History

From Okemo Valley TV:

Tracy Messer, as President Calvin Coolidge, delivers the "Reign of Law" address. President Coolidge gave this address in May 1925 in Washington, D.C.

From Fletcher Free Library:

Join us for an afternoon of fun as we celebrate our 150th Birthday!

Our birthday bash kicks off at noon with a short parade from the Unitarian Universalist Society at the top of Church Street. The parade theme is “Dress as Your Favorite Literary Character (or author).”

Special thanks to our fabulous Public Awareness Committee, Friends of the Fletcher Free Library, and staff for their hard work in making this day possible! Thanks to Hannaford Supermarket.

For more information visit: www.fletcherfree.org/FFL150

From the organizer:

Vermonters and The Blockade Board’s Backdoor War

In June 1861, the United States Navy Department convened a small working group in Washington DC to rapidly put in place an ambitious strategy to guide a total blockade of the Confederacy: 3,500 miles of coastline and 180 ports. This small group of four individuals, known as the “blockade board,” set in motion plans for a series of amphibious landings, from North Carolina to Louisiana in support of the expanding United States naval blockade, which UVM adjunct associate professor of history, Rolf Diamant, calls the “backdoor war.” The intended and unintended consequences of this backdoor war contributed to the hollowing out of the Confederacy’s slave-labor based economy, the acceleration of emancipation, the final defeat of the rebellion, and an end to slavery. Spearheading the amphibious landings in the Gulf were Vermonters fighting with the 7th and 8th Regiments. As they advanced deep into the Mississippi Delta, a region with one of the highest concentrations of enslaved people in the South, Vermont soldiers interacted with thousands of self-emancipated African Americans both as refugees, and later as soldiers in the United States Colored Troops. Diamant will explain how Vermonters played a consequential but little understood role in this social revolution; first arming and training freedmen; then accepting commissions to lead black troops into battle; and finally in service with the Freedmen’s Bureau during Reconstruction.

Rolf Diamant is a UVM adjunct associate professor and former superintendent of five national parks. He is co-author with Ethan Carr of the new book Olmsted and Yosemite: Civil War, Abolition, and the National Park Idea (LALH – 2022), and co editor and contributing author of A Thinking Person’s Guide to America’s National Parks (Braziller —2016.). He has lectured on the causes and consequences of the American Civil War including on the protection of Yosemite Valley (1864) in the wider context of war-related legislation and reforms. Rolf served as a gubernatorial appointee to the Vermont Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission (2011-2015.)

Host Andrew Chalnick, South Burlington City Councilor, chats with Vermonters who recently returned from DC where they lobbied on solutions to climate change with Citizens Climate Lobby. They met with Rep. Balint, Senator Welch and staff from Senator Sander’s office.

Vermonters on the trip included Robert Ciernia (White River Junction), Suzannah Ciernia (White River Junction), Michael Ellis (Burlington), Peter Ehrlich (Jericho), Moorea Lambert (Colchester, high school student), and Jens Peterson (Jericho, absent from recording).