The Birds That Saved It: The Story of Citizens To Protect Rose Island
Written by Michael Simpson
“Bridgette Breault, a 9-year-old native of Fayetteville, N.C., struggled to hold her stretch of the banner aloft. She was in Newport visiting her grandparents and had joined the island protest with her aunt and cousins. Bridgette said she had come to Rose Island during previous summers, for picnics and walks.
‘I think this island is very nice, and I don't want businessmen to come around and tear it up,’ she said. ‘Then the seagulls wouldn't have any place to live.’”
– Providence Journal, [Jul 07 1985]
On a gray, wind-blown afternoon in the summer of 1985, dozens of Rhode Islanders boarded small boats at Fort Adams with a strange cargo: bundles of old bedsheets. Their destination was Rose Island, the rocky, windswept outpost in the shadow of the Newport Bridge, and their goal was ambitious; to wrap the entire island in fabric and in doing so, make a bold, visual plea to save it from private development.¹
At the heart of this unusual protest was Charlotte Johnson, a 38-year-old Newport resident who had fallen in love with the island. “When you’re out on Rose Island,” she said, “you feel like you’re on a deserted island in Maine.” That sense of remote serenity, just a mile from Newport’s busy waterfront, was part of what Johnson saw as important for preservation. When she learned that developers planned to turn the island into a marina and condo complex, she felt an urgent responsibility to act.²
The plan proposed by a group of developers, who had purchased the majority of the island from the federal government in 1969 for just $27,500, was enthusiastic: an 850-boat marina, the largest in the state, and residential construction that would forever change the character of the island. While they eventually scaled the marina plan back to 200 boats, the idea of building on Rose Island at all sparked concern across the community. Johnson and other locals feared not just traffic and pollution, but the irreversible destruction of a historic 18th-century fort, and the further decay of the island’s 19th-century lighthouse.³
With no institutional backing, no major donors, and no guarantee that they'd succeed, Johnson and a group of concerned residents formed Citizens to Protect Rose Island. They sought not just to oppose the project, but to reframe the island as a public treasure to be protected, a natural and historic place that should be preserved for all. They gathered historic documents, maps, photographs, and even traveled abroad to research the island’s forgotten past. And then, to make their message visible, they organized the bedsheet protest.
The idea was simple. Stitch together hundreds of donated sheets into a continuous banner that could stretch around the island’s 4,000-foot perimeter. It would be part protest, part environmental art, inspired by the works of Jeanne-Claude and Christo, and ideally, unforgettable.
Volunteers met at the Presbyterian Church in Newport and elsewhere to sew for hours. By the morning of July 6, they had over 3,500 feet of fabric. ⁴
Braving rough waters and a forecast of storms, around 75 people made the journey by boat to Rose Island. Some waded through seaweed and rocks to reach the shore. Others helped carefully space out the banner and prepare for the signal. At exactly 3:07 p.m., they lifted the sheets into the air, forming a fluttering chain around the island’s edge. It lasted seven minutes, just long enough for the television crews and news photographers to capture the moment, but it was visually stunning. For a moment, Rose Island looked like it had been cinched with a great white ribbon: a visual cry for help, and a gesture of care. Johnson later announced that the used sheets would be donated to hospitals and nursing homes to be used as cancer dressing, giving the materials of the protest a second life.⁵
The protest was quiet, orderly, and legal. The participants made sure to stay below the mean high tide line to avoid trespassing. Afterward, they folded up the sheets and left. But the image remained. Coverage of the event appeared in the Providence Journal, Newport Daily News, and was picked up by United Press International, appearing in newspapers as far away as Oregon, Philadelphia, and Florida. A once-overlooked island was suddenly the subject of national conversation.⁶
One of the island’s co-owners, Terry Toppa, responded publicly after the protest. He stated that his group would consider the environmental and historical findings of a pending archaeological survey and listen to concerns raised by officials. But he also emphasized their right to develop the property, calling the demonstration an overreaction. Toppa downplayed the opposition, pointing to the turnout of 75 people and remarking, “They expected thousands.”⁷
The developers insisted the protest was premature, after all, no formal plans had been filed, but for Johnson and her supporters, waiting would have been too late. The protest, she later said, was not just about stopping development. It was about declaring Rose Island’s value: not in dollars and square footage, but in its meaning to the community.
Demonstrators encircling the island in bedsheets, July 6, 1985.
What followed was not immediate victory, but momentum. The citizens group stayed active, continuing their research, organizing lectures, and beginning work on a documentary that never actually came to fruition. Their advocacy helped slow the development timeline and drew attention from preservationists, environmentalists, and public officials. And while the developers had hoped to quietly file their plans, they now faced scrutiny, skepticism, and eventually, opposition too strong to overcome.
In time, the vision Johnson had articulated began to take shape. The lighthouse was stabilized and restored. Public access was prioritized. The forts were studied and protected, as was the environmental impact on the island. Out of the Citizens group grew the Rose Island Lighthouse Foundation, which later evolved into today’s Rose Island Lighthouse and Fort Hamilton Trust. And now, the Trust is pursuing further repairs and restoration of the Fort Hamilton barracks as an additional museum space set to release its first exhibit in October. A future exhibit on the 1985 conservation movement is also planned, pending funding.⁸
On that fateful day in July of 1985, the gulls circled overhead that day, squawking louder than usual. Ironically, the same protest would likely be impossible today, thanks to very environmental protections those demonstrators helped put in place. Today, 16.5 of the island’s 18 acres are not accessible from April until mid-August each year to protect the nesting areas of these seabirds and other iconic species like glossy ibis and oystercatchers. The wildlife refuge side of the island was purchased by the Rose Island Lighthouse Foundation outright in 1999 with support from a grant from the RI DEM that came with a conservation easement permanently barring commercial development.
Forty years later, we remember the day when Rhode Islanders stitched together a message of resistance and hope. Because Charlotte Johnson and her neighbors chose to stand up, Rose Island remains a place to visit and connect with its history, its nature, and its place within our community.
[1] Tim Murphy, “Group to wrap Rose Island in 600 sheets,” Providence Journal, [Jun 28 1985], p. A-16.
[2] Tim Murphy, “Developers and conservationists battle over fate of 14-acre isle,” Providence Journal, [Jul 05 1985], p. A-03.
[3] Tim Murphy, “Protesters will put Rose Island under wraps,” Providence Journal, [Jul 06 1985], p. B-09.
[4] Murphy, ibid. [Jul 06 1985], p. B-09.
[5] Murphy, ibid. [Jun 28 1985], p. A-16; Gilbert Fuchsberg, “Protesters ‘wrap’ Rose I. in band of bedding,” Providence Journal, [Jul 07 1985], p. C-09.
[6] “Preservationists ‘wrap’ island,” The Bulletin (Bend, OR), [Jul 07 1985], p. 3; “Protestors hold up a 3,500-foot cloth…,” The Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, PA), [Jul 09 1985], p. 3; “Wrapped up in their work,” Fort Lauderdale News (Fort Lauderdale, FL), [Jul 09 1985], p. 3.
[7] Gilbert Fuchsberg, “Rose Island protesters plan to film documentary,” Providence Journal, [Jul 08 1985], p. C-01.
[8] John Pantalone, “Long history of Rose Island emerges in new exhibits,” Newport This Week, [Mar 27 2025].
