Huey Long, Parade Marshall

As part of his campaign to increase educational opportunities in Louisiana, Governor Huey Long wanted to increase the size and stature of Louisiana State University. One of the first steps of his marketing strategy was to quadruple the size of the university marching band.

Source: "Louisiana State University," Huey Long: The Man, His Mission and Legacy, HueyLong.com.

Michael Moore, The Next Newt Gingrich?

In an interview with the CPUSA-affiliated People's Weekly World, Michael Moore makes a sarcastic quip as an imaginary media executive, saying he's doing "his little Newt Gingrich thing."

Source: Sheldon, Ron. "Exclusive Interview with Michael Moore of TV Nation," People's Weekly World, September 23, 1995.

Shirin Ebadi, Outside the System

Iranian feminist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi believes that it is not possible to be a human rights activist and serve in government. She says, "A human rights activist must always work among the people, and must campaign and defend people who cannot defend themselves, because it is governments and rulers that abuse human rights. How is it possible to be a government member and be effectively critical of the system you're in?" Before the revolution in 1979, Ebadi was a judge in the Tehran court system.

Sources: "Interview With Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi," Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, PeaceWomen.org.

Ebadi, Shirin. "Autobiography: The Nobel Peace Prize 2003," from Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prizes 2003, Editor Tore Frängsmyr, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm, 2004.

Barbara Jordan, Texas Governor

American politician, educator, and activist Barbara Jordan, was Texas Governor for a day in June, 1972. She was President pro tempore of the Texas Legislature at the time.

Source: "Women of the CBC, Barbara C. Jordan Biography," AVoice, African American Voices in Congress.

Janis Ian Has No Use For an A&R* Man, Either

At least until 2005, Janis Ian, famous for the songs "At Seventeen" and "Society's Child," had never recorded a song she didn't either write or co-write.

Source: Owen Keehnen, "At 42: Lesbian Legend Janis Ian Comes Out," 24 March 2005.


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* Artist and Repertory, the brokers at record labels who set up performing artists with material from songwriters.

June Callwood, St. June of the Pen

Canadian author, social activist, ex-mayor of Toronto, and humanitarian June Callwood ghost-wrote books about several prominent Americans, including Charles Mayo and Barbara Walters.

Source: "June Callwood," Collections Canada.

Fiorello LaGuardia: Nu, Vus Titzuch, Paisan?

In 1922, the Democratic Tammany Hall political machine ran a Jewish candidate against Fiorello LaGuardia, and distributed flyers claiming that LaGuardia was anti-Semitic. LaGuardia, who had a Jewish mother and his Italian father's last name, responded by challenging his opponent to a debate in Yiddish. He spoke Yiddish fluently and his opponent did not.

Source: "Fiorello LaGuardia," Jewish Virtual Library.

Paul Robeson Was Better Than You...at Whatever

Besides his career in singing and acting, Paul Robeson also earned fifteen varsity athletic letters while at Rutgers University getting his law degree.

Source: "About Paul Robeson > Biography," Paul Robeson Cultural Center, Rutgers University.

Ann Richards, Backwards and in High Heels

In 1982, the Texas electorate voted in Ann Richards as State Treasurer. She became the first woman elected to a statewide office in Texas since 1932, when Miriam A. Ferguson was elected governor. Richards eventually became the Governor of Texas as well, and shot to national fame when she gave the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in 1988.

The title of the post refers to what is probably Richards' most famous bon mot (which appears not to be original to her), which was on the subject of women's competence in office: "If you give us the chance, we can perform. After all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels."

Source: "Portraits of Texas Governors: Modern Texas, Part 3, 1991-Present, Ann W. Richards," Texas State Libraries & Archives Commission.

Uri Avnery, The Man Who Crossed the Line

Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery made world history when, on July 3, 1982, he crossed the battle lines during the Battle of Beirut to meet Yasser Arafat, becoming the first Israeli to ever meet with the Palestinian leader. Even early in his career of activism, he was so notorious in right-wing circles that the former Mossad chief Issar Har'el called him "Public Enemy Number 1" of the Ben-Gurion Administration.

Source: "Biographical Note," Avnery-News.co.il.

Frida Kahlo Got The Trots

Mexican surrealist painter Frida Kahlo famously (at the time) had an affair with Leon Trotsky. At the time, Kahlo was married to artist Diego Rivera.

Source: "Frida Kahlo," Artchive.com.

Eugene V. Debs, a Popular Prisoner

In 1920, US union leader and prominent socialist activist Eugene V. Debs was nominated and ran for president on the Socialist Party ticket. He conducted his entire campaign from his prison cell, since he had been convicted of wartime sedition in 1918. Nevertheless, he received almost a million votes. Debs also ran for president in 1900, 1904, 1908, and 1912 on the Socialist ticket, but had started his political career as the Democratic City Clerk of Terre Haute, Indiana.

Source: "Eugene Victor Debs, 1855-1926," EugeneVDebs.com.

Rebecca West, Another Name-Changing Feminist

"I have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is," wrote Rebecca West in 1913, "I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat." The woman known as Rebecca West was born Cicely Isabel Fairfield. She then later changed her first name to Cicily, before finally taking her nom de plume from the name of a character in "Romersholm," a play by Henrik Ibsen.

Source: Richard Robinson, University of East Anglia. "Rebecca West." The Literary Encyclopedia. 19 Dec. 2003. The Literary Dictionary Company. 20 September 2007.

Howard Hampton Versus Scientology

In 1991, then-Attorney General for the Province of Ontario, Canada (and current New Democratic Party leader and MPP for Kenora-Rainy River) filed a preferred indictment against the Church of Scientology in Canada and ten of its individual members, following the revelation of a spectacular set of break-ins and infiltrations of various Ontario governmental offices. The organisation was fined $250 000.

Sources: Joel J. Hanes, "Scientology in Canada."

"Scientology's Criminal History in Canada," Holysmoke.org.

Dorothy Parker, A Busy Woman

During the height of American literary sensation Dorothy Parker's fame, an editor for the New Yorker magazine kept trying to pressure her into writing for him. She kept refusing. Eventually, the hapless editor asked her why she wouldn't write for the New Yorker. She said, "I'm too fucking busy and vice versa."

Source: Malcolm Gladwell, personal anecdote, 1999.

Barbara Ehrenreich, Barbara Who?

When Barbara Ehrenreich was getting ready to begin her experiential research for her book Bait and Switch, she legally changed her name to "Barbara Alexander."

Source: Jill Owens, "Undercover With Barbara Ehrenreich," Powells.com.

Frederik Pohl, A Very Bad Communist

SF writer Frederik Pohl, doubtless influenced by his extremely left-leaning colleagues in The Futurians (a New York City-based group of science fiction fans active between 1938 and 1945), joined the Communist Party in 1936, but got kicked out sometime thereafter.

Source: The Futurians, Damon Knight. John Day, 1977.

Duncan "Atrios" Black, a Very Sweaty Economist

Before star blogger Duncan Black, aka "Atrios," actually revealed his identity, he repeatedly claimed he was a gym teacher.

Noam Chomsky: Eikh Omrim "Context-Free Grammar" b'Ivrit?

("How do you say 'Context-Free Grammar' in Hebrew?")

Although he was born in Philadelphia, Noam Chomsky's first two languages were Yiddish and Hebrew.

Source: "Noam Chomsky," Wikipedia.

Hillary Clinton, Belle of the BOD

Hillary Rodham Clinton sat on Wal-Mart's board of directors between 1986 and 1992.

Source: "Wal-Mart's First Lady," Ward Harkavy, Village Voice.

Nellie McClung, a Feminist Who Acted (Up)

In 1914, Canadian women's suffrage pioneer Nellie McClung wrote and acted the lead part in a play called "The Women's Parliament," which postulated a society where men were not permitted to vote, and subjected a "delegation of men" to the kind of treatment women's suffrage activists had received at the hands of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba. She later turned the play into a short story "The Play," and a chapter of her novel, Purple Springs (1921).

Source: Columbo's Book of Canada, Edited by John Robert Columbo. Edmonton: Hurtig Publishers, 1978.

Fidel Castro, The New York Giant Who Wasn't

In the 1940s, the baseball team the New York Giants scouted a young Cuban law student named Fidel Castro, and even offered him a $5000 signing bonus. He turned them down, thereby, as historian Lois Browne put it, "leaving North Americans to ponder one of the more intruiguing 'what ifs' of modern history."

Source: Lois Browne. The Girls of Summer: The Real Story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, Toronto: Harper-Collins, 1992, page 127.

Abel Meeropol, Who Didn't Write "It's A Small World After All"

Abel Meeropol, who wrote the now-classic jazz song "Strange Fruit" [video link] adopted Julius and Ethel Rosenberg's children after the Rosenbergs were convicted of spying for the Soviet Union and executed.