About this Event
Join Village Books for a special evening of music, stories, and fun as we welcome former foreign correspondent for the The Wall Street Journal, Scott Miller to the Hotel Leo to dive into his newest book, Let My Country Awake: Indian Revolutionaries in America and the Fight to Overthrow the British Raj!
Doors open and music begins at 6:30pm. Recording starts at 7:00pm.
Interviewer: Satpal Sidhu
Musical Guest: TBA
Spaces are limited and REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED to secure your spot so don't delay.
The true story of an audacious international movement to liberate India from colonial rule during World War I.
In November 1913, a recruitment notice appeared in the first issue of an underground newspaper in San Francisco, the Hindustan Ghadar. The paper was founded by a charismatic anarchist from India named Har Dayal with the help of a group of Indian students at the University of California, Berkeley. Under the leadership of Dayal and fellow radical Sohan Singh Bhakna, this group hatched an audacious plan to put their words into action: they would convince other Indians, many of them Sikh lumber workers and farmhands on the west coasts of the United States and Canada, to launch a violent insurrection against the British Raj.
The Ghadar movement, as it came to be known, eventually mounted the most significant challenge to British colonial rule until the rise of Mohandas Gandhi. It recruited thousands of supporters via its newspaper, and sent hundreds of freedom fighters across the Pacific in attempts to smuggle guns and seditious literature into India—an effort abetted by spies working for the German government, which was keen to undermine the British during World War I. All the while, the Ghadar movement was being tracked by Britain's intelligence service, which eventually convinced the US government to crackdown on the organization's leaders. This led to one of the biggest conspiracy trials in American history, culminating in a courtroom gun battle that shocked a nation already roiled by suspicion of immigrants. Scott Miller's Let My Country Awake is the first book to tell the story of this overlooked moment in Indian—and American—history, offering a new perspective on the struggle against colonialism in the twentieth century.
Scott Miller is the author of The President and the Assassin: McKinley, Terror, and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century and Agent 110: The American Spymaster and the German Resistance. A former foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, he reported from more than twenty-five countries in Asia and Europe for two decades. He has been a contributor to CNBC and Britain's Sky News and appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He lives in Seattle with his wife, Karen, and a Labrador retriever, Lucy.
Satpal Sidhu, a first-generation immigrant from India, came to Whatcom County in 1988 from Canada. He is currently serving his second term as Whatcom County Executive, re-elected in 2023. He has served the County Council since 2015. Satpal's past professional experience includes work as an engineer, project manager, business executive, educator and small business owner. He was recognized by two Washington State governors for his achievements in workforce development as Dean of Engineering & Trades at Bellingham Technical College. He is a Fulbright Scholar and holds a BS in Electrical Engineering and a MBA.
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The Chuckanut Radio Hour, a recipient of Bellingham's prestigious Mayor's Arts Award, is a radio variety show that began in January 2007. Each Chuckanut Radio Hour includes guest authors, musicians, performance poet Kevin Murphy, and episodes of "As the Ham Turns" serial radio comedy, performed by the Chuckanut Radio Players that include Les Campbell, Robert Muzzy, Tonja Meyers, Sarah, Hawley, Mish Kriz, Lucas Naylor, Cindy Whiston, and Jeff Brawsley. Not to mention groaner jokes by hosts Paul Hanson, Kelly Evert, and announcer Rich Donnelly. The Chuckanut Radio Hour's first guest was Erik Larson and has since included Tom Robbins, Maria Semple, Christopher McDougall, Erica Bauermeister, Sasha LaPointe, Cheryl Strayed, Simon Winchester, and Garrison Keillor, among many others. With so many episodes under our belts, there's more guests than we can list! You can listen to previously recorded programs Sundays at 7pm on Community Powered KMRE 88.3, or anywhere you listen to podcasts!
Sponsored by 12th Street Shoes and the Salish Current.
*Online registration closes two hours prior to the event. Tickets may be available at the door.*
*Feel free to call Village Books and Paper Dreams for further assistance at 360-671-2626!*
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
The Hotel Leo Crystal Ballroom, 1224 Cornwall Avenue, Bellingham, United States
USD 6.24 to USD 35.32
