Edmund Dinis’ Historical Monuments
By Dr. Manuel Luciano da Silva
Edmund Dinis from New Bedford, MA, is a well known Attorney-at-Law, who was for many years, an elected official as State Representative, State Senator and State Attorney. He is now the owner and president of the radio station WJFD, (50,000 watts), in New Bedford, with a 24 hour Portuguese language program with news, sports, interviews, music and entertainment.
For fifty years he has been very much interested in Portuguese-American historical figures. He created the Dighton Rock State Park in 1954; he is responsible for the Peter Francisco Square and Monument in the City of New Bedford, MA. Peter Francisco was a Portuguese American hero during the War of Independence of U. S. A.
Dinis has launched similar campaigns to popularize Miguel Corte Real, John Philip Sousa, the King of Marches, and a Portuguese American descendent.
Lately Dinis has been the leader in the realization of two monuments: one to Alvarez Fagundes in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada (Monument in Halifax), and the other monument to Cristovam Gomes, in Bangor, Maine. Monument in Bangor
Alvarez Fagundes was born in Viana do Castelo, North of Portugal, who became a navigator and one of the first Europeans to come to North America to catch codfish in Canadian waters, in the early XVI century.
Cristovam Gomes was born in the city of Porto (Oporto) and become a navigator in service of Spain. He was one of the first European to explore the cost of all New England, including the Penobscot River in 1525, in the State of Maine.
At the Present time Dinis is a involved with plans to place similar monuments in honor of Cristovam Gomes from New York City, all the way up to Cap Cod.
Edmund Dinis is doing all this historical research and enterprise at his own expense, not to gain any more votes, because he is retired from practicing law and from politics!
He continues to do it for the love of history and also to make the other Americans aware of the Portuguese-American historical figures and their important impact in the History of the United States of America.
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