Fifty years ago, on May 28, 1970, a monument to the Rev. Hryhoriy Hrushka, founding editor of the Svoboda newspaper that led to the establishment of the Ukrainian National Association, was unveiled and dedicated at Cleveland’s Cultural Gardens during the UNA’s regular convention that year. Nearly 600 people were in attendance for the unveiling ceremony.
The ceremony was held on the fourth day of the UNA convention in Cleveland, which lasted a week.
The Rev. Hrushka came to the U.S. in the latter half of the 19th century, and founded the Ukrainian-language daily newspaper Svoboda in 1893. From the pages of Svoboda, the Rev. Hrushka appealed to the community for the need to create a single Ukrainian organization to protect the interests of Ukrainian immigrants.