The Antioch Historical Society is accepting applications to fill openings on their Board of Directors.  Board meetings are held on the fourth Wednesday of each month from 10 AM – 1 PM at the museum.  In addition, Board Members are expected to volunteer for events.

Applications may be picked up at the museum on Wednesdays or Saturdays from 1-4 PM or email AntiochHistoricalSociety@comcast.net to request an electronic copy or download one, here: AHSociety Board Member Application

The museum is located at 1500 West 4th Street, at the corner (curve) of Auto Center Drive, in downtown Antioch. For more information, please all the museum office, 925 757-1326.

 

By Allen Payton

The Antioch community joined together on Monday to celebrate the life and work of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with prayers and performances, and by awarding $1,275 in annual scholarships to local students. The event was held in the Beede Auditorium at Antioch High School and was lead by Councilwoman Monica Wilson.

Sponsored by the City of Antioch, Antioch Unified School District, Antioch Community Foundation and the Arts & Cultural Foundation of Antioch, the theme for the day was “United By The Dream” and began with a welcome message by Antioch High Principal Louie Rocha, followed by the invocation by Pastor Christine Liddell of Power for Living Ministries.

The Divine Voices of Deer Valley High performed the National Anthem, followed by a special rendition of Lift Every Voice and Sing, also known as the Black National Anthem, by recroding artist Ornicia Lowe. Students from Marsh, Mission and Jack London Elementary Schools offered presentations, and music and dance performances were provided by the Antioch High Music Masters, Deer Valley High School Black Student Union and Dance Xtreme of Antioch High. Antioch High’s Claryssa Wilson, Miss California Black Talented Teen and Miss Black California USA Darinisha Williams provided a special Martin Luther King Day tribute.

Antioch High sophomore Sage Bennett was presented with the Reggie Moore Scholarship Award, for his poem entitled, Change, which he read for the audience. The $400 scholarship is in memory of the late Councilman Reggie Moore who was the first African-American elected to the Antioch City Council. It was presented by former Mayor Wade Harper and Moore’s widow Dashon and family.

Two brothers who are Deer Valley High students received scholarships for their essays both using this year’s theme. Sophomore Adeboye Adeyemi took the High School First Place honor and $200 for his essay and freshman Adegoke Adeyemi won the High School Second Place and $100 for his essay. Deer Valley High senior Jafar Khalfani-Bey won third place and $75 for his poem entitled Kings of Color.

Winners of the High School Honorable Mention and $50 each were Deer Valley High junior Emily Gavrilenko for her essay entitled Equality for All, and Dozier-Libbey Medical High School senior Elizabeth Adams for her poem also using this year’s theme. Orchard Park Middle School eighth-grader Dennis Gavrilenko was honored with $100 as the first-time award recipient by a middle school student for his essay.

First Place High School honors for art and $200 was awarded to Dozier-Libbey High senior Mina Hernandez for her small canvas painting and Dozier-Libbey junior Munachiso Joy Anwukah won Second Place honors and $100 for her small poster pencil drawing.

The event concluded with a special poem about African-American history performed in a rap by Antioch resident Keith Archuleta, a portion of which can be seen on the Antioch Herald Facebook page. He introduced his poem with the following:

We are thankful that Martin Luther King, Jr.did much more than march or make speeches. We are thankful that Dr. King did much more even than fight for policy goals that would apply to all Americans, no matter their color, such as ending poverty, reducing the war-like aspects of our foreign policy, promoting the New Deal goal of universal employment, ending voter intimidation and discrimination, making this a stronger democracy for all people, and so on.

More than the marches, or the speeches, or the policy accomplishments, we are thankful that Rev. King and others sacrificed their bodies and their lives to end 200 years of terrorism that had been used to exclude an entire people from social, political, and economic participation in this country.

We are thankful that King and so many others stood side by side, fighting for justice and equality; and by so doing they inspired a people who had lived in fear to confront and overcome those fears.

We are thankful that King and others helped us as a people and as a nation to overcome our fears. That’s what freedom is all about.

And even now, as there are those today who seek to bring us back to that time of fear and bigotry and intimidation, we are thankful that we know better. We know that if we choose to love and not fear, we all will be free.

We are thankful that King and so many others showed the world what the love of God looks like.

So this poem is written to all those who “work together, struggle together, stand up for freedom together,” understanding that “we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”

“Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be; and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.”

So I say ‘thank you for letting me be myself again.’

 

The tall ship Lady Washington is visiting the Antioch City Marina in Antioch, again, now through Tuesday, November 1st. On Wednesday, October 26, Lady Washington invites guests for a Voyage of Explorers Sail, which is an all-ages public version of its popular three-hour educational program for 4th-7th graders.

On Saturday, October 29, the ship will welcome kids and adults in costume for special tours 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., followed by a two-hour Halloween Sail 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

October 20 Tours: 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. ($5 donation)
October 21 Tours: 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. ($5 donation)
October 22 Tours: 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. ($5 donation); Adventure Sail: 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. ($39/$47)
October 23 Tours: 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. ($5 donation); Adventure Sail: 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. ($39/$47)
October 24 Ship closed.
October 25 Tours: 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. ($5 donation)
October 26 Voyage of Explorers Sail: 12:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ($35); Tours: 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. ($5 donation)
October 27 Tours: 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. ($5 donation)
October 28 Tours: 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. ($5 donation)
October 29 Tours: 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ($5 donation); Halloween Sail: 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. ($39/$47)
October 30 Tours: 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. ($5 donation); Adventure Sail: 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. ($39/$47)
October 31 Ship closed.
November 1 Tours: 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. ($5 donation)

For more information visit www.historicalseaport.org/ships/lady-washington.

By Tom Lamothe, Sports Legends Program Coordinator

The Antioch Sports Legends Museum is looking for volunteers to help with the 2016 Inductee Volunteer breakfast, Gala and different museum needs.

We are currently looking for volunteers interested in helping in a number of different positions for our program, for short periods of time. Depending on the position, volunteer commitments can be short term or on going.

At this time we are looking for Saturday docents from 1-4 p.m. Training is simple, reliability and a love of sports are key. Three hours a week. Four volunteers needed.

We are also looking for help making the Hall of Fame displays. Simple arts and crafts skills are required. We need scanning, photo trimming and pasting. An estimated three hour commitment. Two needed.

For the 8:00 am breakfast on October 8th, three volunteers are needed for serving food and directing cars. In appreciation, breakfast will be provided. An estimated 3.5 hour commitment.

We need a volunteer to support the program coordinator at the 2016 Hall of Fame Gala on October 8. Help with communicating with new hall of fame inductees, alumni and team inductees. Other small items as well. Five hours volunteered, a Gala dinner as compensation. One position open.

Two volunteers are needed to help with remaking the year round displays at the museum. Volunteer up to three hours a month. An interest in sports and decorating is a plus.

A volunteer is needed to take the minutes at our monthly General Meeting  on the first Wednesday of the month. Two hours on average per meeting.

One volunteer is needed to sort and file items in the Antioch Sports Legends office for three hours monthly.

Another is needed to type and create Microsoft Excel, Word and Power Point documents through out the year. Six hours a month. Two positions open.

Now in our 10th year we reside in one of Antioch’s most recognized landmarks on West 4th Street in Antioch. Call 925-639-2536 if you have any questions.

Following is the text of the Declaration of Independence in celebration of Independence Day, July 4th, 2016:

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1

Georgia:

Button Gwinnett

Lyman Hall

George Walton

Column 2

North Carolina:

William Hooper

Joseph Hewes

John Penn

South Carolina:

Edward Rutledge

Thomas Heyward, Jr.

Thomas Lynch, Jr.

Arthur Middleton

Column 3

Massachusetts:

John Hancock

Maryland:

Samuel Chase

William Paca

Thomas Stone

Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:

George Wythe

Richard Henry Lee

Thomas Jefferson

Benjamin Harrison

Thomas Nelson, Jr.

Francis Lightfoot Lee

Carter Braxton

Column 4

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris

Benjamin Rush

Benjamin Franklin

John Morton

George Clymer

James Smith

George Taylor

James Wilson

George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney

George Read

Thomas McKean

Column 5

New York:

William Floyd

Philip Livingston

Francis Lewis

Lewis Morris

New Jersey:

Richard Stockton

John Witherspoon

Francis Hopkinson

John Hart

Abraham Clark

Column 6

New Hampshire:

Josiah Bartlett

William Whipple

Massachusetts:

Samuel Adams

John Adams

Robert Treat Paine

Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:

Stephen Hopkins

William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman

Samuel Huntington

William Williams

Oliver Wolcott

New Hampshire:

Matthew Thornton

From the website: www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration.html

Happy Independence Day from the Antioch Herald!