The Port Huron Project is a series of six reenactments of

protest A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration, or remonstrance) is a public act of objection, disapproval or dissent against political advantage. Protests can be thought of as acts of cooperation in which numerous people cooperate ...

speeches from the

New Left The New Left was a broad political movement that emerged from the counterculture of the 1960s and continued through the 1970s. It consisted of activists in the Western world who, in reaction to the era's liberal establishment, campaigned for freer ...

movements of the 1960s and '70s. Between September 2006 and September 2008, each event took place at the site of the original speech, and was delivered by a performer to an audience of passers-by and invited guests. Videos, audio recordings, and photographs of these performances are presented in various venues and distributed online and on DVD as open-source media.

Reenactments

;Port Huron Project 1: ''Until the Last Gun Is Silent'' The first reenactment took place on September 16, 2006, and was based on a speech given by

Coretta Scott King Coretta Scott King ( Scott; April 27, 1927 – January 30, 2006) was an American author, activist, and civil rights leader who was the wife of Martin Luther King Jr. from 1953 until his assassination in 1968. As an advocate for African-Ameri ...

at a peace march in

Central Park Central Park is an urban park between the Upper West Side and Upper East Side neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City, and the first landscaped park in the United States. It is the List of parks in New York City, sixth-largest park in the ...

on April 27, 1968, approximately three weeks after the

assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr., an American civil rights activist, was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, at 6:01 p.m. CST. He was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 7:05& ...

The speech, which she based on notes found in her husband's pockets when he died, addresses the war in Vietnam, domestic poverty, and the power of women to effect social change. Gina Brown, a New York-based actor and former welfare mother, delivered the speech. ;Port Huron Project 2: ''The Problem Is Civil Obedience'' The second event in the series took place on July 14, 2007. It was based on a speech originally delivered by author and activist

Howard Zinn Howard Zinn (August 24, 1922January 27, 2010) was an American historian and a veteran of World War II. He was chair of the history and social sciences department at Spelman College, and a political science professor at Boston University. Zinn ...

at a peace march on Boston Common on May 5, 1971. In this speech, Zinn defended the use of civil disobedience to protest the war in Vietnam and called on Congress to impeach the president and vice president of the United States for the "high crime" of "making war on the peasants of Southeast Asia." ;Port Huron Project 3: ''We Must Name the System'' The third reenactment was staged near the Washington Monument on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on July 26, 2007. The original speech was given at the April 17, 1965 March on Washington To End the War in Vietnam by

Students for a Democratic Society Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a national student activist organization in the United States during the 1960s and was one of the principal representations of the New Left. Disdaining permanent leaders, hierarchical relationships a ...

(SDS) President

Paul Potter Paulus Potter (; 20 November 1625 (baptised) – 17 January 1654 (buried)) was a Dutch painter who specialized in animals within landscapes, usually with a low vantage point. Before Potter died of tuberculosis at the age of 28 he succeeded in p ...

. Potter offered an insightful critique of our government's use of the rhetoric of freedom to justify war, and calls for citizens of the United States to create a massive social movement to build a "democratic and humane society in which Vietnams are unthinkable." Selection criteria for the Port Huron Project included identifying New Left protest speeches, finding transcripts and/or recordings, and determining the locations in which specific speeches were given. Attention is given to speeches that were delivered at protests or demonstrations in public spaces and address issues of peace and social justice. ;Port Huron Project 4: ''We Are Also Responsible'' Based on a 1971 speech by

César Chávez Cesario Estrada Chavez (; ; March 31, 1927 – April 23, 1993) was an American labor leader and civil rights activist. Along with Dolores Huerta and lesser known Gilbert Padilla, he co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), ...

at 6:00 PM, Saturday, July 19, 2008, at South Lawn, Exposition Park, Los Angeles Presented by

Creative Time Creative Time is a nonprofit arts organization based in New York City. Founded in 1974, it supports the commissioning, production, and presentation of site-specific and socially engaged public art projects. History Creative Time was founded i ...

br>
with

Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions Located in Hollywood, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE) is a nonprofit exhibition space and archive of the visual arts for the city of Los Angeles, California, United States, currently under the leadership of Sarah Russin. History In ...

(LACE

;Port Huron Project 5: ''The Liberation of Our People'' Based on a 1969 speech by

Angela Davis Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American Marxist and feminist political activist, philosopher, academic, and author. She is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Feminist Studies and History of Consciousness at the University of ...

at 6:00 PM, Saturday, August 2, 2008, at DeFremery Park, Oakland Presented by

br>
with the

Oakland Museum of California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...

br>
;Port Huron Project 6: ''Let Another World Be Born'' Based on a 1967 speech by

Stokely Carmichael Kwame Ture (; born Stokely Standiford Churchill Carmichael; June 29, 1941November 15, 1998) was an American activist who played a major role in the civil rights movement in the United States and the global pan-African movement. Born in Trini ...

at 6:00 PM, Sunday, September 7, 2008, Adjacent to the United Nations, NYC Presented by

br>

Artist

The Port Huron Project was organized by

Mark Tribe Mark Tribe (born 1966) is an American artist. He is the founder of Rhizome, a not-for-profit arts organization based in New York City. In 2013, he was appointed chair of the MFA program of the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Formerly, h ...

, then an assistant professor in the Department of Modern Culture and Media at

Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...

, who is also an artist and curator whose interests include art, technology, and politics. Tribe is the co-author, with Reena Jana, o
New Media Art
(Taschen, 2006). His art work has been exhibited at the

ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe The ZKM , Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe (until March 2016: ZKM Center for Art and Media Technology), a cultural institution, was founded in 1989 and, since 1997, is located in a former munitions factory in Karlsruhe, Germany. The ZKM (Germa ...

, the

Ars Electronica Ars Electronica Linz GmbH is an Austrian cultural, educational and scientific institute active in the field of new media art, founded in Linz in 1979. It is based at the Ars Electronica Center (AEC), which houses the Museum of the Future, in t ...

Festival in Linz, and Gigantic Art Space in New York City. He has organized curatorial projects for the

New Museum of Contemporary Art The New Museum of Contemporary Art is a museum at 235 Bowery, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-name ...

, MASS MoCA, and inSite_05. In 1996, Mark founde
Rhizome
an online resource for new media artists, and he later chaired Rhizome's board of directors. He received an MFA in Visual Art from the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Es ...

in 1994 and a BA in Visual Art from Brown University in 1990. A team of five Brown University students assisted Tribe in the summer of 2007. These students received funding from the Karen T. Romer Undergraduate Teaching and Research Awards, Brown University. General funding for the project was provided by office of the vice president for research, Brown University and the Department of Modern Culture and Media, Brown University.

References

*Beckman, Rache
"Hot Off The Presses: A Pot Full Of Issues,"
The Washington Post, July 19, 2007 *Falk, Leora
"Times, Faces Change; Struggle Remains"
The Chicago Tribune, July 31, 2007 *Harlow, John
"Art and Politics Collide in Port Huron Project,"
DCist, July 25, 2007 *Johnson, Ken
"Rallying 'Round the Past,"
The Boston Globe, July 22, 2007 *Kennedy, Rand

The New York Times July 28, 2007 *Ulke, Christina. ttp://joaap.org/5/articles/Tribe/ulketribe.htm "Politics by Other Means,"The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest, Issue 5, Summer 2007

External links

Official website
*Brown University department of Modern Culture and Medi

*Howard Zinn's 1971 speec

*Paul Potter's 1965 speec

{{morecat, date=September 2024 Historical reenactment events