Seminoles

A Christmas Eve Battle for Freedom: A Lesson for Today

December 27, 2012

Christmas Eve 2012 marks the 175th anniversary of an heroic battle for self-rule and liberty by a daring band of American freedom fighters traditionally ignored by school courses, texts and teachers. On the northeast corner of Florida’s Lake Okeechobee 380 to 480 members of the multicultural Seminole nation under the command of Wild Cat, and […]

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Thumbnail image for Escaping to Destinations South: Keynote address at the 2012 Undergound Railroad Conference

Escaping to Destinations South: Keynote address at the 2012 Undergound Railroad Conference

June 30, 2012

William L. Katz gave the following keynote address at the Escaping to Destinations South Underground Railroad Conference in St. Augustine, Florida on June 21, 2012. The conference was hosted by the National Park Service. I am here to honor the first freedom fighters of the North and South American continents and the islands of the […]

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Gingrich Confronts History in South Carolina

January 24, 2012

“It’s not that I’m a good debater. It’s that I articulate the deepest-felt values of the American people,” announced the victorious Newt Gingrich in South Carolina. Republican voters [only 2% were African Americans] saw his tough, angry, racial language as straight talking. He eagerly strummed racial themes—Black urban pupils serve as assistant janitors to learn […]

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Christmas Eve to Remember: The Freedom Fighters of 1837

December 25, 2011

This post was originally published on January 4, 2010. Each Christmas Eve marks the anniversary of a battle for liberty in 1837 on the banks of Lake Okeechobee, Florida, that helped shape the United States of America. An estimated 380 to 480 freedom-fighting African and Indian members of the Seminole nation threw back more than […]

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Celebrating a Victory for Freedom

January 7, 2008

This Christmas Eve, the freedom-loving Bush administration has a chance to mark the anniversary of a great victory for formerly oppressed people on U.S. soil. The President is unlikely, however, to notice or heed the meaning of this particular milestone, whose cast of characters and historical lessons he would undoubtedly regard as all wrong. December […]

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