Truth Teller #14 Primo Levi

 Truth Teller # 14, Primo Levi ~ 174517 was the number tattooed on Primo Levi’s forearm as part of the Nazi effort to break him, and millions of others down to subhuman. Through luck, chemistry and sheer will he survived Auschwitz, and returned to his home in Turin, Italy. A chemist by training and a writer by necessity, he wrote of life in the camps with remarkable restraint, letting the horrors of the mass murder carried out by the Nazis speak for themselves, and trusting the reader to hear.

Truth teller #13 Frederick Douglass

Truth Teller #13 Frederick Douglass. Douglass escaped slavery to become one of its greatest foes. An eloquent speaker and writer, he used his gifts to argue against the evil of the “peculiar institution“ and became the leading advocate for the abolition of slavery in America.

 

Truth Teller # 12 Learned Hand

Truth teller #12: Learned Hand (yes, it was his real name)served the country as a federal judge for many years. A man with a Lincolnesque way with words, he was a legal philosopher who gave us our modern concept of free speech and its importance.

 

Truth Teller # 11, Bob Dylan

Truth Teller #11 Bob Dylan. Dylan’s pithy rejection of the idea that the president is above the law seems more on point now than ever. Give that man a Nobel Prize! You can hear him deliver the line here 

Truth Teller # 10 Teddy Roosevelt

Truth Teller #10, Teddy Roosevelt nails it. Historian, naturalist, author, soldier, trust buster, they don’t make ’em like TR any more.

Truth Teller #9 Joeseph Welch

Truth Teller #9, Joseph Welch. In 1954 the US Army accused Sen. Joe McCarthy of improperly pressuring the army into giving special treatment to a former aide. The US Senate convened hearings broadcast nationwide to investigate the matter. McCarthy, riding a wave of demagoguery, impugned the loyalty of a young member of the firm representing the military. The firm’s lead lawyer, Joeseph Welch defended the young attorney with these words “Have you no sense of decency sir? At long last,have you left no sense of decency?” These words became a tipping point for the Wisconsin Senator’s grip on power. The Senator’s wanton destruction of lives and reputations came to an ignoble end shortly after. You can see video of the famous exchange here

Truth Teller #8, James Baldwin

Truth Tellers #8, James Baldwin, critic, novelist, essayist, expatriate who rose from an impoverished childhood to become one of America’s great writers. On being poor, black and homosexual “I thought I’d hit the Jackpot. It was so outrageous , you had to find a way to use it.

Starting a New Series Celebrating Truth Tellers

Truth is coercive. We acknowledge this with phrases like “I have to say” or “I must admit.” The truth can also be uncomfortable or downright onerous, those who speak it can become outcasts. Mark Twain wrote only dead men can tell the whole truth in this world. But in a time way too many of our bullshit detectors seem to be malfunctioning, we need truth tellers urgently. So I am starting a series of portraits celebrating truth tellers. This is, I must admit, partly because I am sick of drawing liars. It is my pleasure to introduce Truth Teller #1, Mark Twain

Truth Tellers #2 Elizabeth Peratrovich

(from Wikipedia) a Tlingit who worked for equality on behalf of Alaska Natives In the 1940s, her advocacy was credited as being instrumental in the passing of Alaska's Anti-Discrimination Act of 1945, the first state or territorial anti-discrimination law enacted in the United States since Reconstruction following the Civil War, putting Alaska almost 20 years ahead of the national civil rights movement.

Truth Teller #3 Hannah Arendt

Truth tellers #3 Hannah Arendt. The thinker whose book “Eichman in Jerusalem” about the trial of prominent Nazi Adolph Eichman gave us the chilling idea of “The banality of evil.” In the book, she describes how an ordinary person can become a monster, yet remain seemingly normal. Such people try to live in a moral twilight, never deciding between good and bad. As Arendt observed ”The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.”