The Gray Champion
"Oh!
Lord of Hosts," cried a voice among the crowd, "provide a Champion
for thy people!"
Quote from the Nathaniel Hawthorne
Short Story "The Gray Champion"
In Nathaniel Hawthorne's story of The Gray Champion he describes the civil unrest in the new city of
Boston due to the failure of the English king to meet their needs; and he has
sent his own officials to govern the colonists against their will.
When the governor decides to hold a procession in the name of
the King showing his dominance of the colonists, an unknown old man in
high-ranking robes steps out of the crowd and blocks the procession, causing
the English officials to turn back with their tails between their legs.
This old man, who is dubbed "The Gray Champion" by the Bostonians, has never before
been seen by anyone in the town; just as he appeared suddenly to defy the
governor, he disappears when the governor has fled. The old man in this story
is a symbol of the colonist’s
defiance to the King and his representative in the person of the governor.
Hawthorne conveys hope for the colonists through this one man’s ability to defy the
governor, suggesting that it will eventually lead more and more people to find
the courage to stand up for themselves.
The story's tone is very uplifting and inspiring because if
the Champion can defy the governor then maybe it is possible to do even greater
things in the name of liberty.
Today America stands once again upon
the brink of rebellion and civil war as its citizens are crushed beneath the
weight of unspeakable debts, added to millions of workers being laid off from
their jobs, millions more being thrown from their homes, and even more millions
unable to afford even the most basic necessities of life.
While the American people continue to
be crushed under the weight of Local, State and Federal laws too numerous to mention,
and so many new taxes that for those fortunate few who do still have a job they
are unable to pay their bills, those who rule over them continue to live lives
of wealth and leisure and have totally forgotten who they serve.
From the local policeman who once
served as a sentinel to protect those citizens under their care, but who today
strike fear into the hearts of even the most honest citizen because of their
brutality; to local officials too intent on lining their own pockets to be
concerned with the welfare of the citizens who pay them; to State officials who
continue to heap so many laws and taxes on their citizens that virtually ever
part of life is now criminalized and too expensive to live; to the Federal
officials who have long ago sold our entire country out to the corporations and
bankers who pay them millions….to all of these, and too many other atrocities
to mention…America today cries out for a Champion to save her before all is
lost….IS IT YOU?
While America stands today, beaten down, drowning in debt, at
war with itself as well as with other peoples around the world, having so many
problems no solution can even be found, remember that she has been here many,
many times before…a tinderbox ready to explode when the first spark hits.
And as in all of its past, the spark that has always ignited the fiery trials America
has endured were set off by ordinary citizens, who for the first time in their
lives decided that “enough was enough”
and embarked on their journey to fight for what they knew was right.
Neither fame nor fortune defines a Gray Champion, only that
when their time to serve was called they answered it with unswerving courage
and fortitude, regardless the cost, even if it meant their death.
Gray Champions are also those rarest of Americans, arising to
stand among their fellow citizens to “do
their duty” on an average of once or twice every generation….a time that
has come, once again, as the future of the United States hangs in the
balance.
The true determination of who can be called a Gray Champion
rests with history as these rarest of Americans were during their times, and by
the actions they performed, always labeled as terrorists, rebels, murderers and
traitors and held up for scorn by the elite classes, government officials and
media barons who were the targets of these Gray Champions in the first
place.
This website is dedicated to these Gray Champions without
whom we would have never survived as a nation or a people. You are invited to meet them all, to learn
their stories, and in doing so remember that you may be one too!
The Minutemen of the American Revolutionary War
At the outset of the war, the thirteen
colonies lacked a professional army or navy. Each colony provided for its own
defenses with local militia. Militiamen were lightly armed, slightly trained,
and usually did not have uniforms. Their units served for only a few weeks or
months at a time, were reluctant to go very far from home, and were thus
generally unavailable for extended operations.
The battles of
About 700 British Army regulars, under Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith,
were given secret orders to capture and destroy military supplies that were
reportedly stored by the
The first shots were fired just as the sun was rising at
More militiamen arrived soon thereafter and inflicted heavy damage on the
regulars as they marched back towards
Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his "Concord Hymn", described the first
shot fired by the Patriots at the
Samuel
Adams, First Founding Father of the
Samuel Adams (September 27,1722 – October 2,
1803) was a statesman, political philosopher, and one of the Founding Fathers
of the
Born in
After Parliament passed the Coercive Acts in 1774, Adams attended the
Continental Congress in
Samuel Adams is a controversial figure in American history. Accounts written
in the 19th century praised him as someone who had been steering his fellow
colonists towards independence long before the outbreak of the Revolutionary
War. This view gave way to negative assessments of
Nathan
Hale, America’s First Spy
Nathan Hale (June 6, 1755 – September 22,
1776) was a soldier for the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary
War. Widely considered
Peter
Francisco, The Most Celebrated And Honored American Soldier Of The
Revolutionary War
Having been abandoned in the James River at
City Point on June 23, 1765 at the age of 5 (no one ever knew where he had come
from) Peter Francisco became the most celebrated soldier of the American
Revolutionary War.
Francisco's exploits resounded throughout the Continental Army, and he became known by a number of sobriquets, such as the 'Giant of Virginia' and the 'Hercules of the Revolution.' “Without him, we would have lost two crucial battles, perhaps the war, and with it our freedom,” George Washington said. “He was truly a one-man army.”
Molly
Pitcher, Heroine of the American Revolutionary War
Because her story has been told and retold
throughout American history, the facts concerning her real name are blurred.
It's not clear whether her real name was Mary Hays McCauley or Mary Ludwig Hays
McCauley. The name doesn't really matter though. Because of her courageous acts
during the American Revolution, she earned the nickname "Molly
Pitcher", and that name followed her to the end of her days on earth.
Mary was born on October 13, 1754. As the Irish girl grew up into womanhood, she never learned to read or write. But that didn't slow down this spirited, rough speaking woman. Though she wasn't a beautiful woman, Mary was a short, stout, hard worker, and she later married a man named William Hays.
Now, let's fast forward Mary's life to the year of 1778. Her husband, William, was a soldier in the First Pennsylvania Artillery fighting in the American Revolution; his rank was a Private. Not one to be left home where life was safer and relatively serene, Mary decided to accompany her husband into war. So she was right beside him as he fought valiantly fought at the Battle of Monmouth, though the bullets were flying heavily, blood was being spilled all around them, and the heat was oppressive. On the 28th day of June of that year, the temperature was said to have reached a hundred degrees. The day was so hot that the cannons had to be cooled down periodically with water. Not to mention that the soldiers' throats were parched and full of dust.
Mary saw her need that day, so she started to carry pitcher after endless pitcher of cool, fresh water to relieve the soldiers' thirst. The wounded soldiers began to call out "Molly Pitcher" as a way to let her know they needed water. And thus, her nickname was born.
Andrew
Jackson, 7th President of the
Andrew Jackson was the last U.S. President to
have been a veteran of the American Revolution, and the second president to
have been a prisoner of war (George Washington was captured by the French in
the French and Indian War). He was the most celebrated American hero of the war
of 1812 after his defeating a vastly superior British force in the Battle of
New Orleans.
Upon his ascendency to the Presidency Jackson waged, and won, a fierce battle for the economic independence of America from the United States Central Bank (the precursor to today's Federal Reserve System) thus assuring the growing prosperity of all citizens.
To the central bankers and their allies in the US Congress Jackson further said: “Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves.”
On January 30, 1835, what is believed to be the first attempt to kill a
sitting President of the
Frederick
Douglass, American Abolitionist
Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus
Washington Bailey, circa 1818 – February 20, 1895) was born into slavery and is
best known for his role in bringing the harsh realities of slavery to the attention
of white Americans, at the same time being a living example of the fallacy of
claims that black Americans were intellectually inferior to whites. He was an
American abolitionist, women's suffragist, editor, orator, author, statesman
and reformer. Called “The Sage of Anacostia" and "The Lion of
Anacostia”, Douglass is one of the most prominent figures in African American
and
He was a firm believer in the equality of all people, whether black, female, Native American, or recent immigrant. He was fond of saying, “I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.”
Nathaniel
"Nat" Turner, Leader of American Slave Rebellion
Nathaniel “Nat” Turner (October 2, 1800 –
November 11, 1831) was an American slave who led a slave rebellion in
Turner started with a few trusted fellow slaves. The rebels traveled from house to house, freeing slaves and killing the white people they found. The rebels ultimately included more than 70 enslaved and free blacks.
Because the rebels did not want to alert anyone to their presence as they carried out their attacks, they initially used knives, hatchets, axes, and blunt instruments instead of firearms. The rebellion did not discriminate by age or sex, until it was determined that the rebellion had achieved sufficient numbers. Nat Turner only confessed to killing one of the rebellion's victims, Margret Whitehead, who he killed with a blow from a fence post.
Before a white militia was able to respond, the rebels killed 55 men, women, and children. They spared a few homes “because Turner believed the poor white inhabitants thought no better of themselves than they did of negroes.”
The rebellion was suppressed within two days, but Turner eluded capture
until October 30, when he was discovered hiding in a hole covered with fence
rails. On November 5, 1831, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death.
Turner was hanged on November 11 in
John
Brown, American Abolitionist and Folk Hero
John Brown (May 9, 1800 – December 2, 1859)
was an American abolitionist, and folk hero who advocated and practiced armed insurrection
as a means to end all slavery. He led the Pottawatomie Massacre in 1856 in
Bleeding Kansas and made his name in the unsuccessful raid at
President Abraham Lincoln said he was a “misguided fanatic” and Brown has
been called “the most controversial of all 19th-century Americans.” His attempt
in 1859 to start a liberation movement among enslaved African Americans in
Abraham
Lincoln, 16th President of the
Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15,
1865) served as the 16th President of the
Robert
E. Lee, Commander of the Confederate Army of
Robert Edward Lee (January 19, 1807 – October
12, 1870) was a career United States Army officer, a combat engineer, and among
the most celebrated generals in American history. Lee was the son of Major
General Henry Lee III "Light Horse Harry" (1756–1818), Governor of
Virginia, and his second wife, Anne Hill Carter (1773–1829). He was also
related to Meriwether Lewis (1774–1809).
A top graduate of
In early 1861, President Abraham Lincoln invited Lee to take command of the
entire Union Army. Lee declined because his home state of
Lee's greatest victories were the Seven Days Battles, the Second Battle of
Bull Run, the Battle of Fredericksburg, the Battle of Chancellorsville, and the
Battle of Cold Harbor but both of his campaigns to invade the North ended in
failure. Barely escaping defeat at the Battle of Antietam in 1862, Lee was
forced to return to the South. In early July 1863, Lee was decisively defeated at
the Battle of Gettysburg in
In the spring of 1864, the new Union commander, Lieutenant General Ulysses
S. Grant, began a series of campaigns to wear down Lee's army. In the Overland
Campaign of 1864 and the Siege of Petersburg in 1864–1865, Lee inflicted heavy
casualties on Grant's larger army, but was unable to replace his own losses. In
early April 1865, Lee's depleted forces were turned from their entrenchments
near the Confederate capital of
Lee's victories against superior forces won him enduring fame as a crafty and daring battlefield tactician, but some of his strategic decisions, such as invading the North in 1862 and 1863, have been criticized by many military historians.
In the final months of the Civil War, as manpower reserves drained away, Lee
adopted a plan to arm slaves to fight on behalf of the Confederacy, but this
came too late to change the outcome of the war. After
After the war, as a college President, Lee supported President Andrew Johnson's program of Reconstruction and inter-sectional friendship, while opposing the Radical Republican proposals to give freed slaves the vote and take the vote away from ex-Confederates. He urged them to re-think their position between the North and the South, and the reintegration of former Confederates into the nation's political life. Lee became the great Southern hero of the war, and his popularity grew in the North as well after his death in 1870. He remains an iconic figure of American military leadership.
Alice
Paul, American Suffragist Leader
Alice Stokes Paul (January 11, 1885 – July 9, 1977)
was an American suffragist leader. Along with her close friend Lucy Burns and
others, she led a successful campaign for women's suffrage that resulted in the
passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920.
When their lobbying efforts proved fruitless, Paul and her colleagues formed
the National Woman's Party (NWP) in 1916 and began introducing some of the
methods used by the suffrage movement in
In the
In July 1917, picketers were arrested on charges of "obstructing traffic." Many, including Paul, were convicted and incarcerated at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia (later the Lorton Correctional Complex) and the District of Columbia Jail. In a protest of the conditions in Occoquan, Paul commenced a hunger strike.
This led to her being moved to the prison’s psychiatric ward and force-fed
raw eggs through a plastic tube. Other women joined the strike which, combined
with the continuing demonstrations and attendant press coverage, kept the
pressure on the
Mother
Jones, American Labor Leader
Born on August 1, 1837, to past generations of
freedom fighters in
Jones later toured the country to speak out against crimes perpetrated on
miners and their families during the “Machine Gun Massacre” in a tent colony at
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882 –
April 12, 1945) was the 32nd President of the
The only American president elected to more than two terms, he was often
referred to by his initials, FDR. Roosevelt won his first of four presidential
elections in 1932, while the
Shortly after taking office in 1933, Roosevelt survived an attempted coup
staged by American banking and industrial interests seeking to join the
Major
General Smedley Darlington
Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881 –
June 21, 1940), nicknamed "The Fighting Quaker" and "Old Gimlet
Eye", was a Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps and, at the time of his
death, the most decorated Marine in
In 1933
“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that
period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for
Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for
capitalism. I helped make
Rosa
Parks, Mother of the Modern-Day American Civil Rights Movement
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 –
October 24, 2005) was an African American civil rights activist whom the U.S.
Congress later called the “Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement.”
On December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks, age 42, refused to obey bus driver James Blake's order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger. Her action was not the first of its kind: Irene Morgan, in 1946, and Sarah Louise Keys, in 1955, had won rulings before the U.S. Supreme Court and the Interstate Commerce Commission respectively in the area of interstate bus travel. Nine months before Parks refused to give up her seat, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin refused to move from her seat on the same bus system. But unlike these previous individual actions of civil disobedience, Parks' action sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Parks' act of defiance became an important symbol of the modern Civil Rights Movement and Parks became an international icon of resistance to racial segregation. She organized and collaborated with civil rights leaders, including boycott leader Martin Luther King, Jr., helping to launch him to national prominence in the civil rights movement.
Malcolm
X, One of the Most Influential African Americans in History
Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little; May 19, 1925 –
February 21, 1965) was an African-American Muslim minister, public speaker, and
human rights activist. To his admirers, he was a courageous advocate for the
rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white
Malcolm X was assassinated on February 21, 1965.
Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Leader of the American Civil Rights Movement
Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 –
April 4, 1968) was an American clergyman, activist and prominent leader in the
African-American civil rights movement. His main legacy was to secure progress
on civil rights in the
Dr. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968.
Randy
Weaver, American Green Beret Soldier Whose Family Was Massacred By US Federal
Agents
Randy Weaver, a former
In August, 1992, US Federal Police Forces began an 8 day siege of Weaver and his family where aside from one Federal Agent being killed, Weaver's wife, son and dog were gunned down in what is now known as the "Ruby Ridge Massacre".
After the massacre the surviving members of the Weaver family filed a wrongful death suit against the U.S. Government. To avoid trial and a possibly higher settlement, the Federal government awarded Randy Weaver a $100,000 settlement and his three daughters $1 million each in August 1995.
In the out-of-court settlement the government did not admit to any wrong-doing in the deaths of Sammy and Vicki Weaver. In the summer of 1995 a Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on Ruby Ridge.
FBI director Louis Freeh disciplined or proposed discipline for twelve FBI employees over their handling of the incident and the later prosecution of Randy Weaver and Harris. He described it before the U.S. Senate hearing investigating the incident as "synonymous with the exaggerated application of federal law enforcement" and stated "law enforcement overreacted at Ruby Ridge."
Weaver's stand against an “out of control” Federal government spawned the
modern American Patriotic Movement in the
Timothy
McVeigh, American Soldier and Bomber of the
Timothy James McVeigh (April 23, 1968 – June
11, 2001) was a United States Army veteran and security guard who was convicted
of bombing the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995,
the second anniversary of the Waco Siege, as revenge for, or to inspire a
revolt against what he considered a tyrannical federal government. The bombing
killed 168 people and was the deadliest act of terrorism within the
McVeigh is considered by many in the American Patriotic Community to be their first martyr in the struggle to regain the many rights and freedoms rapidly being taken away from US citizens by the Federal Government.
Joe
Stack, Software Engineer and Suicide
Bomber of US
Joseph Stack (1956-2010) on February 18, 2010,
piloted his plane into the
In the “manifesto” Stack left behind explaining his actions (Business Insider, reveals that Stack began his manifesto Tuesday night (February 16) using Microsoft Word and revised it 27 times) he stated:
“I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are.”
Many Americans in the rapidly growing Patriot Community are saying that Joe Stack “has fired the first shot in the New American Revolution.”
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