Steve Thornton

No matter what the surveys and studies show, the best way to judge workers’ well-being is to watch what they do.

Even though historian, professor and activist Howard Zinn died in 2010, I held a séance to ask him about today’s political environment.

I visited my father’s grave at the veterans cemetery in Windsor the other day. He had been in the Army Air Corps during the second world war.

Mary Townsend Seymour, Connecticut state organizer for the Anti Lynching Crusaders in the 1920s, would be pleased to see the recent signing of the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act by President Joe Biden.

Some guys just don’t know when they’re not wanted. Take Captain John Mason, a founder of Hartford. He is now known as an Indian killer by people who have  learned the truth about the 1637 massacre in Mystic, Connecticut of 500 Pequot men, women, children, and elders.

As Juneteenth approaches, we are experiencing a furious attack on “critical race theory.” Instead of marking the long, unfinished struggle for Black freedom, today’s slavery apologists think they have found another way to erase the sins of the past.

Mark Twain wouldn’t be caught dead at Guantanamo. This month marks the 20th anniversary of the first Iraq bombing by U.S. forces. There are many lasting consequences of that attack; one is the Guantanamo prison. February is also the anniversary of Samuel Clemens’ first use of the pen name “Mark Twain.” Yes, there’s a connection.

Protests against police brutality still roar across the nation from the front page to cable news. But if we put an ear to the ground, we can also hear the network of activity rising in reaction to systemic racism and violence. It’s known as mutual aid, and it has its roots in the earliest history of Connecticut.

As the statues of Confederate criminals are being toppled around the country, and as other symbols of the “Lost Cause” follow suit, let’s look at Hartford. In general, Connecticut played a significant — even heroic —  role in the Civil War. At least 5,000 young soldiers died of battle wounds or disease, and they knew […]

Last Saturday, two large #Black Lives Matter marches met in Hartford –one from the south end and one from the north. I was struck by another civil rights event in the city, 53 years earlier. How much have we really changed?

Public figures from New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to Madonna have declared that the coronavirus epidemic is the great equalizer. The phrase is echoed by those who want to believe this catastrophe can unite us as a country. But COVID-19 does not put us all in the same boat, rich and poor, black and white. Quality healthcare and protection from disease has always depended on income and race. This has been true at least since the beginning of the 20th century. 

Who’s afraid of socialism? According to some pundits, everyone should be. Today’s adherents of democratic socialism have greatly increased over the past few years, and not just on college campuses.

One hundred years ago— for the first time in history— African American women in Hartford went to the polls. It was November 2, 1920. Black women turned out in larger numbers than black men; the total number of white women who voted surpassed that of white men. All women had just won equal suffrage, and were determined to act on that new freedom and the political power it might provide.

Instead of arguing politics around the table on Thanksgiving, maybe we could talk about the story behind this holiday. Although that topic may be just as controversial.