Who’re you supporting if your choices are Ira and Holly?
Ira and Holly – whose legacy must be honored?
National Crime Victims’ Rights Week (NCVRW) is this week.
So is Earth Week which features today, Earth Day, which celebrates its Golden Anniversary.
Earth Week
There are stories looking at the silver lining of the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s the seeming lack of pollution globally. Though some claim hi up atmospheric gases still loom ominously.
And there are also stories about the founders of Earth Day. Invariably Ira Einhorn – who just died in prison for killing Holly Maddux – is mentioned as a cofounder of the day celebrated for 50 years now!
Victims’ Rights Week.
NCVRW advocates for victims’ rights while honoring survivors of crime like Holly’s family. It also commemorates the advocates that have driven the victims‘ rights movement over the years. Due to COVID-19, many of these events have been canceled. Of course many took TIME’s lead, repeating the fake news. However, TIME finally admitted in an article recently that it helped perpetrate the myth of Einhorn.
TIME admits it helped create the fake news about Ira.
And now the Ira and Holly truth is emerging clearly.
Stephen Silver succinctly wrote in late 2019 –
[… Ira Einhorn was not, in fact, the founder of Earth Day. He has claimed to have played a role in its founder, but most associated with Earth Day’s creation say he has lied about the importance of his contributions.
According to Philadelphia Magazine in 2015, the first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970, with then-U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson organizing the event commonly known today as Earth Day, and picking the date of April 22. An activist named John McConnell has been credited with first proposing such a holiday.
Einhorn was never mentioned in any media account related to his claim to have founded Earth Day until the late 1980s, when Steven Levy, an author who had written a book about the murder, referenced the claim in an interview.
The future murderer appears to have been present not at the creation of Earth Day itself, but rather its first regional celebration in Philadelphia in 1970. However, a 1998 op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer by a pair of the actual local organizers claimed that Einhorn was lying.
“A group of very dedicated young people worked very hard to organize Earth Day, but Einhorn was not one of them,” organizers Edward W. Furia and Austan S. Librach wrote in 1998. “In fact, Einhorn was asked to leave several meetings of the organizing committee that he attempted to disrupt. He was not welcome there, nor did he contribute in any material way to the committee’s activities.” They also say that Einhorn grabbed a microphone without permission at the 1970 rally, which is the source for the photo of Einhorn that is often included in such stories.
Einhorn was accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend, Holly Maddux, in 1977. Shortly after Maddux’s body was found in 1979, Einhorn jumped bail and fled the country. Convicted in absentia, Einhorn was found in France in 1997, and after a four-year legal battle, he was extradited to the U.S. in 2001, at which point he was tried again for the murder and convicted…]
So, are you honoring – Holly and not Ira, hopefully?
More info here.
Please let me know any reactions you have.
And, of course, any thoughts about this year’s amazing Earth Day.
Thanks.
To learn about CLEFT HEART: Chasing Normal, click the Amazon or Barnes & Noble buttons in the margins. Or click the image of the book cover. My coming-of-age memoir has intertwining love stories, mystery, tragedy, and triumph.
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