Upheaval in Alton illinoistimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from illinoistimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
207-859-4346
In an ongoing effort to recognize individuals of our time who embody courageous journalism, Colby College today announced that it will honor Leonard Pitts Jr. with this year’s Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award.
Leonard Pitts is an American commentator, journalist, and novelist. Currently writing for the
Miami Herald, he is well known for his nationally syndicated column that often addresses issues of race, politics, and culture.
Leonard Pitts Jr. is a social issues columnist for the Miami Herald. He is the recipient of Colby’s 2021 Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award.
Lovejoy, 1826 valedictorian at Colby, was a crusading abolitionist editor who was murdered in 1837 for his anti-slavery editorials. He was called America’s first martyr to freedom of the press by John Quincy Adams.
David M. Shribman: The reconciliation of Daniel Webster By David M. Shribman
Daniel Webster finally is in the White House.
Until Joseph R. Biden Jr. put a bust of him in the Oval Office, Webster never inhabited the executive mansion, though he tried repeatedly between 1832 and 1852 to win the presidency. He was, to be sure, a constant presence there as secretary of state to three presidents; as one of the towering congressional figures, along with Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, of his time; as a principal in all the important issues of his era. The closest he came to living in the White House was his brick house, right across the street, on a site now occupied by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
In January 1838, 28-year-old Abraham Lincoln delivered an address in Springfield, Ill., condemning a series of vigilante attacks that had recently taken place across the young republic. Just weeks before, Elijah Parish Lovejoy, ardent abolitionist and editor of the St. Louis Observer, was shot to death outside his warehouse in Alton, Ill., by a pro-slavery mob.
“Whenever the vicious portion of population shall be permitted to gather in bands of hundreds and thousands,” Lincoln said, “and burn churches, ravage and rob provision-stores, throw printing presses into rivers, shoot editors, and hang and burn obnoxious persons at pleasure, and with impunity; depend on it, this government cannot last.”