ALT Chief Petty Officer Alton Adams in his Navy uniform. Adams used artistic excellence as a quiet but powerful force for social advancement, racial integration and cultural preservation. Rather than engaging in political activism, he dismantled barriers by maintaining a standard of excellence so undeniable that segregated institutions had to respect his leadership. He gave his homeland its sonic identity by composing “The Virgin islands March.” By modernizing public music education and helping found St. Thomas’s first public library, he built the infrastructure for the islands’ intellectual and cultural growth. Recognizing that political freedom is fragile without economic power, he pivoted to journalism and hospitality to fight Jim Crow segregation. Adams proved that a person does not need to set out to be an activist to change the course of history. By protecting his community and executing his craft with absolute mastery, he transformed the Virgin Islands and the U.S. military.
ALT Graphic showing the Democratic gains in Congress in the Nov. 3, 2026, election.
ALT Rosalie Edge, ca. 1917. A contemporary described Edge as the “only honest, unselfish, indomitable hellcat in the history of conservation.” She dragged conservation out of the era of polite diplomacy and transformed it into an unyielding battle for environmental justice. Edge proved that saving nature requires directly challenging power, not compromising with it. She executed the first successful corporate proxy war in environmental history, establishing the blueprint for institutional accountability used today. She proved that ecosystems must be preserved as a whole, rather than waiting for individual species to face extinction. Thankfully for us, she spent the last weeks of her life packing more than 30 years of radical environmental history into four large boxes that she mailed to the Denver Public Library. These documents became the foundation for the Western History Conservation Collection, the first major archive of its kind in the U.S.
ALT Congressional portrait of Gabe Vasquez with his campaign logo in the upper right and the wording, "I'm Gabe Vasquez, the Democratic Congress Representing New Mexico's 2nd District."
