Coast to Coast, I attended college in upstate New York and started my career in New York City. The Cecil County landscape reminds my husband of summers at his grandmother’s Long Island farm, before everything was developed and crowded, and so, for a reason as simple as that, we settled here.

American history is filled with tales of immigration and migration and rags to riches mobility. Americans have always been on the move. Early settlers on horseback searched for better farmland, religious freedom or gold. The industrial revolution spurred innovations in agriculture, manufacturing and transportation, which grew our nation. From steam engine trains to automobiles and airplanes, transportation is an integral part of our social and economic landscape.
This summer, Cecil County Public Library is delighted to partner with the Cecil County Arts Council and the Historical Society of Cecil County to bring you the Smithsonian’s Museum on Main Street exhibit “Journey Stories.” Cecil County is one of only five sites in Maryland to host this special program and there are events planned county-wide this summer and into the fall. Be on the look-out for a full calendar coming soon.

Elkton Main Street on its 100th anniversary. Photo: Cecil County Historical Society

The Smithsonian exhibit will focus on themes of transportation and immigration on a national scale and library events will focus on local stories. Ukrainian immigrants settled in Chesapeake City to build the C&D Canal and the rivers were busy with barges of tobacco. Lovers flocked to Elkton during the heydays of the marriage business and World War II brought droves of soldiers and munitions workers to the county. A doctor arrived from Russia in the early 1950s with his family, and a local boy who integrated at Elkton High school went on to an internationally successful music career. These are the stories of Cecil County.
What is your Journey Story? Where did your family start their journey? Where did they settle down? Share by leaving a comment below!

This post was contributed by Frazier Walker, Cecil County Public Library

During the course of the Let’s Be Shore project, MHC wants to share posts contributed to our blog on www.letsbeshore.org.  Thank you to Dr. Bell, for his guest post.  We welcome your comments and encourage you to watch a video and leave your response.

It is an honor and a challenge to open the blog for MHC’s “Let’s Be Shore” Project. As former Director of the Washington College Center for Environment and Society, I developed a Rural Communities Leadership program that included new courses, guest speakers, and public forums all centered on sustainable development of Eastern Shore communities. The safety of academia allowed us to examine issues involving environment, land use, sense of place, and local economics from a wide variety of different and often divisive perspectives. Our findings met the real world as students, citizen and faculty colleagues, and I developed what became a Vision Plan for Sustaining Agriculture in Talbot County, Maryland. It took over a year to complete, but after many constructive revisions the plan was endorsed by both the Talbot County Farm Bureau and the County Council at the end of 2007.

What lessons were learned over the seven years that I was deeply involved in sustainable community development? First and foremost is the power of constructive dialogue. This is fairly easy to achieve within the walls of a classroom where issues can be debated without having to implement the outcome. It is far more difficult in a public meeting where opinions are strongly held and personal livelihoods are at stake. Let’s Be Shore is making maximum use of advances in technology to provide opportunity for public discourse and exchange. Trust and civility must be strengths, not casualties, of such opportunity.

My second lesson involves information. Despite the extraordinary source of knowledge that the Internet has become, it seems to me that people involved in controversial issues actually are less informed about perspectives different from theirs. We hide our ignorance by using blanket words and concepts: Chesapeake Bay is “polluted;” “big agriculture” is a “problem;” keep the Shore “rural.” What do these really mean, and how are they interrelated?

My third and final lesson is the importance of leadership. Civil dialogue based on shared information is necessary but insufficient if there is no leader to serve as translator and catalyst. The problems you are addressing are ongoing and solutions to them will be as well. Ultimate success will depend less on creating a favorable outcome to a given controversy and more on sustaining that outcome. An initiative should not end when its current leader moves on.

One important concept that emerged from our various activities is “working landscape” — land use that is economically significant for those who depend on it and environmentally sustainable for those who enjoy it. Public forums held under the Talbot County visioning project revealed that citizens value agriculture most as a contributor to Eastern Shore quality of life and the scenic beauty its open spaces provide. Economic return appears to be secondary to many — but not to the farmer! If agriculture were not profitable, would quality of life be the same? Most of the land on Eastern Shore watersheds is over 80% agricultural, the great majority raising grain sold locally to the poultry industry. Conversion to small farms for niche markets sounds appealing, but where are those markets? How many such farms can the shore support? And what happens to the remaining lands if grain is no longer a viable economic option? Ross Hanson, while chair of MD Environmental Trust in 2002, defined a working landscape as “. . . one that maintains and works to enhance the responsibility of private land owners, individually, to improve the land for successive generations of those who work it and, collectively, to pass on to each new generation a landscape that is a greater environmental asset than they received. Moreover, a working landscape is an irreplaceable cultural resource.” In your search to reconcile issues of land use, agriculture, economy, and water quality, remember to help us all keep the Eastern Shore truly working.

I wish you the very best as you embark on “Let’s Be Shore.”

Wayne Bell, Ph.D. is a Senior Associate at the Center for Environment and Society at Washington College. He holds a B.S. from the University of Miami (FL), 1967; A.M. from Harvard University, 1969; and a Ph.D. from Harvard University, 1976.

Each year, MHC encourages people across Maryland to read and then discuss the One Maryland One Book selection. We believe a great work of literature provides an excellent springboard for discussion about issues critical to our lives and communities.

The following is the first in a series of three guest posts in which the Derlan Family—mother, father and son—discuss the value they find in reading the same book and then talking about it as a family. They read this year’s book, Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.  Thank you to the Derlan Family, for their participation!

When I was in second grade, our teacher Miss Brown read The Boxcar Children aloud to us. She read only a few pages each day, so when we got to the part where Violet gets sick, we had to wait to hear what happened. Almost 40 years later at a class reunion, my friends and I remembered that anxiety and suspense. It was almost as if those children in the book had been our classmates. My brothers and sisters and I are very different, but we all read To Kill a Mockingbird in high school and we all love the book. We know which of us is most like Scout, and which is more like Jem and we know our dad, who died when the oldest of us was only 10, was like Atticus.

My husband and I wanted to give our son the pleasure we have in words and reading. When he was small we read aloud to him, and the stories we all shared became part of our relationship. We’d quote from the books, “Love you forever, like you for always…” After reading Audrey Penn’s The Kissing Hand, we all gave each other goodbye kisses that way for years.

As Ben grew, it became a little more difficult to share stories this way, but Harry Potter saved us. We all read all of the books, first reading aloud to Ben, and later each of us reading them in turns. We found books on CD to listen in the car on long road trips, like P.B. Kerr’s The Akhenaten Adventure. It is so easy to grow apart as children grow more independent. For me the value of reading and talking about books is in keeping a part of the closeness alive. I also want my son to have the memories of special books; connected to the people he has grown up with, as I have had.

One of the interesting things we’ve found with Absolutely True Diary is that I focused so much more on Junior’s sister, Mary Runs Away than either my husband or son did. She is a girl I have met many times in my teaching career. Talking about the character of Mary led me to talk about some events from my childhood, and about some of the students I taught many years ago. Sharing the book, helps us to share ourselves.

Sharon Derlan teaches English at Northern Garrett High School. She is an active volunteer with the New Embassy Theatre of Cumberland, MD. Mrs. Derlan is married to Bill, an editor at Cumberland Times-News and the proud mother of Ben, a student at Allegany High School.

Have you read the book yet?  If so, what character stood out to you in an unexpected way?  What do you think Mary Runs away represents in the story…to Junior?  We’d love to read your comments and reflections.

MHC extends its gratitude to author and blogger Scott L. Mingus Sr., for his guest contribution to our Chautauqua-themed blog.

Jefferson Davis served as the only president the Confederate States of America would ever know. The Kentucky-born and Mississippi-raised Davis was a West Point graduate; veteran of the Mexican War; former U.S. Congressman, Senator, and Secretary of War. His vast network of contacts spanned the country.

Following Mississippi’s secession from the Union on January 9, 1861, the 52-year-old Davis resigned from the Senate and returned home, where he accepted a commission as a major general of Mississippi troops. Scarcely a month later a convention in Montgomery, Alabama, named the well-known Davis as the fledgling Confederacy’s provisional president. He was inaugurated on February 18, 1861, and immediately began the process of organizing a government. In May the capital moved to Richmond, Virginia, following the Old Dominion’s secession.

Maryland, a slave state bordering free-state Pennsylvania to the north, proved to be problematic for both the Federal government and the Confederacy in the first year of the Civil War. Less than two percent of Marylanders had voted for Republican Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 election, and Southern sympathies were strong in several areas, including Baltimore and Annapolis. While Jefferson Davis was still in Alabama, on April 9, 1861, the Pratt Street Riot drew bloodshed when angry crowds faced off with newly trained Massachusetts troops passing through the city while en route to Washington, D.C.

Over the next few months, the Federal government stepped in to quell the secessionist sentiment, including incarcerating leading pro-Confederate politicians and civic leaders. Maryland remained in the Union, although some 25,000 men joined the Confederate army (more than twice that number enlisted in the Union army). Federal troops, including the 87th Pennsylvania, were dispatched into northern Maryland to guard the Northern Central Railway which ran from Baltimore to Harrisburg, and thousands of other Union soldiers guarded the vital east-west running Baltimore & Ohio.

President Davis believed that the pro-Southern sentiments in Maryland, though squelched in part by perceived heavy-handiness by Washington, remained strong. He later wrote, “The condition of Maryland encouraged the belief that the presence of our army, though numerically inferior to that of the North, would induce the Washington government to retain all its available force to provide against contingencies which its conduct toward the people of that state gave reason to apprehend. At the same time it was hoped that military success might afford us an opportunity to aid the citizens of Maryland in any efforts they should be disposed to make to recover their liberty. The difficulties that surrounded them were fully appreciated, and we expected to derive more assistance in the attainment of our object from the just fears of the Washington government than from any active demonstration on the part of the people of Maryland, unless success should enable us to give them assurance of continued protection. Influenced by these considerations, the army was put in motion.”

When he authorized General Robert E. Lee to invade Maryland in early September, 1862, Davis instructed Lee to issue a proclamation “to the people of Maryland, the motives and purposes of your presence among them at the head of an invading army…”

Davis stipulated:

1st. That the Confederate Government is waging this war solely for self-defense; that it has no design of conquest, or any other purpose than to secure peace and the abandonment by the United States of their pretensions to govern a people who have never been their subjects, and who prefer self-government to a union with them.

2d. That this Government, at the very moment of its inauguration, sent commissioners to Washington to treat for a peaceful adjustment of all differences, but that these commissioners were not received, nor even allowed to communicate the object of their mission; and that, on a subsequent occasion, a communication from the President of the Confederacy to President Lincoln remained without answer, although a reply was promised by General Scott, into whose hands the communication was delivered.

3d. That among the pretexts urged for continuance of the war, is the assertion that the Confederate Government desires to deprive the United States of the free navigation of the Western rivers, although the truth is that the Confederate Congress, by public act, prior to the commencement of the war, enacted that “the peaceful navigation of the Mississippi River is hereby declared free to the citizens of any of the States upon its boundaries, or upon the borders of its navigable tributaries,” a declaration to which this Government has always been, and is still, ready to adhere.

4th. That now, at a juncture when our arms have been successful, we restrict ourselves to the same just and moderate demand that we made at the darkest period of our reverses, the simple demand that the people of the United States should cease to war upon us, and permit us to pursue our own path to happiness, while they in peace pursue theirs.

5th. That we are debarred from the renewal of formal proposals for peace by having no reason to expect that they would be received with the respect mutually due by nations in their intercourse, whether in peace or in war.

6th. That, under these circumstances, we are driven to protect our own country by transferring the seat of war to that of an enemy, who pursues us with a relentless and, apparently, aimless hostility; that our fields have been laid waste, our people killed, many homes made desolate, and that rapine and murder have ravaged our frontiers; that the sacred right of self-defense demands that, if such a war is to continue, its consequences shall fall on those who persist in their refusal to make peace.

7th. That the Confederate army, therefore, comes to occupy the territory of their enemies, and to make it the theater of hostilities; that with the people themselves rests the power to put an end to this invasion of their homes, for, if unable to prevail on the Government of the United States to conclude a general peace, their own State government, in the exercise of its sovereignty, can secure immunity from the desolating effects of warfare on the soil of the State by a separate treaty of peace, which this Government will ever be ready to conclude on the most just and liberal basis.

8th. That the responsibility thus rests on the people of the United States continuing an unjust and oppressive warfare upon the Confederate States—a warfare which can never end in any other manner than that now proposed. With them is the option of preserving the blessings of peace by the simple abandonment of the design of subjugating a people over whom no right of dominion has ever been conferred, either by God or man.

Lee’s army would be thwarted on September 17, 1862 near Sharpsburg at what the Northerners called the Battle of Antietam. Much to the surprise of Jefferson Davis and other Confederate leaders, few Marylanders had rushed to arms to support the invasion. The state would remain in the Union column for the remainder of the war.

Scott L. Mingus, Sr. is an author, tour guide, multiple award-winning miniature wargamer, patented scientist, and history buff based near York, Pennsylvania. His Civil War blogs include “Cannonball”, “Charge!,” and “Flames Beyond Gettysburg: The Confederate Expedition to the Susquehanna River.” Learn more at www.scottmingus.com.

How do you think Davis was viewed in rural mountain Maryland, versus the bustling, populous hub of Baltimore, versus the agricultural domain of the Eastern Shore?  What factors contributed to this range of opinions?

What impact do you think the Pratt Street Riots–at the start of the war–had on Jefferson Davis’ view of Baltimore?  Maryland?

How did Maryland’s “problematic” or conflicted stance during the Civil War influence the state in the 150 years following it?  What lasting effects can be seen/felt in Maryland today?

The Maryland Humanities Council is incredibly proud of all of the students who advanced to the national competition and excited to announce results from yesterday’s awards ceremony!

Ethan McComb & Jim Leach at the awards ceremony

Ethan McComb, a student at Plum Point Middle School in Calvert County, received the Gold medal (1^st place) in the Junior Individual Exhibit category for his exhibit titled “The Marshall Plan: America’s Soft Power Diplomacy Saves Europe from Economic and Political Chaos Following World War II.” This is the FIRST TIME a Maryland student has garnered a first place award. His teacher is Merry Ellen Fallica. This was Ethan’s second year participating in the national contest. The National Endowment for the Humanities Scholars Award, which is also given to each first place winner, includes a cash prize.

Michael Keen, a homeschooler from Montgomery County, instructed by his mother Christine Keen, received the Bronze Medal  in the Senior Paper category. His paper is titled “Lost Opportunities for Peace: Vietnam, 1945 -1950.” Michael, who has competed since he as in sixth grade, took the same prize that his brother Eric won in 2010. Often History Day is a family affair—two sets of Maryland siblings competed in the national contest.

Other Awards Received

• A special prize was awarded to Camila Uechi for her Senior Individual Web Site. As a result, Uechi receives a scholarship to Chaminade University in Honolulu, Hawaii. Her website was titled “The Bay of Pigs: A Diplomatic Turning Point.” Camila is a student at the Bullis School in Montgomery County; her teacher is Sara Romeyn.
• Anne Arundel County student Alexandra La Pierre’s Senior Individual Exhibit, “Diplomacy of Appeasement: The Munich Agreement of 1938” was selected for display at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. She attends Broadneck High School; her teacher is Traci Anderson.
• Additional recognition included two awards for Outstanding State Entry:

· Junior Division: Maria Viera, Mayfield Woods Middle School, Howard County (Junior Individual Web Site, “The Cuban Missile Crisis”) Teachers: James McVey, Charla Phillips, Tim Grafton

· Senior Division: Emily Galik, Marriotts Ridge High School, Howard County (Senior Individual Exhibit, “Patients or Prisoners? Dorothea Dix and the Debate Surrounding the American Asylum Movement”). Her exhibit will also be on display at the Maryland conference of the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI) in October. Teacher: Richard Malt.

Two other students’ projects matriculated to the final round of competition. Duncan Rheingans-Yoo’s Junior Paper, “Post War Korea: Negotiations, Impact, and Korea Today,” and Kane Herrick’s Senior Individual Web Site, “Iran Hostage Crisis: America’s Failed Diplomacy” were considered in the final rounds of judging. Duncan is a student at Oakland Mills Middle School in Howard County and Kane Herrick is a student at the Bullis School in Montgomery County. Duncan’s instructors include Karen Saunderson and Kathleen Quinn. Herrick’s teacher is Sara Romeyn.

The two Maryland teachers who received the Patricia Behring Teacher of the Year awards for Maryland were also recognized during the June 16^th ceremony. They were Amie Sanner, the Maryland High School History Day Teacher of the Year (Calvert High School in Calvert County) and Rebecca Castle, the Maryland Middle School History Day Teacher of the Year (Isaac Gourdine Middle School, Prince George’s County).

The full list of winners is available at http://nhd.org/AwardsWinners.htm

The main NHD website may also prove useful: http://nhd.org/

Congratulations to all of our student Scholars! Recent studies have shown that History Day participation affects students lives in a positive way, including increased test scores and enhanced critical thinking skills. Are you a former History Day participant?  How was your experience? We’d love to know!

The following is a guest posting from a participant of the recent program “Moving Stories:  Getting Around in Baltimore”, as part of MHC’s Practicing Democracy Program. Thank you, Jessica, for providing your reflections.

Listen to an excerpt of Jessica’s performance:  Jessica Keller, Moving Stories excerpt

I love to speak about all forms of transportation but what I love to discuss most is being car free.  So, when someone forwarded the “Moving Stories” opportunity to me, I applied right away.  I was a little anxious too because I work for a transit agency and being car free isn’t always pretty; I didn’t want to be seen as disparaging my agency.  What I saw was an opportunity to show regular people that other regular people, like myself, use mass transportation. As I mentioned, being car free isn’t always pretty but those ugly instances, in hindsight, tend to be pretty funny and make for great stories.

After telling my not-so-pretty story, I had the chance to discuss transportation issues with people who I ordinarily wouldn’t come to meet.  I hope some of those people will reconnect with me in the future to help make Baltimore a better place to travel around.

I’m curious……have you ever taken transit and if not, what would encourage you to do so? OR, are you car free and loving it too?  Can you imagine giving up at least one car?

Jessica A. Keller, Storyteller “Moving Stories”