Author: Allison Duerk

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(2020) Convict 9653 at 100

Update: The recorded and captioned program is now available to stream at this link.

100 years ago, Eugene V. Debs made his fifth and final bid for the presidency as Convict No. 9653. Imprisoned for condemning war, Debs campaigned from his Atlanta prison cell on issues that still resonate today: “real democracy and self-government and the essential rights and liberties of the people.”

On October 11th, join the Debs Foundation and Museum for a virtual program to mark this centennial season and connect Debs to our times. We’ll screen the second half of WFYI’s Emmy Award-winning documentary The Revolutionist: Eugene V. Debs, followed by a panel discussion on Debs’ relevance today.

Distinguished panelists include Kim Jacobs, writer and producer of The Revolutionist; Clayola Brown, President of the A. Philip Randolph Institute and 2012 Debs Award honoree; and Dr. Ernest Freeberg, Departmental Chair of History at the University of Tennessee and author of Democracy’s Prisoner: Eugene V. Debs, the Great War, and the Right to Dissent.

We are also pleased to welcome Magpie as our musical guests. Acclaimed duo Terry Leonino and Greg Artzner have performed at multiple Debs Awards Dinners. Tune in for a live performance of an original Debsian song and an old labor favorite.

Want to be featured on the program? Record and submit a short video of yourself responding to this prompt: What does Eugene V. Debs mean to you in 2020? Upload your video here.

“Convict 9653 at 100” will stream live on our Facebook page on October 11th at 3 pm Eastern.

RSVP and invite your friends here.

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Academic Conference Postponed

UPDATE: Due to the ongoing issues of the COVID19 pandemic the organizers have decided to reschedule this conference from its original November 2020 date to April 9-10, 2021.

“While There Is A Soul In Prison, I Am Not Free”

The History of Solidarity in Social and Economic Justice

Sponsored by the Eugene V. Debs Foundation, the Cunningham Memorial Library, and the Department of History at Indiana State University
Keynote Address: Peter Cole, PhD., Professor of History at Western Illinois University
Date: April 9-10, 2021
Place: Cunningham Memorial Library, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Indiana

In 1918, the American labor organizer and socialist leader Eugene Victor Debs was sentenced to ten years in prison for his anti-war activities opposing America’s involvement in World War One. In his closing defense, Debs said, “Your honor… I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.” After being remanded to prison, Debs then went on to run in the 1920 presidential campaign, garnering nearly a million votes.

To honor the hundredth anniversary of the court decision, the 1920 election, and Debs’ commitment to economic and social justice, the Eugene V. Debs Foundation, the Cunningham Memorial Library, and the Department of History at Indiana State University are calling for papers as part of a daylong conference in Terre Haute, Indiana on November 14, 2020.

The conference’s theme is broadly the history of “solidarity in social and economic justice,” and the organizers are specifically interested in the fields of labor and social movement history. However, to give specific focus to prison abolitionism and mass incarceration, special attention will be given to scholars and activists working in the prison abolitionist movement. Themes in terms of geographic location and time are being left purposefully open to encourage a wide range of topics in world history throughout the long struggle of working class social movements.

Contact Info: 

To submit a paper or panel proposal, email a 200-300 word abstract with a CV by December 31, 2020 to all of the organizers at—

Wesley Bishop, wbishop@marian.edu

Nancy Gabin, ngabin@purdue.edu

Micki Morahn, michelle.morahn@debsfoundation.org  

Lisa Phillips, lisa.phillips@indstate.edu



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Debs in Our Voices Recording Now Available

One June 20th, 2020, the Debs Foundation and Museum hosted our third annual (and first virtual) Debs Day. Twenty-seven readers, from Los Angeles to New York, Atlanta to Chicago, and back to Terre Haute, brought Debs’ words to life with a virtual reading of his prison writings, Walls and Bars. Other relevant texts were included, such as Debs’ 1918 Statement to the Court, as well as testimonials by Hellen Keller, Ralph Chaplin, and James Whitcomb Riley.

A captioned recording of the event is now available.

About Walls and Bars

Exactly 100 years ago, Eugene V. Debs was serving a ten-year prison sentence in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. His crime? Speaking out against the First World War in his famous Canton Speech of 1918. Undeterred, Debs led his fifth and final presidential campaign from his prison cell, earning nearly a million votes for the Socialist ticket in November of 1920.

Prison life profoundly affected Debs. As he experienced inhumane prison conditions, Debs also witnessed the common humanity of his fellow prisoners. He described these experiences in a series of articles and essays. In 1927, his brother Theodore published these writings in the volume Walls and Bars shortly after Eugene Debs’ death. Beyond simply describing prison life and conditions, Debs created a blueprint for solving the problems of incarceration by addressing what he saw as the root of crime: unmet social and economic needs. Walls and Bars connects crime and prisons to the economic conditions created by capitalism, forging a path to abolishing prisons as we know them by transforming our economic system.

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Debs in Our Voices: Walls & Bars

Join us!

On June 20th, the Debs Foundation will recognize Debs Day and present Debs in Our Voices: Walls & Bars. This event will take place from 12-2 pm EDT via Facebook Live on our page, facebook.com/EugeneVDebsFoundation.

Together, we will read selections from Walls & Bars and reflect on how Debs’ words speak to us today.

About Walls & Bars

Exactly 100 years ago, Eugene V. Debs was serving a ten-year prison sentence in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. His crime? Speaking out against the First World War in his famous Canton Speech of 1918. Undeterred, Debs led his fifth and final presidential campaign from his prison cell, earning nearly a million votes for the Socialist ticket in November of 1920.

Prison life profoundly affected Debs. As he experienced inhumane prison conditions, Debs also witnessed the common humanity of his fellow prisoners. He described these experiences in a series of articles and essays. In 1927, his brother Theodore published these writings in the volume Walls & Bars shortly after Eugene Debs’ death. Beyond simply describing prison life and conditions, Debs created a blueprint for solving the problems of incarceration by addressing what he saw as the root of crime: unmet social and economic needs. Walls & Bars connects crime and prisons to the economic conditions created by capitalism, forging a path to abolishing prisons as we know them by transforming our economic system.

How can I get involved?

We need readers to bring Debs’ words to life! If you’re interested in participating in Debs in Our Voices as a live reader, please complete this form.

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Watch The Revolutionist with Senator Bernie Sanders

Update 6/22/2020: The screening has been rescheduled for TONIGHT, June 22nd at 7:30 pm Eastern. Tune in with us at live.berniesanders.com!

Update 6/5/2020: This event has been postponed indefinitely; watch this page and the official Facebook event page for further announcements.

Update 5/29/2020: Senator Sanders’ team has rescheduled this livestream event to Friday, June 5th at 8 pm in order to keep the attention on the killing of George Floyd and the need for this country to end police violence. We wholeheartedly support this decision and look forward to the event next week.

Tune in! Senator Sanders will highlight his political inspiration by a hosting watch party for WFYI’s 2019 documentary The Revolutionist: Eugene V. Debs. A panel discussion will follow featuring Senator Sanders, actor and Revolutionist narrator Danny Glover, journalist John Nichols, and more! The film starts at 8 pm EDT at this link.

Alternately loved and reviled, Eugene Victor Debs was a passionate labor leader, a progressive political figure, and a formidable speaker in a time of great change in the United States. WFYI’s new documentary, The Revolutionist: Eugene V. Debs, tells the story of this Hoosier’s life. Born in Terre Haute in 1855, Eugene Debs emerged as a divisive figure when he led the nationwide Pullman Strike in 1894. Seeking an alternative way for workers to gain power, he helped establish the Socialist Party in the United States and ran as its candidate for president five times. His campaign across the country drew massive crowds, and his oratory tested the limits of the First Amendment. When he spoke out against America’s involvement in World War I, the Supreme Court upheld a guilty verdict that sentenced him to ten years in prison for violating the Espionage Act. From his cell, he ran for president for the final time, garnering nearly a million votes…and sparking a national conversation about the right to free speech.

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NPR Podcast Highlights Debs

Click here to listen or find Throughline‘s episode “American Socialist” on your preferred podcast app.

NPR’s history podcast Throughline peers into the past to better understand the present. Released in March, this episode delves into the life of Eugene V. Debs and the trajectory of socialism in the early twentieth century, illustrating how this history shapes the present day. Co-hosts Ramtin Arablouei and Rund Abdelfatah interview Nick Salvatore, author of Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist; Ernest Freeberg, author of Democracy’s Prisoner: Eugene V. Debs, the Great War, and the Right to Dissent; and Allison Duerk, director of the Debs Museum.

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Debs Documentary Now Streaming

Click here to watch The Revolutionist: Eugene V. Debs from WFYI Indianapolis

Alternately loved and reviled, Eugene Victor Debs was a passionate labor leader, a progressive political figure, and a formidable speaker in a time of great change in the United States. WFYI’s new documentary, The Revolutionist: Eugene V. Debs, tells the story of this Hoosier’s life. Born in Terre Haute in 1855, Eugene Debs emerged as a divisive figure when he led the nationwide Pullman Strike in 1894. Seeking an alternative way for workers to gain power, he helped establish the Socialist Party in the United States and ran as its candidate for president five times. His campaign across the country drew massive crowds, and his oratory tested the limits of the First Amendment. When he spoke out against America’s involvement in World War I, the Supreme Court upheld a guilty verdict that sentenced him to ten years in prison for violating the Espionage Act. From his cell, he ran for president for the final time, garnering nearly a million votes…and sparking a national conversation about the right to free speech.

The Revolutionist: Eugene V. Debs is narrated by actor Danny Glover.

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Call for Conference Papers

UPDATE: Due to the ongoing issues of the COVID19 pandemic the organizers have decided to reschedule this conference from its original November 2020 date to April 9-10, 2021.

“While There Is A Soul In Prison, I Am Not Free”

The History of Solidarity in Social and Economic Justice

Sponsored by the Eugene V. Debs Foundation, the Cunningham Memorial Library, and the Department of History at Indiana State University
Keynote Address: Peter Cole, PhD., Professor of History at Western Illinois University
Date: November 13-14, 2020
Place: Cunningham Memorial Library, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Indiana

In 1918, the American labor organizer and socialist leader Eugene Victor Debs was sentenced to ten years in prison for his anti-war activities opposing America’s involvement in World War One. In his closing defense, Debs said, “Your honor… I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.” After being remanded to prison, Debs then went on to run in the 1920 presidential campaign, garnering nearly a million votes.

To honor the hundredth anniversary of the court decision, the 1920 election, and Debs’ commitment to economic and social justice, the Eugene V. Debs Foundation, the Cunningham Memorial Library, and the Department of History at Indiana State University are calling for papers as part of a daylong conference in Terre Haute, Indiana on November 14, 2020.

The conference’s theme is broadly the history of “solidarity in social and economic justice,” and the organizers are specifically interested in the fields of labor and social movement history. However, to give specific focus to prison abolitionism and mass incarceration, special attention will be given to scholars and activists working in the prison abolitionist movement. Themes in terms of geographic location and time are being left purposefully open to encourage a wide range of topics in world history throughout the long struggle of working class social movements.

Contact Info: 

To submit a paper or panel proposal, email a 200-300 word abstract with a CV by May 15, 2020 to all of the organizers at—

Wesley Bishop, wbishop@marian.edu

Nancy Gabin, ngabin@purdue.edu

Micki Morahn, michelle.morahn@debsfoundation.org  

Lisa Phillips, lisa.phillips@indstate.edu

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Upcoming Vonnegut Events at the Debs Museum

Join us at the Debs Museum for two events connecting Debs to another Hoosier iconoclast, Kurt Vonnegut. Both events are free and open to the public. Questions? Contact the Debs Museum by calling (812) 232-2163.

Unity Study Circle: Kurt Vonnegut

Wednesday, July 17th at 6:30 pm

All are invited to a special meeting of the Unity Study Circle. While we typically work with Debs’ writings and speeches, this month we’ll shift our focus to another outspoken and influential Hoosier: Kurt Vonnegut. His landmark anti-war novel Slaughterhouse-Five turns 50 this year, and Vonnegut’s critical pen and dedication to peace and justice place Vonnegut squarely in the Debsian tradition. In celebration of the author, we’ll take a deep dive into Vonnegut’s connection to Debs and labor.

Vonnegut accepted the Debs Foundation’s 1981 Eugene V. Debs Award for his advancement of social justice and world peace. His ever-relevant remarks at the 1981 Debs Awards Banquet serve as our first reading. We’ll also discuss this 2013 article from Jacobin Magazine by Matthew Gannon and Wilson Taylor. This piece describes Vonnegut’s literary contributions to the long struggle for economic justice, connecting him to Debs, Carl Sandburg, A. Phillip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Our final selection is Vonnegut’s Sandburg Award acceptance speech “Don’t Despair if You Never Went to College!” which can be found in the 2013 anthology If This Isn’t Nice, What Is? Advice to the Young edited by Dan Wakefield. For copyright purposes, this piece isn’t linked here — instead, study group participants will read the speech together at our meeting.

Jailbird: Kurt Vonnegut and Eugene V. Debs

Guest Lecture by Chris Lafave, Curator, Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library

Wednesday, July 24th at 6:30 pm

The Debs Museum proudly welcomes Chris Lafave for a guest lecture on Vonnegut’s novel Jailbird, highlighting the connections between Debs and Vonnegut. Lafave is Curator with the KVML. He was introduced to the work of Kurt Vonnegut while attending Ball State University at the tender age of 23.

His first book was Breakfast of Champions, followed closely by the excellent short story collection, Welcome to the Monkey House, on the night Vonnegut died. Chris continued to admire Vonnegut’s work throughout a stint playing in bluegrass bands in Chicago, Illinois, and completing his Masters in Library Science at Indiana University.

He began volunteering at the KVML in 2011 at the grand opening, became Curator in 2012, and has continued to serve the organization to this day.

Can’t get enough Vonnegut? Be sure to check out the Kurt Vonnegut Museum & Library and support their transition to a new permanent home on Indiana Avenue in Indianapolis. As part of Banned Books Week at KVML, Debs Foundation board members and Debs Museum staff will present an evening of programming on Debs, censorship, and free speech on September 25th. More information coming soon!

Kurt Vonnegut, while in Terre Haute to receive the Eugene V. Debs Award in 1981, speaks to a group in the east garden of the historic Eugene V. Debs home while Debs Foundation founder and board member Bob Constantine looks on.
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Debs Foundation to Host 2nd Annual Debs Day

June 15th, 10:00 am — 5:00 pm

Eugene V. Debs Museum, 451 North 8th Street

Contact: Allison Duerk, Debs Museum Director (812) 232-2163 or allison.duerk@debsfoundation.org

“Manifestly the spirit of ‘76 still survives. The fires of liberty and noble aspirations are not yet extinguished.”   — Eugene V. Debs, “Liberty” (1895)

The Eugene V. Debs Foundation will commemorate the 125th anniversary of the Pullman Strike with a day of special programming at the Debs Museum located at 451 North 8th Street in Terre Haute. All events are free and open to the public.

125 years ago this summer, a quarter of a million rebel railroaders tied up the nation’s rail lines and halted trains from Detroit to the West Coast. Why? Striking in sympathy, they protested inhumane working and living conditions in George Pullman’s company town on Chicago’s south side. Pullman’s famous sleeper cars transformed rail travel, but workers who built them often struggled to make ends meet. At the head of the 1894 Pullman Strike was Terre Haute’s own Eugene V. Debs, president of the American Railway Union. The work stoppage eventually led to martial law in Chicago, deadly conflict between troops and strikers, and Debs’ jailing in 1895. The Pullman Strike also paved the way for labor law reforms, future industrial unions, and Debs’ revolutionary politics.

10:00 am – Walking Tour: Gene and Kate’s Neighborhood

Debs Foundation Secretary Michelle K. Morahn and research partner John S. Morahn will present a walking tour of the block surrounding the 1890 Debs Home. Get to know the Debs’ neighbors in this once-fashionable residential area of Terre Haute. Tour departs from the Debs Museum. Advance registration required  — call (812) 232-2163 or register here.

12:00 pm – Author Talk and Book Signing with Jack Kelly

Visiting author Jack Kelly will discuss and sign copies of his recent book The Edge of Anarchy: The Railroad Barons, the Gilded Age, & the Greatest Labor Uprising in America. Debs Foundation President Noel Beasley calls Kelly’s work on the Pullman Strike “an excellent depiction of a nation in crisis” and “a timely reflection of the remarkably parallel characteristics and contradictions of that time and our own.” Copies of The Edge of Anarchy will be available for purchase in the Debs Museum gift shop for $25.

1:00 pm – Debs in Our Voices: “Liberty”

All are invited to join in a participatory reading of “Liberty,” the speech that Debs delivered to a crowd of 100,000 supporters in Chicago following his release from Woodstock Jail after the Pullman Strike. Readers will share short passages of the speech from the front porch of the Debs Home. A guided tour of the Museum will follow. This presentation of “Liberty” continues the Foundation’s new tradition of bringing Debs’ words to life in our own voices. The first annual Debs Day, designated by Mayor Duke Bennett on June 16, 2018, commemorated the 100th anniversary of Debs’ anti-war “Canton Speech” that resulted in his infamous 10-year prison sentence and landmark free speech case.

The Eugene V. Debs Foundation promotes the work and legacy of Eugene V. Debs through education, research and community outreach in addition to operating the Debs Museum. The Foundation keeps alive the spirit of progressivism, humanitarianism, and social criticism epitomized by Debs.