Port Huron Project
Encyclopedia
The Port Huron Project, is a series of six reenactments of protest
speeches from the New Left
movements of the 1960s and '70s. Each event takes place at the site of the original speech, and is delivered by a performer to an audience of invited guests and passers-by. Videos, audio recordings, and photographs of these performances are presented in various venues and distributed online and on DVD as open-source media.
The first reenactment took place on September 16, 2006 and was based on a speech given by Coretta Scott King
at a peace march in Central Park
on April 27, 1968, approximately three weeks after her husband, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated. The speech, which was based on notes found in Dr. King's pockets, 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 http://www.nothing.org/porthuronproject/reenactments.html#PHP2
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
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 http://www.nothing.org/porthuronproject/reenactments.html
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
(SDS) President Paul Potter. 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 include 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.
's 2008 public art initiative Democracy in America: The National Campaign
Port Huron Project 4: We Are Also Responsible http://www.nothing.org/porthuronproject/reenactments.html
Based on a 1971 speech by César Chávez
at 6:00 PM, Saturday, July 19, 2008
at South Lawn, Exposition Park, Los Angeles
Presented by Creative Time
http://www.creativetime.org with Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions
(LACE) http://www.artleak.org
Port Huron Project 5: The Liberation of Our People http://www.nothing.org/porthuronproject/reenactments.html
Based on a 1969 speech by Angela Davis
at 6:00 PM, Saturday, August 2, 2008
at DeFremery Park, Oakland
Presented by Creative Time
http://www.creativetime.org with
the Oakland Museum of California
http://www.museumca.org/
Port Huron Project 6: Let Another World Be Born
Based on a 1967 speech by
Stokely Carmichael
at 6:00 PM, Sunday, September 7, 2008
Adjacent to the United Nations, NYC
Presented by Creative Time
http://www.creativetime.org
. Tribe is the co-author, with Reena Jana, of New Media Art (Taschen, 2006). His art work has been exhibited at the ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, the Ars Electronica
Festival in Linz, and Gigantic Art Space in New York City. He has organized curatorial projects for the New Museum of Contemporary Art
, MASS MoCA, and inSite_05. In 1996, Mark founded Rhizome, an online resource for new media artists, and he now chairs Rhizome's board of directors. He received an MFA in Visual Art from the University of California, San Diego
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.
Protest
A protest is an expression of objection, by words or by actions, to particular events, policies or situations. Protests can take many different forms, from individual statements to mass demonstrations...
speeches from the New Left
New Left
The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...
movements of the 1960s and '70s. Each event takes place at the site of the original speech, and is delivered by a performer to an audience of invited guests and passers-by. Videos, audio recordings, and photographs of these performances are presented in various venues and distributed online and on DVD as open-source media.
Previous Reenactments
Port Huron Project 1: Until the Last Gun Is Silent http://www.nothing.org/porthuronproject/reenactments.html#PHP1The first reenactment took place on September 16, 2006 and was based on a speech given by Coretta Scott King
Coretta Scott King
Coretta Scott King was an American author, activist, and civil rights leader. The widow of Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King helped lead the African-American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.Mrs...
at a peace march in Central Park
Central Park
Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...
on April 27, 1968, approximately three weeks after her husband, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated. The speech, which was based on notes found in Dr. King's pockets, 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 http://www.nothing.org/porthuronproject/reenactments.html#PHP2
Howard Zinn
Howard Zinn was an American historian, academic, author, playwright, and social activist. Before and during his tenure as a political science professor at Boston University from 1964-88 he wrote more than 20 books, which included his best-selling and influential A People's History of the United...
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 http://www.nothing.org/porthuronproject/reenactments.html
Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)
Students for a Democratic Society was a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main iconic representations of the country's New Left. The organization developed and expanded rapidly in the mid-1960s before dissolving at its last convention in 1969...
(SDS) President Paul Potter. 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 include 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.
Upcoming Reenactments
Part of Creative TimeCreative Time
Creative Time is a New York-based nonprofit arts organization. It was founded in 1973 to support the creation of innovative, site-specific, socially engaged works in the public realm, especially in vacant spaces of historical and architectural interest...
's 2008 public art initiative Democracy in America: The National Campaign
Port Huron Project 4: We Are Also Responsible http://www.nothing.org/porthuronproject/reenactments.html
Based on a 1971 speech by César Chávez
César Chávez
César Estrada Chávez was an American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist who, with Dolores Huerta, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers ....
at 6:00 PM, Saturday, July 19, 2008
at South Lawn, Exposition Park, Los Angeles
Presented by Creative Time
Creative Time
Creative Time is a New York-based nonprofit arts organization. It was founded in 1973 to support the creation of innovative, site-specific, socially engaged works in the public realm, especially in vacant spaces of historical and architectural interest...
http://www.creativetime.org with Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions
Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions
Located in Hollywood, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions is a nonprofit exhibition space and archive of the visual arts for the city of Los Angeles, California, USA...
(LACE) http://www.artleak.org
Port Huron Project 5: The Liberation of Our People http://www.nothing.org/porthuronproject/reenactments.html
Based on a 1969 speech by Angela Davis
Angela Davis
Angela Davis is an American political activist, scholar, and author. Davis was most politically active during the late 1960s through the 1970s and was associated with the Communist Party USA, the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Panther Party...
at 6:00 PM, Saturday, August 2, 2008
at DeFremery Park, Oakland
Presented by Creative Time
Creative Time
Creative Time is a New York-based nonprofit arts organization. It was founded in 1973 to support the creation of innovative, site-specific, socially engaged works in the public realm, especially in vacant spaces of historical and architectural interest...
http://www.creativetime.org with
the Oakland Museum of California
Oakland Museum of California
Oakland Museum of California or Oakland Museum is a museum dedicated to the art, history, and natural science of California located in Oakland, California....
http://www.museumca.org/
Port Huron Project 6: Let Another World Be Born
Based on a 1967 speech by
Stokely Carmichael
Stokely Carmichael
Kwame Ture , also known as Stokely Carmichael, was a Trinidadian-American black activist active in the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement. He rose to prominence first as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and later as the "Honorary Prime Minister" of the Black Panther Party...
at 6:00 PM, Sunday, September 7, 2008
Adjacent to the United Nations, NYC
Presented by Creative Time
Creative Time
Creative Time is a New York-based nonprofit arts organization. It was founded in 1973 to support the creation of innovative, site-specific, socially engaged works in the public realm, especially in vacant spaces of historical and architectural interest...
http://www.creativetime.org
The Artist
The Port Huron Project is organized by Mark Tribe, an artist and curator whose interests include art, technology, and politics. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Modern Culture and Media at Brown UniversityBrown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
. Tribe is the co-author, with Reena Jana, of New Media Art (Taschen, 2006). His art work has been exhibited at the ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, the Ars Electronica
Ars Electronica
Ars Electronica is an organization based in Linz, Austria, founded in 1979 around a festival for art, technology and society that was part of the International Bruckner Festival. Herbert W. Franke is one of its founders. It became its own festival and a yearly event in 1986. Its director until 1995...
Festival in Linz, and Gigantic Art Space in New York City. He has organized curatorial projects for the New Museum of Contemporary Art
New Museum of Contemporary Art
The New Museum, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is the only museum in New York City exclusively devoted to presenting contemporary art from around the world...
, MASS MoCA, and inSite_05. In 1996, Mark founded Rhizome, an online resource for new media artists, and he now chairs Rhizome's board of directors. He received an MFA in Visual Art from the University of California, San Diego
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...
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.
External links
- Official website
- Brown University department of Modern Culture and Media http://www.brown.edu/Departments/MCM/people/tribe/
- Howard Zinn's 1971 speech https://wiki.brown.edu/confluence/display/MarkTribe/Transcript+of+Zinn+Speech%2C+Boston+Common%2C+May+1971
- Paul Potter's 1965 speech http://www.sdsrebels.com/potter.htm