Americans Who Tell The Truth

Robert Shetterly he taught himself drawing, printmaking, and painting in 1970. Shetterly did the editorial page drawings for the Maine Times newspaper for 12 years. He also illustrated National Audubon's children's newspaper Audubon Adventures, and approximately 30 books.



When Shetterly became increasingly disappointed in the state of the United States he decided to begin a project that would remind him and others of the many Americans who have done some good in the country. With his art book Americans Who Tell The Truth, he has collected quotes from various American icons and has painted portraits of said individuals.

While there are many many portraits to choose from I have selected just several for this post.



Mary Harris Jones aka Mother Jones - Labor leader, organizer, 1830—1930

“Goodbye, boys; I’m under arrest. I may have to go to jail. I may not see you for a long time. Keep up the fight! Don’t surrender! Pay no attention to the injunction machine at Parkersburg. The Federal judge is a scab anyhow. While you starve he plays golf. While you serve humanity, he serves injunctions for the money powers.”

Any of you ever read Mother Jones magazine? Well, it you ever noticed where the name came from this is it.

From the 1890s though the 1920s she worked to abolition of child labor and organized United Mine Workers. In 1905 she helped found the International Workers of the World (IWW) aka "Wobblies". Coal miners came to know her as "the miner's friend" or “the miner’s angel”. Due to the fact that she referred to the miners as “her boys,” she became known as "Mother"Jones.

Jones' public speaking and activism became notible. At 81 years of age she was named “the most dangerous woman in America”.




Robert Jensen - Professor, Author, Feminist, Activist, 1958

"This is the simple discovery which we must confront. We were given a place in the creation, with a beauty beyond telling, and we have failed to care for it. And as our collective contempt for the non-human world has intensified, so has our contempt for each other. We have failed to care for each other."

Robert Jensen is a professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin and an feminist activist. Not only that he is one of my heroes. Jensen is known for this work with the anti-pornography movement and has written and co-written books on the subject which include Getting Off: Pornography and the end of Masculinity.

Jensen also tours the country on speaking tours to inform others of the harms of capitalism and racism. He has also written such books as The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege and Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity.



Utah Phillips - Songwriter, Storyteller, Humorist, Philosopher, 1935–2008

“Kids don’t have a little brother working in the coal mine, they don’t have a little sister coughing her lungs out in the looms of the big mill towns of the Northeast. Why? Because we organized; we broke the back of the sweatshops in this country; we have child labor laws. Those were not benevolent gifts from enlightened management. They were fought for, they were bled for, they were died for by working people, by people like us. Kids ought to know that. That’s why I sing these songs. That’s why I tell these stories, dammit. No root, no fruit!

U. Utah Phillips born Bruce Phillips was an incredible folksinger, storyteller, activist, IWW member aka Wobbily and ex hobo. He certainly was an artist with his music and his skills as a storyteller. Being that I love storytellers, Utah's work was definitely up my ally. After Phillips' time in the Korean War he felt disgusted and angry with his actions. He lived as a hobo for several years. He hopped trains and grew wise from that hobos and tramps around him. In his home state of Utah, he met Ammon Hennacy. Hennacy was was runnng the Joe Hill house of hospitality. Hennacy taught Phillips the virtues of pacifism, anarchy and how to lay down “the weapons of privilege”. In May of 2008 Phillips passed away in his sleep due to heart failure. His songs and stories, have been recorded in his many cd albums. In 1996 Phillips collaborated with my favorite folk singer Ani DiFranco with the album The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere. In 1999 they joined forces again with Fellow Workers.

Rachel Corrie - Activist, Writer, 1979–2003

"The international media and our government are not going to tell us that we are effective, important, justified in our work, courageous, intelligent, valuable. We have to do that for each other, and one way we can do that is by continuing our work, visibly. People without privilege will be doing this work no matter what, because they are working for their lives. We can work with them, and they know that we work with them, or we can leave them to do this work themselves and curse us for our complicity in killing them."

Rachel Corrie was aactivist who died at age 23 on March 16, 2003. She ahd been working as a non-violent protester in the Gaza Strip with the International Solidarity Movement. She stood before a bulldozer that was planning on demolishing a home. The bulldozer ran over her twice but the driver claims he did not see Corrie.

I learned of Corrie's death through friends who attended The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington as I did. Corrie had also attended Evergreen but we were not aquainted.

A memorial website commemorate her life. Online The Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice can also be found. Several music artists and poets have have paid tribute to Corrie including Maya Angelou and Billy Bragg.




Pete Seeger - Singer/Songwriter, Activist, 1919

"Song, songs kept them going and going;/ They didn't realize the millions of seeds they were sowing./ They were singing in marches, even singing in jail./ Songs gave them the courage to believe they would not fail."

In 1940, Seeger met Woody Guthrie and formed the group the Almanac Singers. This folk music group sang about activism for the labor movement. In 1942, he entered the Army. Once discharged Seeger founded People’s Song, a musicians’ union combining folk music with the labor movement.

Seeger recently celebrated his 90th birthday. He was celebrated by many different artists including Ani Difranco, Bruce Springsteen, Bruce Cockburn and more.




Woody Guthrie - Folksinger and writer, 1912—1967

“One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple / By the relief office I saw my people / As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering if / This land was made for you and me.”

Woody Guthrie is one of my favorite folk singers. He wrote over a thousand songs about cowboys, workers, and hobos and his own experiences of living in the age of the Dust Bowl. Guthrie continues to be an artist of inspiration to folk singers and other musical artists alike. His songs of protest and heart live on.




Noam Chomsky - Linguist, Political Activist, Writer, 1928

“…jingoism, racism, fear, religious fundamentalism: these are the ways of appealing to people if you’re trying to organize a mass base of support for policies that are really intended to crush them.”

Chomsky has served as a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) but is better known as a political activist. Chomsky has written many books that criticize politics, the government, war and the media.




Harriet Tubman - Underground Railroad Conductor, Social Reformer, Nurse, Spy,
1820?—1913

“I started with this idea in my head, There’s two things I've got a right to, and these are, Death or Liberty — one or the other I mean to have.”

Harriet Tubman has been a hero of mine since I was a child. I have memories of writing several elementary school reports on this amazing woman.

Harriet Tubman was born as Araminta Ross in Bucktown in Maryland in 1820. She was born into slavery.

Tubman was often referred to as “Moses” by the hundreds of slaves she helped to freedom. Harriet Tubman became the most famous leader of the Underground Railroad.

Tubman escaped to Philadelphia in 1849. “When I had found that I had crossed the [ Mason-Dixon] line, I looked at my hands to see if I were the same person,” she later wrote, “..the sun came like gold through the tree and over the field and I felt like I was in heaven.”

After her escape, Tubman worked as a maid in Philadelphia and joined an abolitionist group. Tubman traveled to the South at least 18 times and enabled the escape of close to 300 slaves.

Tubman became skilled in her plans to bring slaves to freedom. She planned the route, administered sleep drugs to quiet babies, and carrying a gun for protection. Tubman did all of this with the impending threat of her "spells" where Tubman would black out. It is recorded that she would black out from time to time due to the day that Tubman was lashed across the forehead with a lead whip.

Tubman's reputation grew and rewards for her capture reached as high as $40,000. During the Civil War, Tubman served as a nurse , scout, and spy for the Union army. She also participated in a military campaign that resulted in the rescue of 756 slaves.

In 1908 Tubman received the veteran’s pay that had been denied her for 30 years. Tubman then established a home in Auburn for elderly and indigent blacks. The home was named Harriet Tubman House which is where she died on March 10, 1913.





Helen Keller - Writer, lecturer, advocate for the disabled, 1880—1968

“When one comes to think of it, there are no such things as divine, immutable, or inalienable rights. Rights are things we get when we are strong enough to make good our claim on them.”

Helen Keller suffered a ‘brain fever at age 19 months that caused her to be left blind and deaf. Keller's parents traveled to Baltimore to meet with inventor Alexander Graham Bell. who studied speech while working on his telephone. Bell told the Kellers to contact the Perkins Institution for the Blind in Boston. Anne Sullivan, became Helen Keller's teacher. With Sullivan’s help Keller graduated with honors from Radcliffe University as the first deaf and blind person ever to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. Keller went on to write and offer lectures through an interpreter. Keller was an advocate for the disabled. She was also supported groups such as the ACLU, IWW, and NAACP. She also campaigned for birth control, civil rights, women’s suffrage, and world peace. The Miracle Worker became a play and film about Keller’s childhood education with Sullivan.

Howard Zinn - Historian, Political Theorist, Educator, 1922

“The rule of law does not do away with the unequal distribution of wealth and power, but reinforces that inequality with the authority of law. It allocates wealth and poverty in such calculated and indirect ways as to leave the victim bewildered.”

Howard Zinn's view on war and politics was greatly shaped by his time during World War II. After his time in the army he earned a doctorate in history at Columbia University.

Zinn is known for his book A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present. It is a history of America through the perspective of “those outside of the political and economic establishment”. Zinn remains an active advocate for world peace.




Sojourner Truth - Abolitionist, evangelist, and feminist, 1797?—1883

"Now I hears talkin about de Constitution and de rights of man. I comes up and I takes hold of dis Constitution. It looks mighty big, and I feels for my rights, but der aint any dare. Den I says, God, what ails dis Constitution? He says to me, “Sojourner, dere is a little weasel in it.”

Truth was a black female slave who grew up with no schooling. After 17 years a slave, Truth who's real first name was Isabella escaped to a Quaker family. When slaves were emancipated Truth became a servant. in 1843 she renamed herself Sojourner Truth as she became involved in Christianity and felt that it was her calling to speak out about God.

Truth also spoke out against racial oppression and against sexism during the suffrage movement. In 1851, at a women’s rights convention in Ohio, she gave her most famous speech, in which she repeatedly asked, “Ain’t I A Woman?"


For more information and portraits go to http://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org