Various – A Tribute To Woody Guthrie Part One and Two

Picked up  2 charming  Lp's in market  today, first one  a various-artists set  released by  Colombia recorded at a charity fund raising concert at Carnegie Hall, January 20, 1968, held in memory of Woody Guthrie's then-recent death after years of illness, sponsored by The Guthrie Children's Trust Fund with the proceeds to the donated Committee to Combat Huntington's Disease.  

And  a part 2 LP, from a Guthrie memorial concert at the Hollywood Bowl in 1970, which was released by Warner Brothers.  

The first LP  which consists entirely of songs written by Woody Guthrie, or cover songs he was closely associated with.An  artist  have long  admired incidentally. This concert is most famous due to the appearance of Bob Dylan and the Band. It was important for several reasons. This was Dylan's first public performance since his motorcycle accident a year and a half earlier. It seems he wasn't actually that seriously injured in that accident, and it certainly didn't take him years to recover. But after this concert, Dylan basically went back into seclusion for another year or so. But he considered Woody Guthrie so important to his life that he made this rare public appearance during that time anyway. 

Also important was the fact that Dylan was backed by the Band. Most members of the Band had backed him on a 1966 tour, and then during his "Basement Tapes" studio sessions in 1967. But at the time of this concert, they still hadn't made a name for themselves... both figuratively and literally! Since they literally didn't have a name to call themselves yet, for this concert, they were billed as "The Crackers."

Later in 1968, the Band would release their first studio album, "Music from Big Pink," to great critical acclaim. They would continue to back Dylan on other projects, including the 1969 Isle of Wight Festival concert and a 1974 tour. 

This concert was critical to their early career as well as their evolving musical connection with Dylan. The other stars of the concert were some of the biggest names in folk music at the time: Arlo Guthrie (Woody Guthrie's son, who had just hit it big with "Alice's Restaurant" in 1967, Judy Collins, Pete Seeger, Odetta, Richie Havens, and Tom Paxton. 

On September 12, 1970, another Tribute was held at the Hollywood Bowl. The concert was sponsored by the California chapter of the Committee to Combat Huntington's Disease. Some 18,000 people jammed the amphiltheatre. Except for the technical and stage crews, all the performing artists and the production staff donated their talents. Woody's songs are  also  interspersed with passages from his books. 

The diverse voices of celebrated folk singers honor his impact on American music. Their basically two folk samplers of some wonderful  talented voices, plus a whirlwind tour of depression-era history, workingman sentiment, politics, etc. The songs are emotionally powerful, spanning a full range from joyous celebration or playful humor to righteous anger or heartbreaking pathos. Woody Guthrie's songs  while not all happy by any means, bring out a sense of pride in the listener for  the workingman, for injustices and tragedies suffered and survived. About the sufferings of migrant workers,  hoboes, and the "poor and downtrodden" but the overall message is one of pride and hard work, and love and compassion for your fellow man. 

Sleeve Notes 

When Woody Guthrie died on October 3, 1967, after a stubborn fifteen year bout with Huntington's Disease, a lot of people who had known him, worked with him, or just sung his songs felt a spontaneous desire to do something. Not a memorial — nothing about Woody suggested mourning. What was called for was more a celebration of Woody's work, the part of him that lives on.  

A "Tribute to Woody Guthrie" was planned for two performances at Carnegie Hall on January 20, 1968, sponsored by The Guthrie Children's Trust Fund with the proceeds donated to the Committee to Combat Huntington's Disease. Appearing at the January concert were Judy Collins, Bob Dylan, Jack Elliott, Arlo Guthrie, Richie Havens, Odetta, Tom Paxton, Pete Seeger. Actors Will Geer and Robert Ryan narrated the program.  

Thousands of people were unable to buy tickets because both performances were sold out an hour after tickets went on sale. Those fortunate enough to attend participated in one of the most exciting and remarkable musical experiences of all time.  

The Carnegie concert was taped off the house sound system. It was put away. At that time no plans were made to issue an album.  For some two years, Woody's many friends on the West Coast felt that we had neglected them, and repeatedly asked that another Tribute be held in California. 

On September 12, 1970, at the Hollywood Bowl, Joan Baez, Jack Elliott, Arlo Guthrie, Odetta, Country Joe McDonald, Richie Havens, Earl Robinson and Pete Seeger performed. Peter Fonda joined Will Geer in narrating. 

The Hollywood Bowl concert was sponsored by the California chapter of the Committee to Combat Huntington's Disease. Some 18,000 people jammed the amphitheatre.  

What was heard in New York and California has now been edited to follow the original story line. Part I is being issued by Columbia Records and Part II by Warner Bros. Records.  

Except for the technical and stage crews, all the performing artists and the production staff donated their talents. Millard Lampell, who years back was a member of the "Almanac Singers" along with Woody, directed the concerts from a script he wove out of Woody's songs and writings. Harold Leventhal produced the New York and Hollywood Bowl concerts. Production Assistants were Terry Sullivan and Woody's wife, Marjorie Guthrie.  

All performing artists have waived royalties, and the recordings have been issued at cost. Proceeds go to the newly created non-profit WOODY GUTHRIE TRIBUTE FUND. This Fund will be used to create a Woody Guthrie Library at his birthplace in Okemah, Oklahoma? also to further medical research into the causes and cures of Huntington's Disease, and to create a Woody Guthrie scholarship in folklore and folk music. He was a wiry, weather-beaten guy not much bigger than a fence post. His name was Woodrow Wilson Guthrie — born in Okemah, Oklahoma, in 1912.  

Nobody knows how many songs he made up. A collector claims to have counted over a thousand. But that would just be the ones Woody took the trouble to write down. It wouldn't include the songs that slipped away in the dusty wind, the ones that vanished in the clank and rattle of a freight train crossing the mountains in the darkness.  

Most of his songs, chances are, you never heard. Some were hummed and whistled and passed along until they became part of the weave of life in this land, and people will swear that they are old folk songs drifted up through the hickory smoke of history.  

He was a rebel and a radical. He was for the outsider and the outcast, the working stiff and the one-mule farmer. For the drifter and the stray, the skid-row scrounger sleeping in a doorway, the down-and-outer freezing his tail on the lonesome highway. He was for the disinherited and the dispossessed living in flophouses, fleabags, migrant camps and jailhouses.  

He was against poverty and hunger, bigotry and bargain-basement justice, con artists, jackleg preachers, deputy sheriffs and FBI men. Against the comfortable sonsofbitches who pile up profit out of war.  

When Woody was a boy his family broke up after a succession of disasters that included fire, cyclone, sickness and dust storms. His father, Charley, was an ex-prizefighter, sometime land speculator, county clerk and finally caretaker of a sprawl of cheap cribs in an oil-boom town. 

Woody's mother, Nora Belle, fell victim to Huntington's Disease. In those days nobody knew what it was. She ended up in the state insane asylum.  

In the early 30's, at the rock bottom of the Depression, Woody hit the road. As a sign-painter, jack-of-all-trades, merchant seaman, he traveled all of the states and most of the seven seas. And wherever he went he made music. In saloons and on street-corners, in union halls and on picket lines. Anywhere he could pick up chili and cigaret money.  

Nowadays, guitar-players and banjo-pickers skitter everywhere like field mice. Harvard boys write Mississippi Delta blues. A honey-haired girl from Connecticut drives a Mercedes bought with the royalties from her album of mountain sorrows. 

Singing groups fly first-class and live the simple, rural life on 200-acre spreads in farmhouses filled with fifty thousand dollars worth of amplifiers, tape decks and studio equipment  

It's not easy to believe that in 1940 when Woody came east, there weren't but a dozen or so country and folk singers north of the Appalachians. When a dude pushed into a subway with a guitar, people gawked as though he were carrying a kayak.  

Woody's playing wasn't much. Sort of casual, down-home picking. He blew some free-wheeling mouthharp. Played fair mandolin. And scraped a wild fiddle — holding it tucked Under his ribs mountain style.  

Woody sang about the way he drove a car. As though the brakes were shot and the steering wheel wasn't any too reliable. Most songs, even his own, he'd like as not forget the words and just go on chording until he remembered them or a reasonable facsimile. Rarely singing anything the same way twice. Taking it easy, rambling at his own sweet pace in a voice that rasped like a rusty saw.  

He never made any money to speak of. It wasn't until the last years when he was wasting away that a few of his songs began to be known to more than a small circle.  

An ornory bastard. Contrary. Irresponsible. He couldn't show up anywhere on time. Couldn't hammer a nail straight. Never knew when to quit drinking. Couldn't cure himself of wandering off, vanishing without a word to anybody, deserting those no cared for most.  

But beneath the sinewy, laconic manner there was something lost and lonely. Ho had a kid's vulnerability, a kid's directness, a kid's Insight, a kid's craziness. A lot of his best work sprang from the part of him that remained forever six years old. Woody spent his life, like a lot of us, searching far thing

                                                                                                                        Millard Lampell        

Nice finds worth  checking out,  have since  discovered  the lps  have been extended  to  a bigger  deluxe  cd   but  I'm  more than  happy  with these  two. Some earlier thoughts of mine on Woody  can be found here:-.  

 Happy Birthday Woody Guthrie ( 14/7/ 1912 -3/10/1967) - Folk Revolutionary .

https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2020/07/happy-birthday-woody-guthrie-147-1912.html

The continuing relevance of Woody Guthries song Deportee ( Plane Wreck at Los Gatos.) and the power of Song

https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-continung-relevance-of-woody.html

Woody Guthrie's New Year Resolutions

https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2020/01/woody-guthries-new-year-resolutions.html

Justice for Hind Rajab

 

Today I remember Hind Rajab. A Palestinian child whose life was taken far too soon. two years ago today, she was killed by Israeli forces. 

On 29th January 2024,  Rajab and her family had left a home that morning and driven north, when the Israeli military ordered residents to leave the area and head south. But the driver was unable to head south because the road was blocked with debris from Israeli airstrikes.

Hind and her relatives were fired on by an Israeli tank when trying to flee to safety. Everyone in the vehicle was killed by the initial attack except Hind and her 15-year-old cousin, Layan. Layan called the Palestinian Red Crescent but was killed shortly after, leaving Hind on the line.  

The two medics who were dispatched, Youssef Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun, in a vehicle marked as a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance to rescue her, were also targeted by Israeli tank fire as they approached. They were both killed.  

The world heard her crying, begging for help on the phone, as the occupation opened fire on their car, They terrorised her for five hours before they killed her. She was 3 months shy of her 6th birthday.

Subsequently the recording of Hind’s call to the Red Crescent spread across the world. Hind Rajab's last words were, “I’m Hind Rajab. Please, don’t leave me. I’m all alone. The tanks are here. They are shooting at me. Please come.”

"I’m not talking because every time I talk, blood comes out of my mouth and makes my dress dirty, and I don’t want my mom to have to clean it.”

One of the most shocking Israeli war crimes. How terrified that little child must have been.  She was found dead nearly two weeks later, sparking international outrage and calls for an independent investigation.

 When the area became accessible, a forensic investigation led by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, supported by independent analysts and investigative journalists, examined the car and documented at least 335 bullet impacts. The IDF denies involvement and no one has  yet to  face charges. 

Hind is one of the at least 20,179 children who have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 2023 - according to the latest reports from the United Nations. The real figure is likely much higher. No one should ever again utter the lie that Israel has a “right to defend itself.”

The Voice of  Hind Rajab https://uk.thevoiceofhindrajabfilm.com/home/ was recently nominated for an Oscar,  the  film incorporates audio of real phone calls from Hind as she was trapped under Israeli fire for hours.Told through the perspective of Rana Al-Faqih, a Red Crescent worker, the film offers an intimate portrayal of courage, fear and the profound human cost borne by those trying to help - and those left waiting. 

Oscar-nominated Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania says Hind’s mother gave permission to do the film, hoping it would bring justice for her daughter. What I most respected about the director of 'The Voice of Hind Rajab' was her decision not to dramatize the confirmation of Hind’s martyrdom. Instead, she entrusted the mother to narrate what happened, because all our words and feelings pale in comparison to a mother’s heart . 

Hind’s mother, Wessam, has been working relentlessly alongside The Hind Rajab Foundation in the pursuit of justice. They have identified the names, ranks, units and chains of commands of 24 perpetrators and are building solid legal cases against every one of them. 

 Justice for Hind Rajab requires not only her killers to be brought to justice. The architects of the genocide in Gaza must be held accountable too. 

hindrajabfoundation.org/posts/justice-for-hind-rajab-on-the-second-anniversary-of-her-killing-the-fight-is-real-the-cases-are-active

Please consider donating here to support the The Hind Rajab Foundation in their mission in seeking “justice for Hind and for every victim of genocide” 

https://donate.stripe.com/cN228hbY5g7jaM84gg

Two years on, Hind Rajab’s name remains a symbol of "Israel’s" genocide against Gaza and its relentless killing of Palestinian children. May Hind Rajab's memory be a reminder of the lives stolen, the futures denied, and the urgency of bearing witness.Never forgive, never forget. 

We should  never, ever, ever, ever forget Hind Rajab nor the thousands of thousands Palestinian/Gazan children that  have lost their lives in just these last couple of years alone, who remain forever in our hearts.

 Hind, and all children her age, should be able to spend their time laughing and playing with friends, surrounded by love deserving a beautiful life, filled with growth, joy, and the warmth of a thriving family and community.—not witnessing unimaginable tragedy, only to become its victim. 

Holocaust Memorial Day 2026 : 'Bridging generations '

 Holocaust Memorial Day marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp in occupied Poland. where it  is estimated  1.1 million people,  mostly Jewish died there, including around  70,000 Poles, and 21,000 Roma and Sinti people.

Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were carried out primarily through mass shootings and poison gas in extermination camps, chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, and Chełmno in occupied Poland. 

Separate Nazi persecutions killed a similar or larger number of non-Jewish civilians and prisoners of war (POWs); the term Holocaust is sometimes used to encompass also the persecution of these other groups.

We remember  today all the  people, murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators, all victims of Nazi persecution and we  also remember  the victims of subsequent genocides.  On Holocaust Memorial Day, I pause to remember the six million Jewish men, women and children murdered in the Holocaust, alongside the millions of others persecuted and killed by the Nazi regime. It is important that we bear witness to their testimonies and reaffirm our commitment to remembrance as an act of respect, responsibility and solidarity.

If we completely forget the tragic events of the holocaust, we have no history to act as a warning sign when we see similar actions happening in the middle east, and all over the world under various dictatorships and tyrannic regimes.   

Holocaust Memorial day isn’t, and will never be, an event reserved for a specific demographic: it is vital for everyone to acknowledge. It is not simply a day for retelling the past, but a day of empowerment for those to always stand up for what they believe in, to guarantee acts of genocide will never happen again. 

The genocide of the Jewish people, Roma and other minorities during World War II is a brutal reminder of what can happen in a society overtaken by division, prejudice and hatred, and the fragility of our own humanity, security and safety.Today we remember the victims but also the lesson. Never again must mean never again.

The slogan Never Again symbolised the determination of anti-fascists and the labour movement that after the Holocaust, genocide must never happen again - that no one should be annihilated because of an accident of birth and who they are.

  

“For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.” 

 

These are the words of Elie Wiesel, a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He, along with 1.3 million other Jews, was held prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II, and he was also one of only 200,000 (approx) Jews who survived it.

Elie went on to write a number of books about his own personal story and that of the Holocaust (also known as 'the Shoah’ in Hebrew) in general, and his works — along with the likes of Primo Levi (author of If This Is A Man) and Anne Frank, whose diary is famous across the world — are some of the most defining stories of that era. They are books I would implore everyone to read, especially as a 2021 study found that over half of Britons did not know that six million Jewish people were murdered during the Holocaust, and less than a quarter thought that two million or fewer were killed.

And though it is easy to leave history in the past, events like The Holocaust must be remembered — they must be remembered out of respect for those who lost their lives, for those who overcame the most severe form of persecution and went on to become productive members of the communities in which they settled and for those who are yet to even step foot on this planet. We must, as Elie Wiesel says, “bear witness” to these events, and pass their stories and their lessons onto the next generation, so that we can avoid such horrors happening again.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Holocaust was the greatest crime of the 20th century because of the sheer scale of the premeditated and industrialized murder that  occurred.

As we contemplate the monumental nature of this moment, it’s instructive to consider the history of International Holocaust Remembrance Day itself. This annual commemoration was created by the UN in  to take place annually on January 27: the day Aushwitz-Birkenau , was liberated. In its resolution establishing the day, the UN General Assembly made it clear that this observance would not merely be about commemorating the past; it pointedly urged member states “to develop educational programs that will inculcate future generations with the lessons of the Holocaust in order to help to prevent future acts of genocide.” 

The GA also made it explicit that this remembrance would not be limited to the European Jewry alone, but should also extend to “countless members of other minorities” who were murdered en masse by the Nazi regime.

From the time they assumed power in 1933, the Nazis used  persecution, propoganda, and legislation to deny human rights to so many. Using hate as their  foundation. By the end of the Holocaust more than a million inmates, primarily Jews, were brutally and systematically killed in the place where the Nazis introduced the monstrous concept of ‘industrialized murder.’ 

The 2026 HMD events take place against a backdrop of rising antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred, with many community leaders calling for reflection on the lessons of the past to foster a safer, more peaceful future for all.  

Holocaust Memorial Day is a time to remember not only the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, but also the millions more who were targeted and killed — including Roma and Sinti people, Slavic communities, Black and mixed-race individuals, communists, trade unionists, Soviet prisoners of war, Jehovah’s Witnesses, disabled people, and gay men,  alongside  others deemed  undesirable  who were exterminated by the nazis between 1939 and 1945 and all the people who perished in the genocides that followed including Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.    

Remembering the Holocaust is not only about the past; it is about ensuring that the dignity and humanity of every person are upheld today and always. In this day and age, Holocaust Memorial Day carries a renewed urgency. As antisemitism, racism and hatred continue to resurface in our societies, remembrance challenges us to confront prejudice wherever it appears and to stand up for truth, justice and equality. I  firmly believe that “never again” must be more than words.

The theme for HMD 2026, 'Bridging Generations', is a call-to-action. A reminder that the responsibility of remembrance doesn't end with the survivors - it lives on through their children, their grandchildren and through all of us. This theme encourages us all to engage actively with the past - to listen, to learn and to carry those lessons forward. By doing so, we build a bridge between memory and action, between history and hope for the future. 

 A reminder that is the responsibility of all ages to tell the stories of the people who were murdered, those who fought back, those who resisted, those who stood by, and those who chose to be perpetrators. It emphasises that communication between generations, sharing knowledge and information have a role in understanding the past, regardless of age or curriculum, to foster empathy and inspire action to ensure that the horrors of the past can be learnt from.  

Today HMD serves as a springboard for a wider discussion on other genocides and crimes against humanity. Thus it ensures that the Holocaust is not just an historical event or one for a meaningless outpouring of grief but one that signals why racism, antisemitism, prejudice of the other and persecution of those who are different, have disabilities or have different ways of expressing their sexuality, are wrong and can lead to devastating effects across societies and generations.

The Holocaust  let's not  forget  played an important part in the establishment of the State of Israel yet it was because of the Nakba, the expulsion of three-quarters of a million Palestinians from their homeland, that a Jewish State was formed. A series of massacres accompanied the Nakba which were aimed at ‘encouraging’ the flight of the Palestinian refugees. 

International Holocaust Remembrance Day 2026 is arriving just as Israel are literally being judged on the world stage for an ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people.

Currently in occupied Palestine, the Zionist State of Israel engages in a sickening parody in its genocide against the Palestinians, spitting on the suffering endured by the Jewish people during the Second World War and Humanity’s determination that this would never be seen again.  

Gaza has laid bare the hypocrisy of a system that preaches human rights, chief of which is the right to life, but which fails to take the steps necessary to ensure them and worse still, allows nations to violate them with impunity. The global refrain, “Never Again”, sadly has been reduced to a sardonic epitaph etched with blood into the rubbled remains of Gaza. ‘Never again’ means nothing without action against Israel’s genocide in Gaza today.

Some activists, scholars, and groups, such as the Islamic Human Rights Commission and some Jewish groups, have called for the inclusion of the situation in Gaza in the context of genocide prevention. They argue that the "Never Again" promise of HMD should apply to all, including Palestinians.  

Ultimately, the day serves as a reminder to confront hate, prejudice, and the processes that lead to atrocities, with different communities interpreting how to apply those lessons to modern conflicts like Gaza. 

The phrase Never Again is no mere slogan, but a clarion call to all peace-loving peoples across the world to resist fascism wherever it may appear and in whatever mutation it evolves into. Remembering  the words of Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) prominent Protestant pastor who emerged as an outspoken public foe of Adolf Hitler and spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps, that against the fascist scourge an attack on one of us is an attack on all.  

First they came for the Communists  

And I did not speak out  

Because I was not a Communist  

Then they came for the Socialists  

And I did not speak out  Because I was not a Socialist  

Then they came for the trade unionists  

And I did not speak out  

Because I was not a trade unionist  

Then they came for the Jews  

And I did not speak out  

Because I was not a Jew  

Then they came for me  

And there was no one left  

To speak out for me.

Zionists are now trying to erase the millions of non-Jews murdered in the Holocaust. This is absolutely reprehensible

Estimates of  the victims, May  their Souls R.I.P

Remembering Nellie Bly (May 5, 1864 – January 27, 1922) - Mother of investigative journalism .

 

Elizabeth Jane Cochran  at 26 years old, c. 1890

Nellie Bly Mother of investigative journalism was born Elizabeth Jane Cochran on May 5, 1864 in the small town of Cochran’s Mills,  Pennsylvania, about 30 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.  Her father, Michael Cochran, owned a lucrative mill and served as associate justice of Armstrong County. When Bly was six, her father died suddenly and without a will. Unable to maintain the land or their house, Bly’s family left Cochran's Mill. Her mother remarried but divorced in 1878 due to abuse. 

At 15, Bly enrolled at the State Normal School in Indiana, Pennsylvania. It was there that she added an “e” to her last name, becoming Elizabeth Jane Cochrane. Due to the family’s financial struggles, she left the school after one term and soon moved with her mother to Pittsburgh, where her two older brothers had settled. 

Bly looked for work to help support her family, but found fewer opportunities than her less-educated brothers. In response to an article in the Pittsburg Dispatch that criticized the presence of women in the workforce, Bly penned an  angry open letter to the editor that called for more opportunities for women, especially those responsible for the financial wellbeing of their families. 

Signing  the  letter provocatively, “Lonely Orphan Girl.” The letter was no work of art, but editor George Madden was impressed by its writer’s fervor. He placed an advertisement in the next issue of the Dispatch, inviting the Lonely Orphan Girl to come forward. She did, and he offered her a job. To protect her identity and her reputation, Madden soon recommended she select a pen name. The two settled upon Nellie Bly, after a popular song by Stephen Foster.  

From the very beginning, she was determined to write stories that mattered. She had no experience, no education, and little polish, but she had a fire in her belly that few newspapers had ever seen. Bly enjoyed writing hard-hitting investigative pieces and some of her first articles were about the unsavory working conditions of women in factories where they produced everything from cigars to barbed wire. She learned that women toiled 12 hours a day for a mere dollar.  She wrote about women’s labor laws. She wrote about sexist divorce laws. She convinced Madden to send her to Mexico, but before long she was expelled for exposing government corruption.  

The Dispatch editors were not pleased. They attempted to rein her in by assigning her stories about flower shows and fashion. Nellie Bly refused those fluffy assignments. Wanting to write pieces that addressed both men and women, Bly began looking for a newspaper that would allow her to write on more serious topics. She moved to New York City in 1886, but found it extremely difficult to find work as a female reporter in the male-dominated field.  

In 1887, Bly stormed into the office of the New York World, one of the leading newspapers in the country. She wanted to write a story on the immigrant experience in the United States. The editor, Joseph Pulitzer, declined that story, but he challenged Bly to investigate one of New York’s most notorious mental asylums, Blackwell’s Island. Bly not only accepted the challenge, she decided to feign mental illness to gain admission and expose firsthand how patients were treated. 

After checking herself into a women’s boarding house under yet another fake name, Bly began acting erratically, peppering her speech with Spanish nouns and claiming she had lost her memory. That night she asked for a pistol. This was apparently all it took; the proprietress called the police, who hauled Bly off to court  and   on September 25, 1887, Nellie Bly was committed to the Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's Island.  . 

In 1887, New York City's asylums were shrouded in mystery. Rumors swirled about horrific conditions, abuse, and women disappearing behind locked doors, never to be seen again. But they were just rumors. No proof. No witnesses willing to speak. No way to know the truth. 

Nellie Bly,  knowing she could be trapped there indefinitely, declared insane with no way out. She did it anyway. 

The moment she arrived, Nellie dropped the act. She behaved completely normally. She spoke clearly. She answered questions rationally. It didn't matter. Once you were inside, you were insane. No amount of sanity would set you free. 

What Nellie discovered inside was worse than anyone imagined. The asylum held over 1,600 women. Many of them weren't mentally ill at all. They were poor. They were immigrants who didn't speak English. They were women whose husbands wanted to be rid of them. They were girls who'd been raped and were considered "damaged." They were inconvenient, unwanted, and discarded. And once inside, they were tortured. 

The treatments were  barbaric. Patients were forced to sit in freezing cold baths for hours.  punishment disguised as therapy. The food was rotten, inedible. Rats roamed freely. The halls were filthy. Nurses beat patients with sticks. They tied women to chairs and left them for days. They mocked them, starved them, and ignored their pleas for help. 

Nellie watched women scream for help and be silenced with violence. She saw patients beg for warm clothing and be denied. She witnessed daily cruelty designed not to heal, but to break. And she wrote it all down. In her mind. Memorizing every detail. 

For ten days, Nellie endured the same treatment as everyone else. She froze in the baths. She choked down spoiled food. She slept on a hard bench in a freezing room with no blankets. She didn't complain. She didn't fight back. She documented. 

On October 4, 1887, after ten days inside, an attorney hired by her newspaper secured her release. She walked out of Blackwell's Island and immediately began writing. On October 9, 1887, the New York World published "Ten Days in a Mad-House", Nellie Bly's firsthand account of life inside the asylum. The article was explosive. Nellie described everything in vivid, horrifying detail. The cold baths. The rotten food. The rats. The beatings. The women who didn't belong there. She wrote about a woman who spoke only German and was declared insane because doctors couldn't understand her.

She wrote about girls as young as sixteen locked away for being "difficult." She wrote about women who begged to be released and were told they'd never leave. The public was outraged and  demanded answers. A grand jury was convened to investigate. They toured Blackwell's Island. They interviewed patients and staff. They confirmed everything Nellie had written. 

The city of New York immediately allocated an additional $1 million to the Department of Public Charities and Corrections to reform asylum conditions. Staff were retrained. Oversight increased. Patients gained new rights and protections. Some of the women Nellie had met were released. Others received proper care for the first time. 

"Ten Days in a Mad-House" became a sensation. It was published as a book. It was read across the country. It sparked a national conversation about mental health, women's rights, and institutional abuse. Nellie Bly became famous overnight. 

Bly would go on to write several similar exposes in her career, taking down sweatshops, corruption in jails, and bribery from lobbyists; though perhaps today is best known for having taken on the challenge of following in the footsteps of Jules Verne’s Phileas Fogg (Around the World in Eighty Days, 1873).  In 1889, Bly attempted to circumnavigate the glove and break the fictitious record of Phileas Fogg.The adventure soon became a competition, as reporter Elizabeth Bisland from the Cosmopolitan set out in the opposite direction in the hopes of beating Bly.  

The expedition captured the world’s imagination. The New York World ran daily updates on her journey, which started at 9:40 am on November 14, 1889, and took Bly through Great Britain, France,  where  she  met  the  author Italy, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, China, and Japan.  

She landed in San Francisco, two days behind schedule as a result of rough weather on her Pacific crossing; however, Pulitzer arranged for a chartered train to take her to Chicago. She arrived in New Jersey on January 25, 1890, to huge, welcoming crowds.  

Her record-breaking journey took 72 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes, and 14 seconds. Bly wrote about her journey in the "Around the World in 72 Days," which became a bestseller.  Bly beat her rival, who had missed her steamship from Southampton and arrived less than four days after. She  became  an international  celebrity

Ultimately, Nellie Bly’s circumnavigation record only stood for a matter of months. Eccentric businessman George Francis Train traveled around the world in just 67 days, starting and ending in Tacoma, Washington. By 1913, John Henry Mears had slashed Bly’s record in half, completing the journey in under 36 days. Today, the trip can be completed by airplane in less than 36 hours, and the International Space Station takes only 90 minutes to completely orbit Earth. Nellie Bly was neither the first nor the fastest to travel around the world, and yet she remains an enduring source of fascination to the present day. 

The most likely reason for this is Nellie herself. Her sharp wit, courage, and sincerity shine through in her writing and the writing of those that knew her. It is "Ten Days in a Mad-House" that has  cemented her legacy as the mother of investigative journalism. Nellie Bly proved that journalism wasn't just about reporting what happened. It was about uncovering what was hidden. It was about giving voice to the voiceless. It was about risking everything to tell the truth. 

Before Nellie, undercover journalism didn't exist. She invented it. After Nellie, investigative reporters followed her lead.going undercover in factories, prisons, sweatshops, and more to expose injustice. 

Because of Nellie, over 1,600 women were seen. Their suffering was acknowledged. The system that imprisoned them was forced to change. Because of Nellie, mental health reform began in America. Because of Nellie, journalists learned that sometimes the most important stories require more than a notebook, they require courage. Nellie Bly didn't just write about injustice. She lived it. She endured it. And then she made damn sure the world knew about  it all. 

She did it to expose the truth and  highlight  the women who'd been abandoned by society. Her story changed mental health care in America. Her courage proved that one person, willing to risk everything, can  help  change the world. Her asylum  report is uncomfortable, but  remains absolutely  compelling.reading! 

Bly continued to publish influential pieces of journalism, including interviews with prominent individuals like anarchist activist and writer Emma Goldman and socialist politician and labor organizer Eugene V. Debs. She also covered major stories like the march of Jacob Coxey’s Army on Washington, D.C. and the Pullman strike in Chicago, both of which were 1894 protests in favor of workers’ rights.

Bly met   wealthy industrialist Robert Seaman in 1895  at  the  age of  30  and married him a few days later, leaving the newspaper life behind. Seaman was 40 years older than his bride, but neither seemed particularly fussed by the age difference. Their marriage lasted nearly 10 years, until Seaman’s death in 1904.   

Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman inherited all of her late husband’s holdings, including his Iron Clad Manufacturing Company. Another widow might have handed the company over. Bly decided to run it herself.  

Bly had no experience in this arena, but a lack of experience had never stopped her before. By 1905, she was filing patents for new types of oil barrels.  As an employer, Bly embodied all the principles she had championed in her stories. She paid her workers fairly and offered them access to gymnasiums, libraries, and healthcare, unlike almost every other American factory. Unfortunately, treating employees like human beings was expensive, and before too long her businesses went under.

Nellie Bly returned to the newsroom covering World War I from Europe and continuing to shed light on major issues that impacted women. While still working as a writer, Bly died from pneumonia on January 27, 1922 at the age of 58. She was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. 

By then, she had revolutionized journalism, a  trailblazer who  had traveled the world, and advocated for women's rights and workers' protections. But it  is  her asylum exposé  that remains her most enduring achievement. In a tribute after her death, the acclaimed newspaper editor Arthur Brisbane remembered Bly as “the best reporter in America.” 

Tony Blair appointed by Trump to his so-called “Board of Peace”.

Donald Trump  has appointed Tony Blair to his so-called “Board of Peace” for Gaza. His qualifications? He was the British prime minister during the 2003 United States-led invasion and occupation of Iraq based on false claims over weapons of mass destruction. And was hugely responsible  for killing, injuring and displacing, thousands of Iraqi  children , and is a man  known throughout the Arab world and in the United Kingdom as a “war criminal” and for his slavish devotion to Israel and contempt for Palestinians . 

Blair  because of his support for the 2003 invasion is guilty of infanticide, and the subsequent one and a half million deaths in a country  where half the population were children. 

This man should not  be  on  any 'Board of Peace ' and instead should be shamed, as  many would like to see his arrest for being such a deliverer of so much pain. His reputation for many remains rotten to the core. A warmongerer and profiteer of death who has long poisoned the well of public trust.

Since leaving office, Blair has faced sustained criticism for his work through the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), which has been accused of helping to launder the reputations of hardline regimes.  

The institute has now been linked to Israel via its alleged involvement in plans for Gaza’s future. TBI was connected to a controversial private proposal which envisioned remaking Gaza into a commercial hub, described in planning documents as a “Trump Riviera”, according to the Financial Times.  

The plan, backed by Israeli businessmen and supported by the Boston Consulting Group, included mechanisms that could incentivise the relocation of Palestinians from Gaza.

It can never be  called  a “Board of Peace”.while warmongers like Blair sit on it. As if the Board of Peace wasn’t illegitimate enough, designed to perpetrate exploitation of resources and the oppression of  an  indigenous population, with Tony Blair as a member, it is a hostile, insulting and offensive to all who care for the sanctity of human life. 

While the board is presented as overseeing governance, reconstruction, stabilisation and investment in Gaza, not a single Palestinian sits on it. And none of these measures exist in practice. There is no stabilisation force, no withdrawal, no civilian protection, no safe flow of goods, and no political horizon. 

Instead, Gaza is bombarded, terrain is re-engineered, borders are weaponised, and displacement deepens. No end to siege, and no withdrawal. Gaza continues to be bombarded from the air, sea, and ground, while its borders remain weaponised and its population displaced. 

A technocratic committee presented as a governance solution has been prevented from even entering Gaza, exposing the emptiness of political guarantees.  In the West Bank, raids intensify, israeli settlements expand, israeli settlers act with military protection, and legislative exclusion advances through the knesset. In prisons, Palestinians face systematic torture and abuse. Regionally, israeli attacks extend into Lebanon, targeting civilian areas.  

The “Board of peace” exists only as language. None of its promises are implemented day-to-day. ▪️ None of its guarantees apply to Palestinians living under occupation. What is presented as stabilisation is enforced control. 

What is presented as peace is the management of violence under diplomatic cover. Any nation with a crumb of self-respect will reject an invitation without a second thought, you cannot have a "'Board of Peace '" when it's orchestrated and filled with war criminals ,and  it is  billionaires and political cronies that are calling the shots.  

The 'Board of Peace' has no legitimacy under International Law. The ICJ ruled in 2024 that Israel's illegal occupation must end. Joining the Board puts anyone on the wrong side of the law. This is not the road  to peace, it’s occupation with a polished face. Only Palestinians should decide the future of Gaza. The "Board of Peace" is a complete and utter disaster. End the occupation. Now.

Here's  a petition you   could  sign. Tony Blair: Don't join Trump's Board of Peace!

Petition text  

Don’t join Trump’s Board of Peace! Hand back your Senior Executive title and listen to the British public who want no part in this scheme.  

Why is this important?  Donald Trump has just launched his own rival organisation to the United Nations. But judging from the cast of characters involved and their chequered democracy and human rights records, this so-called Board of Peace threatens to be anything but. 

The UK government has refused to join over concerns about Putin’s potential involvement. So why on earth does Tony Blair think it’s appropriate for him to take a leading role?  

The last thing a former British PM should do is lend credibility to Trump’s latest dangerous and undemocratic scheme, backed by a roll back of despots and tyrants from around the world.

https://act.38degrees.org.uk/act/tr-blair-boardofpeace-petition?

utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=blast144724

Celebrating the life and birth of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968)

Civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King is honored with a holiday in his memory today. Martin Luther King Day is commemorated on the third Monday in January each year. This year’s official holiday is Monday, Jan. 19.The  day  honours his birthday and his fight for racial equality through nonviolent protest, becoming a national day of service to reflect on his legacy of justice and peace.

Efforts to honor King with a federal holiday began just months after his April 4, 1968 death. Those efforts failed, as did a 1979 vote by Congress that came after Dr.King's widow, Coretta Scott King, spoke out in favor of the day. Momentum for the holiday grew in 1980 when entertainer Stevie Wonder released "Happy Birthday" in Dr.King's honor, leading to a petition calling for MLK Day and, in 1983, House passage of a holiday bill.Today it is the only federal holiday designated as a national day of service to encourage all Americans to volunteer and improve their communities.

Dr.King was born Jan. 15, 1929 in Atlanta. Although the King family were relatively economically privileged, this did not fully shield him from the experience of racial prejudice when he was young – he was, after all, born in 1929, during an era of legal segregation. 

A pivotal experience occurred in 1944 as he returned to Atlanta from an oratorical contest in Dublin, Georgia. He and his teacher were forced to stand on an overcrowded bus so whites could have the available seats. This left an indelible imprint on the young Dr.King, who had just delivered perhaps his first important public speech, on ‘The Negro and the Constitution’. 

Dr.King’s home city of Atlanta was racially progressive by the standards of the American South. He would have suffered less exposure to white racism than did many other black children, but that didn’t stop his experiences of discrimination informing his understanding of injustice. Losing his white playmates when he and they had to attend separate schools provided an early lesson in the inequities of institutionalised racism.  

Dr.King was greatly inspired by a confluence of factors, the foremost being the African-American church. His philosophy and practice of nonviolence was also influenced by his time as a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta from 1944 to 1948. Its president delivered weekly chapel talks in which he often spoke about social justice issues and the world leaders who were addressing them, including Mohandas Gandhi. In 1959, Dr.King would travel to India with his wife, Coretta Scott King, to learn more about the Gandhian practice of nonviolence. 

Dr. King’s study of the works of western philosophers and theologians framed his thinking about nonviolence. Ultimately, he synthesised these influences – the black church, Gandhi, western philosophy and theology – to create his own, unique expression of nonviolence as evidenced in the American civil rights movement.  

Dr.King’s faith was at the very core of his commitment to the struggle for black equality. As he put it: “Christ furnished the spirit and motivation while Gandhi furnished the method.”  

Nonviolent protest was undoubtedly connected to King’s Christian faith and a tradition of redemptive suffering. However, the use of nonviolence within the movement predates King’s rise to prominence: the boycott of segregated transport by black communities, for instance, can be dated back to the late 19th century. 

The 1955/56 Montgomery bus boycott [in which leading civil rights figures, including King, protested against the segregation of Alabama’s public transport] was part of a longer history of nonviolent protest in black communities.  

Nonviolence also served a tactical role for the movement. By contrasting the nonviolence of protesters with the lawlessness and brutality of white supremacists, King was able to present an image of respectability and thereby secure support from white liberals.  

Dr.King later helped form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and went on to lead protests throughout the South and, in 1963, was a central figure in the March on Washington.

King’s political career coincided with the communication revolution that occurred through the mass ownership of TVs. Suddenly, the black freedom struggle was being beamed right into people’s homes. News footage of racist police officers brutally assaulting peaceful black protesters mobilised public support for the civil rights cause. This in turn pressurised the federal government to take interventionist action.  

Television also enabled King to reach an international audience. Thanks to a Telstar satellite, British audiences were able to watch live on August 28, 1963 the end of the March on Washington in 1963 at which Dr. King delivered his famous  ‘I Have a Dream’ oration.  King’s words were as powerful as his deeds, and his moving and eloquent addresses, which gave hope to millions, continue to inspire people throughout the world.  

Martin Luther King - I Have A Dream Speech - August 28, 1963

While only 9 per cent of American households owned a TV in 1950, 93 per cent did so in 1966. This contributed significantly to the success of King’s movement. It also helped catapult the charismatic King into the spotlight of global attention.  

King once declared that he would compel segregationists to do their evil in the spotlight of television and that this would make the world see their crimes. His protest campaigns in the Alabama towns of Birmingham in 1963 and Selma two years later were moral spectacles that made it hard for ordinary Americans to feel comfortable with what was happening.  

Race was a controversial issue that most leaders in the United States wanted to avoid, which meant that King was usually seen as a problem rather than an ally. He met three presidents during his lifetime. Dwight D Eisenhower largely ignored him; John F Kennedy, typically via his brother Bobby, tried to control him (the Kennedys believed that King should be grateful for their attempts to help him); and Lyndon B Johnson wanted King to act in ways that supported him, and felt betrayed by King’s outspoken stance on Vietnam. FBI director J Edgar Hoover also told Kennedy and Johnson that King was dangerous and probably controlled by the communists. 

Attorney General Robert Kennedy’s authorisation of FBI wiretaps on King’s home and office in 1963 reveals how the White House mistrusted King and attempted to control and manipulate him. Federal authorities were also more reactive than proactive on civil rights, meaning that King had to force their hand – as was the case in 1963, when first his campaign in Birmingham, Alabama and then the March on Washington pressured the Kennedy administration into pushing for the enactment of what eventually became the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Similarly, without the demonstrations that King led in Selma, Alabama, Lyndon B Johnson would not have pushed so hard for passing the outstanding legislative achievement of the civil rights movement – the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

By the end of his life, Martin Luther King Jr was an avowed socialist. He understood that you cannot have liberation and justice for all under a capitalist system that profits off exploitation, war, and inequality.  His vision was one of equality - across race and class. And he always saw the fight for civil rights as intricately tied to the fight for workers’ rights. As MLK said, “The problems of racial injustice and economic injustice cannot be solved without a radical redistribution of political and economic power.” The legacy of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. has been deliberately softened to serve the interests of a select few. 

His last speech was delivered on April 3, 1968 to a crowded church, in Memphis Tennessee. King spoke of the injustice he felt for the city's sanatoriam workers who were on strike protesting low pay and poor working conditions. Amid the call for African-Americans to boycott businesses that mistreated workers , he delivered a sermon, without notes, that focused on his life and disavowed any concern that he might be killed for his role in the fight for civil rights. 'Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about tat now,' the Rev. Dr. King said that evening. 'I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, But I want you to know tonight, that we as people , will get to the promised land,!' Now known as ' I've been to the Mountaintop,' the sermon was called Dr.King's ' ,most apocalyptic' by King scholar James Washington. He was assassinated in Memphis, Tennesee the next day, today April 4, 1968. 

If you listen to the words, it's almost as if he was predicting his own death,  powerfully prophetic.His strong voice still speaking out and touching us.

Martin Luther King Jr. “I've Been to the Mountaintop” - April 3, 1968 - Final Famous Speech

In  this age of Trump and rising Bigotry we need voices like King's more than ever. A man who refused to dilute his ideas, with integrity and passion for the causes of equality, justice and freedom, long may we celebrate his brave voice and his powerful legacy.

Though Martin Luther King Day is an American holiday, the man himself was thoroughly international. His political thoughts traverses all borders. Like so many strugglers in the long fight against racism, Dr.King appreciated that it was, at it's heart a global project. 

Many years later  despite some victory's and gains, the march for equality is unfinished, and for some his dream is unrealised, take for instance the case of the Palestinians who are daily imprisoned.

Dr. King also  knew that bombs dropped abroad would return home as batons and cages. He knew that a nation willing to brutalize others in the name of order would eventually turn that brutality inward, especially toward those already marked as disposable—or worse yet, as a threat to their power.Dr. King called for a radical revolution of values. Not cosmetic reform, but a refusal to live in a world organized by force.  That call still stands.

We cannot  let go of Dr King's dream, because, surely it is everybody's dream, we must continuously try to change the world, remember those in the U.S.A fighting for jobs and freedom, a land  still lanquishing to find itself, while perpetrating injustice, discrimination and inequality. A country that imprisons more  of their citizens than any other country in the world. African Americans in particular, though they are 12% of the population, make up 38% of the state prison population, despite their crimes being no different from their white and hispanic counterparts.

Today, we celebrate the life and birth of Martin Luther King Jr. We celebrate his legacy as a radical activist and anti-imperialist, who rightfully saw militarism, capitalism and fascism as the root causes of injustice in our society, and across the world.

Sadly King's legacy is gravely dishonoured every day that Donald Trump sits in the Oval Office.Trump scrapped free entry to National Parks on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and replaced it with his own birthday.Nevertheless even in the Trump era  Dr King's words can still be  be both sobering and inspiring, his words are a timeless representation of the struggles that disenfranchised people face..Lets continue to honor him and continue to live his legacy through our  actions. In the face of cruelty and injustice, speak out, and speak up, for surely history will judge us all for our silence. we can still find the courage to stand up and say enough.

“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor … it must be demanded by the oppressed!” King determined. Reminding  us that “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in the moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at during times of challenge and controversy,” He also warned us that “We must learn to live together as brothers, or we will perish together as fools,” 

Now more than ever, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s memory serves as a shining light in the darkness—and is a reminder that the fight for justice is far from over. On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we are  also reminded that justice is not automatic and freedom is not complete without equality and dignity for all. True freedom demands action standing against injustice, discrimination, and systems that deny people their rights.

As we honor the legacy of a true champion of equality and justice. Let's celebrate by spreading love, kindness, and unity. Seek common ground and shared purpose. Commit to peace, courage, and moral leadership. Lift up those who have been left behind and affirm the inherent dignity and worth of every person. While demanding a just society, guided by his courage to resist injustice, his vision of equality, and his unwavering belief that freedom is won through relentless, righteous action.

We at  same time  still need to abolish ICE. liberate Turtle Island, Palestine, Congo, Haiti, Sudan, West Papua, and the rest of our world. 

Every one of us who refuses to be silent or defeated in the face of injustice and inequity has joined a rich tradition of fighting forward, and we owe it to Dr. King not to let anyone send us back to darker times. “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” —Martin Luther King Jr.

Here is an old poem of mine in Martin Luther King Jr  honour

Strength to Love

Martin Luther King had a dream
That still today stirs our conscience,
He rejected violence to oppose racial injustice
Spread a message of peace, love and understanding,
His only weapons were his words and faith
As he marched in protest with his fellow man,
A force for good, but radical with intention
Pursued civil disobedience was not afraid
                                            of confrontation,
We are all born equal under skin
This noble struggle never stops within,
The causes of poverty must still be eradicated
There is so much more room for change,
As fresh iniquities call, lets keep hope alive
Standing firm let our voices ring out,
Keep sharing deeds of deep principle
In the name of pride and in the name of love,
We are all still citizens of the world
As Martin Luther carries on reminding,
“Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever.
The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.”
We must continue to resist and overcome,
One day soon, all our dreams will be realised.

The house that Donald Trump couldn’t buy and the Widow who defied him.

Photo of  the home of Vera Coking, a widowed retired boardinghouse owner,  who refused to sell her three-story boardinghouse despite pressure from Donald Trump and city officials. 

For more than thirty years, a retired widowed retired boardinghouse owner Vera Coking   had lived quietly in a three-storey clapboard house just off the Atlantic City Boardwalk. Her home, at 127 South Columbia Place, wasn’t much to look at: white paint peeling, lace curtains faded by sea air, but it was hers. She and her husband had bought it back in 1961 for $20,000 as a seaside retreat. To Vera, it was more than property; it was memory, family, and the simple satisfaction of owning something she loved.

In the late 1970s, Atlantic City was booming. Casinos were rising like glittering towers, promising fortune and spectacle. Vera’s modest house happened to sit in a prime location, just a short walk from the Boardwalk. Developers came knocking, but Vera wasn’t interested.   

Her first test came from Penthouse magazine publisher Bob Guccione, who was building the Penthouse Boardwalk Hotel and Casino. He offered Vera $1 million for her house, about $5 million in today’s money. She turned him down flat.  

When she refused, Guccione didn’t back down. Instead, he literally built around her house, erecting steel framework that loomed over Vera’s roof like a giant cage. The sight of her small home surrounded by beams and girders became a local curiosity, an early “holdout house” story long before that phrase became internet-famous. But Guccione’s empire ran out of money in 1980, and the half-finished casino was left to rust. The skeleton stayed for over a decade until it was finally torn down in 1993. Through it all, Vera remained.  “I loved my home,” she would later say. And she meant it.  

Enter Donald Trump By the early 1990s, Donald Trump had become Atlantic City’s golden boy, or at least, he liked to think so. His name was plastered on hotels and casinos, and his Trump Plaza towered just next door to Vera’s little house.  

Trump wanted to build a parking lot for limousines next to his casino to serve his high-rolling guests. Several property owners nearby agreed to sell. But Vera, along with a couple of other holdouts, refused. She had lived there for over three decades by then. She wasn’t going anywhere.

 Trump, of course, wasn’t used to hearing the word no.  As Ivanka Trump once put it, introducing her father at a campaign rally years later: “Donald Trump doesn’t take no for an answer.”  

Trump personally visited Vera’s home to persuade her to sell. He tried charm, small talk, even gifts, once offering her tickets to a Neil Diamond concert. Vera famously told reporters later, “I didn’t even knonow who Neil Diamond was.”   

When the soft approach failed, Trump took another route: legal pressure.

When Trump began expanding his Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino nearby, he offered to buy her property so he could tear it down and build a parking lot for limousines serving his high-roller guests. Coking refused to sell, turning down offers reportedly as high as $1 million. 

Trump turned to a powerful ally, the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority (CRDA), a state agency created to channel casino profits into public and private projects that supposedly benefited New Jersey. By law, 1.25% of all casino gross revenue went to the CRDA, funding everything from housing to road projects. But the agency also wielded a controversial tool: eminent domain.  Eminent domain, rooted in the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, allows the government to take private property for public use, provided the owner is given “just compensation.” 

Over time, the definition of “public use” had broadened, sometimes including private developments deemed to serve the public good.In the early 1990s, the New Jersey Casino Reinvestment Development Authority (CRDA) attempted to use eminent domain to seize her house and transfer the land to Trump, arguing it would serve a public benefit.  

In Trump’s case, the CRDA offered Vera $250,000 for her home, just a quarter of what Guccione had offered her ten years earlier. When she refused, the CRDA filed to seize her property in court. The plan was simple: bulldoze Vera’s house and turn it into a parking lot for Trump Plaza limos.  

Trump defended his actions by painting Vera as a greedy obstacle. “This is a tough, cunning, crafty person who has purposely allowed this property to go to hell, right at the foot of the entrance to Atlantic City so that she can get a higher price,” he said at the time.   

Vera’s response was sharper. She called Trump “a maggot, cockroach, and crumb.”

"If Trump's thinking I'm gonna die tomorrow, he's having himself a pipe dream," she said then. "I'm gonna be here for a long, long time. I'll stay just to see he's not getting my house. We'll be going to his funeral, you can count on that."

Words that reflected  a force that seemed to disregard her humanity.

Peter Banin and his brother owned another building on the block. A few months after they paid $500,000 to purchase the building for a pawn shop, CRDA offered them $174,000 and told them to leave the property. A Russian immigrant, Banin said: “I knew they could do this in Russia, but not here. I would understand if they needed it for an airport runway, but for a casino?”

Public outrage followed  and Coking fought back with help from public-interest lawyers, while  her small white home,  wedged defiantly between rising steel frames of Trump Plaza  became a national symbol of resistance to corporate and government overreach.

Vera Coking walks past Donald Trump, partially obscured against wall at left, in a courtroom hallway at Atlantic County Superior Court in Atlantic City, N.J., Thursday Feb. 13, 1997. 

In 1998, after a lengthy legal battle, Coking’s persistence bore fruit. The New Jersey Superior Court ruled in her favor, blocking the CRDA from seizing her home through eminent domain, declaring the action an overreach that did not meet the standards of public use and preserving her right to stay. The decision was heralded as a landmark victory for property rights, an assertion that government powers could not be wielded to serve private ambitions alone.  The New York Post celebrated the decision with the headline: “TRUMPED!”

Vera’s battle had  not just  been  in the courts. Accounts detail a steady campaign of intimidation.  City officials, reportedly spurred by Trump’s influence, conducted frequent visits under the guise of inspections or appraisals. Every knock at her door was a reminder of her defiance and the power arrayed against her. During the construction and demolition around her property, workers allegedly damaged her home. At one point, they even started a fire in her attic. Vera sued Trump and the demolition company for the damage and settled for $90,000.    

To many, Vera Coking’s story became emblematic of the fight against the unchecked influence of corporate power and the misuse of eminent domain. Her battle exposed a darker side to Trump’s ambitions, a side that used influence and pressure against a single, determined woman. The case resurfaced during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, with politicians like Jeb Bush citing her story to criticize Trump’s stance on property rights.  

Today, Vera Coking’s defiance stands as a reminder of what it means to resist intimidation when the stakes are deeply personal.Her fight became a symbol of ordinary people standing up against the misuse of power, especially the kind that disguises private gain as public good. 

Her court victory  also underscored that property rights are about more than just money; they symbolize memory, identity, and the right to make choices free from coercion. Against the backdrop of corporate ambitions, her story remains a quiet but potent testament to resilience.

The casino boom  eventually began to fade, and Trump’s empire wasn’t immune. His properties went bankrupt multiple times, and by the late 1990s, his flashy reputation had dimmed in the city that once embraced him.  

Long after Trump’s casino closed, Vera simply stayed put. Her house became something of a local landmark, a stubborn reminder of resistance amid the city’s garish sprawl. Tourists would stop and point, marvelling at the tiny home that defied the billionaire next door.  

Her victory, though satisfying, was bittersweet. Atlantic City was no longer the neighborhood she had cherished. In 2014, at 91, Coking moved to California to be near family, leaving the home she had defended so fiercely. Her house sold for $530,000—a figure that barely mattered in the face of her prolonged struggle.“It was never about the money,” she said. “I loved my home.” The building was soon demolished, erasing one of the city’s last physical connections to its past.

Vera Coking passed away quietly in California, far from the Boardwalk she once fought to protect. Remembered  as a folk hero who refused  to be bullied against powerful forces, developers, government agencies, and a  thorn in the side  of a future president. 

Let's  not  forget either  that Trumps actions have always been about himself,  an  arrogant individual who does not  give  a damn  about the feelings of anyone else, unless  they serve his own interests. He  should keep his  hands  of Greenland  too, or any other land  he seeks to own.

Defying The Darkness

Defying The Darkness

I'm not Shakespeare, but feel all of his words

As I witness all the unfurling tragedies of the world,

From Palestine, Congo, Yemen, Myanmar to Sudan

Releasing tears, wounds that greatly touch my soul,

Nightmares all around us, days of sadness, grief and pain

Plunged into a sea full of profound misery and despair,

Human indulgence comes at such an enormous price

As man faces nature's slow brutal death sentence,

International pariah state USA endorsing injustice

Out of control spreading fear and sowing hate,

Was the land of freedom, liberty, and justice for all

The American Way has been buried under tyrannical misrule,

The country we were raised to believe in is no longer real

What’s left is a hollowed-out skin suit, propped up by lies,

Enforced, held hostage by a lunatic named Donald Trump

Now like the land of the greedy, home to capitalist slaves,

Rotten to the core with an extremely violent disposition

Leaving an innocent woman poet lying dead on the street,

Robbing oil for the country, with no dignity or respect

Holding Venezuelans hostage against international law,

Looking to engulf Greenland, Colombia, Mexico and Cuba

All should be condemned by people of faith and goodwill,

We cannot give up hope, must keep resisting the darkness

Songs of sorrow to be silenced, glorious harmonies instead,

Light candles bright, while covering the world with flowers

Petals of peace, stems strong with grace, difficult to erase,

That we water gently with constancy and loving care

Guarding them through the seasons of joy and despair,

Enabling them to give us the spirit of justice, freedom

To share more joy, kindness, compassion with each other,

In truth love is all we ever need, helps create brighter days

Wherever we are in the world, has the power to heal,

Let's inhale her essence, start giving her a chance

Lifting the weight of yesterday, deserves our allegiance.