All Our Cousins: September 2014

Sunday, September 21, 2014

Hannie Schaft

Hannie Schaft

Johanna Jannetje Schaft was a resistance fighter in Holland during World War II. She became known as "the girl with the red hair." Her secret name in the resistance movement was Hannie.

After the German occupation of the Netherlands, university students were required to sign a declaration of allegiance to the occupation authorities. When Hannie refused to sign the petition in support of the occupation forces, she was not allowed to continue her studies. She moved back in with her parents and became more and more active in the resistance movement.

She was eventually arrested at a military checkpoint on April 17, 1945. She was shot dead three weeks before the end of the war; two men took her to the beach of Overveen and one shot her at close range, only wounding her. She supposedly said to her executioners: "I shoot better than you", after which the other man delivered the final shot.

Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger was an American folk singer and activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers.

A prolific songwriter, his best-known songs have been recorded by many artists both in and outside the folk revival movement and are sung throughout the world. Seeger was one of the folksingers most responsible for popularizing the spiritual "We Shall Overcome" that became the acknowledged anthem of the 1960s American Civil Right Movement.

Seeger was involved in the environmental organization Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, which he co-founded in 1966. The organization has worked since then to bring attention to pollution in the Hudson River, and and worked to clean it.

Dr. Bob

Dr. Bob was an American physician and surgeon who co-founded Alcoholics Anonymous with Bill Wilson, more commonly known as Bill W.

Nellie Bly

Nellie Bly was the pen name of American journalist Elizabeth Jane Cochrane. She was a ground-breaking reporter known for a record-breaking trip around the world in 72 days, and an expose in which she faked insanity to study a mental institution from within. She launched a new kind of investigative journalism. In addition to her writing, she was also an industrialist and charity worker.