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whileiamdying · 4 months ago

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James Earl Jones, Whose Powerful Acting Resonated Onstage and Onscreen, Dies at 93

He gave life to characters like Darth Vader in “Star Wars” and Mufasa in “The Lion King,” and went on to collect Tonys, Golden Globes, Emmys and an honorary Oscar.

James Earl Jones in 1980. He climbed to Broadway and Hollywood stardom with talent, drive and remarkable vocal cords.Credit...M. Reichenthal/Associated Press

Published Sept. 9, 2024 Updated Sept. 10, 2024, 1:30 a.m. ET

James Earl Jones, a stuttering farm child who became a voice of rolling thunder as one of America’s most versatile actors in a stage, film and television career that plumbed race relations, Shakespeare’s rhapsodic tragedies and the faceless menace of Darth Vader, died on Monday at his home in Dutchess County, N.Y. He was 93.

The office of his agent, Barry McPherson, confirmed the death in a statement.

From destitute days working in a diner and living in a $19-a-month cold-water flat, Mr. Jones climbed to Broadway and Hollywood stardom with talent, drive and remarkable vocal cords. He was abandoned as a child by his parents, raised by a racist grandmother and mute for years in his stutterer’s shame, but he learned to speak again with a herculean will. All had much to do with his success.

So did plays by Howard Sackler and August Wilson that let a young actor explore racial hatred in the national experience; television soap operas that boldly cast a Black man as a doctor in the 1960s; and a decision by George Lucas, the creator of “Star Wars,” to put an anonymous, rumbling African American voice behind the grotesque mask of the galactic villain Vader.

Mr. Jones in 1979 as the author Alex Haley on “Roots: The Next Generation.” Credit...Warner Brothers Television, via Everett Collection

The rest was accomplished by Mr. Jones himself: a prodigious body of work that encompassed scores of plays, nearly 90 television network dramas and episodic series, and some 120 movies. They included his voice work, much of it uncredited, in the original “Star Wars” trilogy, in the credited voice-over of Mufasa in “The Lion King,” Disney’s 1994 animated musical film, and in his reprise of the role in Jon Favreau’s computer-animated remake in 2019.

Mr. Jones was no matinee idol, like Cary Grant or Denzel Washington. But his bulky Everyman suited many characters, and his range of forcefulness and subtlety was often compared to Morgan Freeman’s. Nor was he a singer; yet his voice, though not nearly as powerful, was sometimes likened to that of the great Paul Robeson. Mr. Jones collected Tonys, Golden Globes, Emmys, Kennedy Center honors and an honorary Academy Award.

Under the artistic and competitive demands of daily stage work and heavy commitments to television and Hollywood — pressures that burn out many actors — Mr. Jones was a rock. He once appeared in 18 plays in 30 months. He often made a half-dozen films a year, in addition to his television work. And he did it for a half-century, giving thousands of performances that captivated audiences, moviegoers and critics.

They were dazzled by his presence. A bear of a man — 6 feet 2 inches and 200 pounds — he dominated a stage with his barrel chest, large head and emotional fires, tromping across the boards and spitting his lines into the front rows. And audiences were mesmerized by the voice. It was Lear’s roaring crash into madness, Othello’s sweet balm for Desdemona, Oberon’s last rapture for Titania, the queen of the fairies on a midsummer night.

Mr. Jones as Othello in the Broadway revival of the play in New York in 1981. Credit...Martha Swope/The New York Public Library

He liked to portray kings and generals, garbage men and bricklayers; perform Shakespeare in Central Park and the works of August Wilson and Athol Fugard on Broadway. He could strut and court lecherously, erupt with rage or melt tenderly; play the blustering Big Daddy in Tennessee Williams’s “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” (2008) or an aging Norman Thayer Jr. in Ernest Thompson’s confrontation with mortality, “On Golden Pond” (2005).

Some theatergoers, aware of Mr. Jones’s childhood affliction, discerned occasional subtle hesitations in his delivery of lines. The pauses were deliberate, he said, a technique of self-restraint learned by stutterers to control involuntary repetitions. Far from detracting from his lucidity, the pauses usually added force to an emotional moment.

Mr. Jones profited from a deep analysis of meaning in his lines. “Because of my muteness,” he said in “Voices and Silences,” a 1993 memoir written with Penelope Niven, “I approached language in a different way from most actors. I came at language standing on my head, turning words inside out in search of meaning, making a mess of it sometimes, but seeing truth from a very different viewpoint.”

Mr. Jones playing the fictional former U.S. President Arthur Hockstader in Gore Vidal’s “The Best Man” on Broadway in 2012. Credit...Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Another of his theatrical techniques was to stand alone for a few minutes in a darkened wing before the curtain went up, settling himself and silently evoking the emotion he needed for the first scene. It became a nightly ritual during performances of Mr. Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “Fences” (1987), in which Mr. Jones portrayed a sanitation worker brooding over broken dreams, his once promising baseball career cut short by big league racial barriers. It ran for 15 months on Broadway, and Mr. Jones won a Tony for best actor.

Voice of Vader

Mr. Jones’s technique in the first “Star Wars” trilogy — “A New Hope” (1977), “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980) and “Return of the Jedi” (1983) — was another trademark. To sustain Vader’s menace — a voice to go with his black cape and a helmet that filtered his hissing breath and evil tidings — Mr. Jones spoke in a narrowly inflected range, almost a monotone, to make nearly every phrase sound threatening. (He was credited for voice work in the third film, but, at his request, he was not credited in the first two until a special edition rerelease in 1997.)

Mr. Jones was one of the first Black actors to appear regularly on the daytime soaps, playing a doctor in “The Guiding Light” and in “As the World Turns” in the 1960s. Television became a staple of his career. He appeared in the dramatic series “The Defenders,” “Dr. Kildare,” “Touched by an Angel” and “Homicide: Life on the Street,” and in mini-series, including “Roots: The Next Generation” (1979), playing the author Alex Haley.

Mr. Jones and Diana Sands in the 1960s in the dramatic television series “East Side, West Side.” His prodigious body of work included nearly 90 television network dramas and episodic series. Credit...Everett Collection

Mr. Jones’s first Hollywood role was small but memorable, as the B-52 bombardier in Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 satire on nuclear war, “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.”

While drama critics recorded his steady progress as an actor, Mr. Jones did not win film stardom until 1970, when he played Jack Jefferson, a character based on Jack Johnson, the first Black boxing champion, in “The Great White Hope,” reprising a role he performed on Broadway in 1968. He won a Tony for the stage work and was nominated for an Oscar for the movie.

Mr. Jones as Jack Jefferson in “The Great White Hope.” He won a Tony for his stage work in the role and was nominated for an Oscar for the movie version. Credit...George Tames/The New York Times

Although he was never active in the civil rights movement, Mr. Jones said early in his career that he admired Malcolm X and that he, too, might have been a revolutionary had he not become an actor.

He said his contributions to civil rights lay in roles that dealt with racial issues — and there were many. Notable among these was his almost overlooked casting in the 1961 play “The Blacks,” Jean Genet’s violent drama on race relations. It featured a cast that included Maya Angelou, Cicely Tyson, Louis Gossett Jr. and Billy Dee Williams, some wearing gruesome white masks, who night after night enacted in a kangaroo court the rape and murder of a white woman. Mr. Jones, the brutal and beguiling protagonist, found the role so emotionally draining that he left and then rejoined the cast several times in its three-and-a-half-year run Off Broadway.

But the experience helped clarify his feelings about race. “Through that role,” he told The Washington Post in 1967, “I came to realize that the Black man in America is the tragic hero, the Oedipus, the Hamlet, the Macbeth, even the working-class Willy Loman, the Uncle Tom and Uncle Vanya of contemporary American life.”

James Earl Jones was born in Arkabutla, Miss., on Jan. 17, 1931, to Robert Earl and Ruth (Connolly) Jones. About the time of his birth, his father left the family to chase prizefighting and acting dreams. His mother eventually obtained a divorce. But when James was 5 or 6, his frequently absent mother remarried, moved away and left him to be raised by her parents, John and Maggie Connolly, on a farm near Dublin, Mich.

Abandonment by his parents left the boy with raw wounds and psychic scars. He referred to his mother as Ruth — he said he thought of her as an aunt — and he called his grandparents Papa and Mama, although even the refuge of his surrogate home with them was a troubled place to grow up.

“I was raised by a very racist grandmother, who was part Cherokee, part Choctaw and Black,” Mr. Jones told the BBC in a 2011 interview. “She was the most racist person, bigoted person I have ever known.” She blamed all white people for slavery, and Native American and Black people “for allowing it to happen,” he said, and her ranting compounded his emotional turmoil.

Years of Silence

Traumatized, James began to stammer. By age 8 he was stuttering so badly, and was so mortified by his affliction, that he stopped talking altogether, terrified that only gibberish would come out. In the one-room rural school he attended in Manistee County, Mich., he communicated by writing notes. Friendless, lonely, self-conscious and depressed, he endured years of silence and isolation.

“No matter how old the character I play,” Mr. Jones told Newsweek in 1968, “even if I’m playing Lear, those deep childhood memories, those furies, will come out. I understand this.”

Mr. Jones playing a South African priest in “Cry, the Beloved Country” (1995). Credit...Miramax, via Alamy

In high school in nearby Brethren, an English teacher, Donald Crouch, began to help him. He found that James had a talent for poetry and encouraged him to write, and tentatively to stand before the class and read his lines. Gaining confidence, James recited a poem a day in class. The speech impediment subsided. He joined a debating team and entered oratorical contests. By graduation, in 1949, he had largely overcome his disability, although the effects lingered and never quite went away.

Years later, Mr. Jones came to believe that learning to control his stutter had led to his career as an actor.

“Just discovering the joy of communicating set it up for me, I think,” he told The New York Times in 1974. “In a very personal way, once I found out I could communicate verbally again, it became a very important thing for me, like making up for lost time, making up for the years that I didn’t speak.”

Mr. Jones as Big Daddy in a 2008 Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams’s “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” With him was Terrence Howard. Credit...Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Mr. Jones enrolled at the University of Michigan on a scholarship, taking pre-med courses, and joined a drama group. With a growing interest in acting, he switched majors and focused on drama in the university’s School of Music, Theater and Dance. In a memoir, he said he left college in 1953 without a degree but resumed studies later to finish his required course work. He received a degree in drama in 1955.

In college, he had also joined the Army under an R.O.T.C. commitment, then washed out of infantry Ranger School. But he did so well in cold-weather training in the Rockies that he considered a military career. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in mid-1953, after the end of the Korean War, and was subsequently promoted to first lieutenant.

In 1955, however, he resigned his commission and moved to New York, determined to be an actor. He lived briefly with his father, whom he had met a few years earlier. Robert Jones had a modest acting career and offered encouragement. James found cheap rooms on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, took odd jobs and studied at the American Theater Wing and Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio.

A Run of Shakespeare

After minor roles in small productions, including three plays in which he performed with his father, he joined Joseph Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival in 1960; over several years he appeared in “Henry V,” “Romeo and Juliet,” “Richard III” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” During a long run as Othello in 1964, he fell in love with Julienne Marie, his Desdemona.

They were married in 1968, but they divorced in 1972. In 1982, he married the actress Cecilia Hart, who had also played Desdemona to one of his Othellos. She died in 2016. They had a son, Flynn Earl Jones, who survives him, along with a brother, Matthew.

In the 1970s and most of the ’80s, Mr. Jones was in constant demand for stage work in New York, films in Hollywood and television roles on both coasts. He took occasional breaks at a desert retreat near Los Angeles and at his home in Pawling, N.Y., in Dutchess County.

Mr. Jones in 2017 when he accepted a special Tony Award for lifetime achievement. Credit...Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

But his long run with “Fences” in 1987 and 1988, including a national tour, proved too taxing. He did not return to Broadway for many years, and made movies almost exclusively. His notable film roles included an oppressed coal miner in John Sayles’s “Matewan” (1987); the king of a fictional African nation in the John Landis comedy “Coming to America” (1988), a role he reprised at 90 in 2021 in “Coming 2 America”; an embittered but resilient writer in the baseball movie “Field of Dreams” (1989); and a South African priest in “Cry, the Beloved Country” (1995).

Mr. Jones received the National Medal of the Arts from President George Bush at the White House in 1992, Kennedy Center honors in 2002, an honorary Oscar in 2011 for lifetime achievement, and in 2017 a special Tony Award for lifetime achievement, as well as an honorary doctor of arts degree from Harvard University.

In 2015, Mr. Jones and Cicely Tyson appeared in a Broadway revival of D.L. Coburn’s 1976 play, “The Gin Game,” portraying residents of a retirement home making nice, and sometimes not so nice, over a card table. For the 84-year-old Mr. Jones, it was, as The Times noted, his sixth Broadway role in the past decade.

In 2022, Broadway’s 110-year-old Cort Theater was renamed the James Earl Jones Theater.

#James Earl Jones #The New York Times #Maya Angelou #Cicely Tyson #Louis Gossett Jr.#Billy Dee Williams #Tonys #Golden Globes #Emmys #Oscar #Jon Favreau #Broadway #George Lucas #Star Wars #Kennedy Center Honors #Honorary Academy Award #Harvard University

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ulkaralakbarova · 5 months ago

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The story of Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple, whose challenge of their anti-miscegenation arrest for their marriage in Virginia led to a legal battle that would end at the US Supreme Court. Credits: TheMovieDb. Film Cast: Richard Loving: Joel Edgerton Mildred Loving: Ruth Negga Grey Villet: Michael Shannon Sheriff Brooks: Marton Csokas Bernie Cohen: Nick Kroll Frank Beazley: Bill Camp Lola Loving: Sharon Blackwood Raymond Green: Alano Miller Garnet Jetter: Terri Abney Judge Bazile: David Jensen Phil Hirschkop: Jon Bass Theoliver Jeter: Christopher Mann Musiel Byrd-Jeter: Winter-Lee Holland Deputy: Michael Abbott Jr. Percy Fortune: Chris Greene Virgil: Will Dalton Chet Antieau: Matt Malloy Laura: Andrene Ward-Hammond Alex: D.L. Hopkins Hope Ryden: Jennifer Joyner Cousin Davis: Lance Lemon Cousin Gerald: Marquis Adonis Hazelwood Older Sydney: Brenan Young Older Donald: Dalyn Cleckley Older Peggy: Quinn McPherson Middle Sidney: Jevin Crochrell Middle Donald: Jordan Williams Jr. Middle Peggy: Georgia Crawford Toddler Sydney: Micah Claiborne Baby Sydney: Devin Cleckley Infant Sydney: Pryor Ferguson Clara – Cashier: Karen Vicks Reporter #1: Scott Wichmann Construction Worker: Benjamin Loeh Court Secretary: Bridget Gethins Store Pedestrian: Mark Huber Drag Race Spectator: James Matthew Poole Secretary: Coley Campany Secretary: Sheri Lahris Construction Worker: Jordan Dickey Telephone Man: Coby Batty Drag Race Spectator / Bar Patron: Chris Condetti Richard’s Racing Crew: Logan J. Woolfolk County Clerk: Robert Haulbrook Bricklayer: Keith Tyree Spectator: James Nevins Prisoner: W. Keith Scott Photojournalist: Tom Lancaster Street Walker: Lonnie M. Henderson Court Audience Member: Brian Thomas Wise Drag Race Spectator: Ken Holliday Antieau’s Secretary: Terry Menefee Gau Driver: Marc Anthony Lowe Racetrack Spectator: Jay SanGiovanni D.C Teen: Tyrell Ford Baby Boy #1: James Atticus Abebayehu Phil’s Dad: Jim D. Johnston …: Derick Newson Boarding House Boy: Miles Hopkins Construction Worker: Kenneth William Clarke Reporter: Robert Furner Secretary: Victoria Chavatel Jimison Field Hand / Drag Strip Attendee / Shot Gun Shack Attendee (uncredited): Darrick Claiborne Courtroom Spectator (uncredited): Raymond H. Johnson Drag Race Driver: Dean Mumford Pregnant Girl: Rebecca Turner Magistrate: Mike Shiflett County Jailer: Greg Cooper Supreme Court Reporter: A. Smith Harrison Press Conference Reporter: Keith Flippen Soundman: Jason Alan Cook Courtroom Spectator (uncredited): Lucas N. Hall Film Crew: Director: Jeff Nichols Editor: Julie Monroe Producer: Peter Saraf Executive Producer: Jack Turner Executive Producer: Jared Ian Goldman Executive Producer: Brian Kavanaugh-Jones Unit Production Manager: Sarah Green Art Direction: Jonathan Guggenheim Casting: Francine Maisler Production Design: Chad Keith Storyboard: Nancy Buirski Associate Producer: Oge Egbuono Producer: Colin Firth Producer: Marc Turtletaub Set Decoration: Adam Willis Producer: Ged Doherty Unit Production Manager: Will Greenfield Costume Design: Erin Benach Music Supervisor: Lauren Mikus Original Music Composer: David Wingo Still Photographer: Ben Rothstein Director of Photography: Adam Stone Script Supervisor: Jean-Paul Chreky Special Effects Coordinator: Gary Pilkinton Special Effects Technician: Trevor Smithson Property Master: A. Patrick Storey First Assistant Director: Cas Donovan Second Assistant Director: Tommy Martin Stunt Driver: Dean Mumford Key Makeup Artist: Katie Middleton Second Second Assistant Director: Ben LeDoux Construction Buyer: Roslyn Blankenship Assistant Property Master: Hannah Ross Dialogue Editor: Brandon Proctor Genetator Operator: Maxwel Fisher Post Production Supervisor: Susan E. Novick Boom Operator: Proctor Trivette Leadman: Stephen G. Shifflette Second Assistant “A” Camera: Stephen McBride Sound Effects Editor: David Grimaldi Foley Mixer: Judy Kirschner Makeup Department Head: Julia Lallas Hairstylist: Brian Morton Sound Effects Editor: Joel Dougherty ADR Mixer: Chris Navarro Sound Effects Editor: P.K. Hooker ...

#biography #civil rights #court #interracial couple #interracial marriage #interracial relationship #Marriage #supreme court #Top Rated Movies #virginia

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47burlm · 1 year ago

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Glory Is One Of The Finest Civil War Films Ever Made

Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, and Morgan Freeman starred in 1989's Glory, about the Union Army's first African American regiment during the Civil War. The film was partially based on the personal letters of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw (Broderick) during the Second Battle of Fort Wagner.

The film earned a 93 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics saying, "Bolstered by exceptional cinematography, powerful storytelling, and an Oscar-winning performance by Denzel Washington, Glory remains one of the finest Civil War movies ever made." American Civil War historian James M. McPherson believes it's one of the most accurate Civil War on-screen depictions.

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#Youtube

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ccandd96 · 14 days ago

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What a perfect book to pick up in time for Christmas! Scars Publications JUST released “the 2025 Flash Fiction Datebook”! This 2024 weekly calendar is a 6"x9" perfect-bound paperback book with writing for every week of the year, chosen from accepted writings in 2024 issues of cc&d magazine and Down in the Dirt magazine. A listing of all the authors and titles of writings is available at Scars online, and this calendar book (with U.S., U.K., and Australia holidays) is now available through Amazon in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., all of Europe, Australia, and Japan! This perfect-bound date book even has the last of 2024 and the beginning of 2026 too, so you won’t miss a beat with this calendar book that’s perfect for not only planning your year but also enjoying good writing year-round!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DP25LT3Y

https://scars.tv/2024collection/the2025Flash_Fiction_Datebook.htm

And for those who are way too curious to wait, contributors to this collection book include Aituamen Justice Eromosele, Allan Onik, Anne McPherson Arthurs, Bakhtiar Ahmed, Bill Tope, Brian Beatty, Brian Hawkins, Cailey Tin, Caitlyn M. Russell, Caitlynn Cole, Calla Gold, Christopher Porter, Christopher Strople, Daniel de Culla, David Sowards, Donald Reed Greenwood, Doug Hawley, Drew Marshall, Edward Michael O’Durr Supranowicz, Elena Botts, George Beckerman, Gil Hoy, Isabel G. de Diego, J.B. Cornelius, Jake C. Elliott, James Bates, Janet Kuypers, Janis Kingsley, Jazmine Walker, Jerry Guarino, Jimmie Perry, Joan Mach, John F. McMullen, John Farquhar Young, John Ragusa, Kassan Jahmal Kassim, Kendra Taylor, KH Smith, Kyle Hemmings, Leigh Doughty, Leila Yandell, Lena Mandel, Marissa McCarthy, Mark Pearce, Mat Waterman, Michael Gigandet, Michael H. Brownstein, Mona Angéline, Natasha Navarra, Pawe? Markiewicz, Rainy Lopez, Sam Ambler, Sean Ryan, Steven Bays, Susan Eve Haar, Susie Gharib, T. A. Seward, Tallulah Stone, Thomas Elson, Vahida Berberovic, W.L. Peterson, Wandy Taylor, and Westley Heine.

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if-you-fan-a-fire · 1 year ago

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"YOUTHS GET STIFF TERMS," Victoria Daily Times. August 5, 1933. Page 1 & 2. ---- MacNaughton and Watkins Go to Penitentiary For Four Years on Drug Counts ---- Davies Given Three Months; Sentences Climax Series of Burglaries ---- James E. MacNaughton and William Watkins, two of the trio of youths charged by the police with perpetrating a series of burglaries here since the latter part of July, were each sentenced in the City Police Court by Magistrate Jay to four years in the penitentiary. along with a fine of $500. If the fines are not paid they will each spend an additional six months in the penitentiary.

The heavy sentence was imposed by the magistrate because their burglar- les of doctors' offices and a drug store had yielded them a large quantity of heroin, morphine and cocaine.

Detective Fearon Woodburn told the court before the magistrate passed sentence that MacNaughton had admitted he was a drug user, and that he had used some of the drugs that had been stolen here before the police captured them.

"The charge of having drugs such as morphine, cocaine and heroin in your case is aggravated by the fact of you having stolen them in large quanti- ties," said the magistrate to Mac- Naughton and Watkins,

For the burglaries of the Begg Motor Company, and the offices of Dr. M. J. Keys and Dr. Thomas McPherson, the magistrate imposed a sentence of four years. For the robbery of the grocery store of James Adam a sentence of three months was imposed. However. the two latter sentences of four years and three months will not add to the penitentiary term, as they are to run concurrently, the magistrate stipulated. This makes the total sentence four years and six months, if the $500 fines are not paid. DAVIES GETS HORT TERM To the third of the trio, Frank Davies, the magistrate handed a sentence of three months. He said that Davies had been proved guilty only on the charge in connection with the burglary of Adam's store, and as the value of the goods stolen was under $25 it was rated only as a minor offence with the penalty in proportion.

Detective Woodburn showed the court the quantity of high-powered narcotic drugs that had been found in the possession of the young men when the police at 2 o'clock in the morning invaded the house at 478 Earsman Street, in which they were staying.The collection included sixty-eight vials of these drugs in a case, four bottles of heroin, and various bottles of morphine tablets. These had been taken from the doctors' offices and from Jeanneret's drug store. Quantities of powders and vanity accessories in packages were among the drug store goods also found in the young men's possession.

Watkins at first pleaded not guilty. but on Friday changed his plea to guilty.

The police informed the court that $15 in cash was found in MacNaughton's pockets when he was searched. It was explained that 89 in cash had been taken from Jeanneret's drug store and $7.50 from Dr. McPherson's office. The magistrate ordered the cash recovered to be divided between the two as it was undoubtedly part of the cash stolen.

CAREER ENDS HERE The sentencing of the three here today climaxes the venture to the Coast upon which they set out a few weeks ago from Winnipeg, where they had associated at "Mike's" rooming house, and where MacNaughton admitted he had been convicted of thieving and was sentenced to two years.

MacNaughton, under examination by Prosecutor C. L. Harrison, told the court how the three had beaten their way to the Coast on freight trains, sending their suit cases and club bags ahead of them by express from town to town. They stopped at hotels in the various cities on the way across to Vancouver. When they reached Victoria they established themselves in the Earsman Street house of a sister of one of the trio, who had left town on a vacation. It was there that the detectives discovered the loot from the series of Victoria burglaries, following the capture of MacNaughton early last Sunday morning as he was leaving Dr. Keys's office by George Hawes and Stanley Weston, janitor at the Pemberton Building.

#victoria #burglary #burglars #sentenced to prison #oakalla prison #stolen narcotics #illegal possession of narcotics #heroin #great depression in canada #crime and punishment in canada #history of crime and punishment in canada #cocaine #doctor's office #sentenced to the penitentiary #british columbia penitentiary

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lightdancer1 · 1 year ago

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Out of all the volumes this one, the one after it, and the one from 1945-1975 are my favorites:

It is seldom that a book written in the 1980s, and even more seldom that a book written by a white man in those years could have been expected to hold up to all the shifts in social and cultural history and the rise of critical race theory and other academic perspectives that subjected society to scrutiny at an official level it had never really had before. And yet, in spite of things that might seem otherwise to universally damn some things because, and rightfully so, expectations are higher and people who could have tried didn't even bother.....James McPherson's book does hold up.

It does help that McPherson was one of the first revisionists to not merely push back against the Dunning School in the war and in the Reconstruction Era along with Foner, but he pushed much more deeply into aspects of the war. As such this book stands excellently on its own, as a rightful masterpiece of history. It does so along with the volume after it and the volume before it, though this is not universally true of all of them.

It also places great emphasis on the maneuvers of corps and divisions because at the end of the day the Confederacy had just enough power to sustain a relentless and bloody war for four years of unconstrained horror, after 12 years of increasingly vicious terrorism masquerading as politics that preceded it. The old questions of 'why did the USA win against the Confederacy' do have counterexamples in George Washington and North Vietnam (for extra irony) overseeing successful wars against much greater powers. In the case of North Vietnam winning three wars, no less.

The Confederacy, with 11 states with the equivalent landmass of the old Russian Empire's European territories, the relatively simpler task of defending that huge landmass, and with the army that was capable of winning the war quickly under the hands of its best general, signally failed. A simple reason for this is simply that the cultural elements that sustained the Slave Power made for great and willful violence and a refusal to obey orders of the kind that makes for good battle-fighters at a gruesome cost.....but does not grant the power to sustain wars.

The US Army outside Virginia ultimately was reliably victorious save at Chickamauga in all theaters. The fighting was hard and brutal but it was victorious all the same. Only in Virginia did the campaigns of Lee partially interrupt this at a cost that led to one in four Confederate soldiers dying to get Lee his bloody victories and to hold the bloodier stalemate from the Wilderness to Five Forks.

The costs of that four years marked the collapse of the old order, one brought by the leaders of that order entirely on themselves and one that they never accepted nor forgave. The gaps between that, between the horrors of war and the ultimate dismal legacies of defeat, and what liberty meant in a newer and more optimistic view on the part of the victors, white and Black, and the unrepentant attitudes of the defeated would be worked out in an era whose division is ultimately artificial, if kept here because this is one volume of many in a history that already spanned the gap from 1848 to 1865.

10/10.

#lightdancer comments on history #book reviews #oxford history of the united states #war of the rebellion #battle cry of freedom

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almackey · 1 year ago

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Battle of Chancellorsville

Here’s a discussion of the battle of Chancellorsville with Harold Holzer, Professor James M. McPherson, and Professor John Marszalek. The video’s description reads, “Historians talked about the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863, considered to be General Robert E. Lee’s greatest victory. Initially, Union General Joseph Hooker planned to envelop the Confederate Army, but chose to retreat instead,…

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hauntedavenuetidalwave-blog · 1 year ago

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Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’”

Abraham Lincoln

“The Civil War mobilized human resources on a scale unmatched by any other event in American history except, perhaps, World War II. For actual combat duty the Civil War mustered a considerably larger proportion of American manpower than did World War II.”

James Macpherson

"There is a big idea which is at stake"--Corporal in the 105th Ohio, 1864

“Lincoln's significance lies in his not hesitating before the most severe means, once they were found to be necessary, in achieving a great historic aim posed by the development of a young nation.”

― Leon Trotsky, Their Morals and Ours

Lincoln is not the product of a popular revolution. This plebeian, who worked his way up from stone-breaker to Senator in Illinois, without intellectual brilliance, without a particularly outstanding character, without exceptional importance—an average person of goodwill, was placed at the top by the interplay of the forces of universal suffrage unaware of the great issues at stake. The new world has never achieved a greater triumph than by this demonstration that, given its political and social organization, ordinary people of good will can accomplish feats which only heroes could accomplish in the old world.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 41 (New York: International Publishers, 1985),

Drawn With the Sword is an excellent work of historical study and contemplation. It is a book of the highest historical standard. It is not one continuous book but a collection of 15 essays on different topics. They examine various subjects ranging from the causes of the war to how the South almost won and why the war still resonates today. Fourteen of the essays were previously published but were revised for this edition. The only new article is “What’s The Matter With History?”

Throughout his career, McPherson has sought to explain complex historical issues in a way that the general reader can understand without dumbing down the history for his more academically minded readers. His essays in the book are a critical reexamination of issues that are still contentious today. For the majority of his career, Professor McPherson has argued that the American Civil War was a revolutionary struggle for equality and democracy and still to this day defends that viewpoint. Macpherson is a serious historian who has played an objectively significant role in the social life of America and beyond and is the very embodiment of historical memory.

The Marxist writer David Walsh explains how Macpherson has maintained his historical principles. He writes, “How has he retained his principles in the intervening years when so many have not? This is also a complex matter. I think that in any serious figure, historian, artist or political leader, the principle is not simply a matter of certain intellectual formulations that rest on top, so to speak, of one's personality. It is more a matter of the coming together of various powerful social and cultural currents at a critical moment in one's life so that the most positive external influences and what is best in oneself are heated in a crucible, fuse and become one. One can retain principles across time and in the face of all sorts of opposition and setbacks because they are embedded in some part of consciousness that is not susceptible to shifts in the popular mood. One knows with one's entire being certain things to be true, they are not up for debate, much less sale.”[1]

Perhaps the best essay of James M. McPherson's Drawn with the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War is entitled "Historians and Their Audiences," McPherson poses the question, "What's the matter with history?"

This chapter sums up concisely Macpherson’s historical philosophy. His purpose while writing scholarly books is to appeal to a wider reading audience while maintaining historical standards. This complex problem is not new. The prominent historian Allen Nevins[2] attacked the academics who wrote for themselves, “His touch is death. He destroys the public for historical work by convincing it that history is synonymous with heavy, stolid prosing. Indeed, he is responsible for today a host of intelligent and highly literate Americans who will open a history book only with reluctant dread. It is against this entrenched pedantry that the war of true history must be most determined and implacable.”

Macpherson addresses this theme of engaging the general public and raising their historical consciousness throughout the book. In the chapter entitled "The Glory Story." Thomas R Turner relates, “To many people, books are hopelessly irrelevant because far more Americans today get their history from watching movies than reading. However, suppose they receive their notions about African American soldiers and the 54th Massachusetts Regiment from the movie Glory. In that case, he believes they are receiving information from a credible source. He calls the combat footage in Glory the most realistic of any film dealing with the Civil War.”[3]

The legendary 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, led by abolitionist Robert Gould Shaw, was the second all-black regiment organized in the Civil War. Reactionary Protesters have objected that the 54th, famously depicted in the film Glory (1989), have a monument erected to Shaw and his regiment. Because it was commanded by a white officer, Shaw, Holland Cotter, the New York Times’s co-chief art critic, slandered the monument and labelled Shaw a “white supremacist”.

One of the more remarkable essays is “The War That Never Goes Away.” Macpherson correctly believes that the war, right or wrong has an “enduring fascination” with the American and world public.McPherson points to what he holds to be the reason for this fascination is that “Great issues were at stake, issues about which Americans were willing to fight and die; issues whose resolution profoundly transformed and redefined the United States but at the same time are still alive and contested today.”

Macpherson’s defence of Abraham Lincoln in the book is laudable. McPherson argues convincingly that Lincoln was the key figure in the struggle against slavery. Macpherson’s stance on Lincoln has come under sustained attack. One hundred fifty-five years after the first assassination, Lincoln is facing a second. Race-fixated protesters like Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington DC’s nonvoting delegate to Congress, have moved to introduce a bill to remove the famous Emancipation Monument from Lincoln Park in Washington, DC.

As David North writes, “Abraham Lincoln was an extraordinarily complex man, whose life and politics reflected the contradictions of his time. He could not, as he once stated, “escape history.” Determined to save the Union, he was driven by the logic of the bloody civil war to resort to revolutionary measures. During the brutal struggle, Lincoln expressed the revolutionary-democratic aspirations that inspired hundreds of thousands of Americans to fight and sacrifice their lives for a “new birth of freedom.”[4]

In the chapter "Why Did the Confederacy Lose?" he examines the political and economic reasons behind the South’s devastating defeat. He writes, “Altogether nearly 4 per cent of the Southern people, black and white, civilians and soldiers, died due to the war. This percentage exceeded the human cost of any country in World War I and was outstripped only by the region between the Rhine and the Volga in World War II. The amount of property and resources destroyed in the Confederate States is almost incalculable. It has been estimated at two-thirds of all assessed wealth, including the market value of slaves.”[5]

As David Walsh points out, “To establish an accurate picture of the Civil War era, he (Macpherson) has been obliged to polemicize against various schools of historians. In Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution, for example, he argues persuasively based on economic statistics that the conception of Louis Gerteis and others that the Civil War and Reconstruction produced “no fundamental changes” in the forms of economic and social organization in the South is wrong. In the same work, he also counters the arguments of historians such as James G. Randall and T. Harry Williams, who have asserted that Lincoln was essentially a political conservative and an enemy of social revolution.”[6]

Perhaps James Macpherson’s most important struggle has been to defend his historical principles against the method that looks at history through the prism of race. Macpherson opposes the “fashionable practice of condemning all whites as racists.”

To his eternal credit, Macpherson collaborated with the World Socialist Website(WSWS.ORG) attack on the falsification of history by the New York Times 1619 Project. In an interview with Macpherson, The WSWS asked him about his initial reaction to the 1619 Project.

He answered Well, I didn’t know anything about it until I got my Sunday paper, with the magazine section entirely devoted to the 1619 Project. Because this is a subject I’ve long been interested in, I sat down and started to read some of the essays. I’d say that, almost from the outset, I was disturbed by what seemed like a very unbalanced, one-sided account, which lacked context and perspective on the complexity of slavery, which was clearly not an exclusively American institution but existed throughout history. And slavery in the United States was only a small part of a larger world process that unfolded over many centuries. And in the United States, too, there was not only slavery but also an antislavery movement. So I thought the account emphasized American racism—a major part of the history, no question about it—but it focused so narrowly on that part of the story that it left most of the history out.”

According to David North and Thomas Mackaman, The New York Times 1619 Project was a politically-motivated falsification of history and presented the origins of the United States entirely through the prism of racial conflict. They make this point in their book: “Despite the pretence of establishing the United States’ “true” foundation, the 1619 Project is a politically motivated falsification of history. Its aim is to create a historical narrative that legitimizes the effort of the Democratic Party to construct an electoral coalition based on prioritizing personal “identities”—i.e., gender, sexual preference, ethnicity, and, above all, race.”[7]

There is much to admire in the work of this outstanding Civil War historian. Macpherson writes engagingly and explains complex historical issues in a way that the general reader can take in, encouraging his readers to see history in a new light.

[1] https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/1999/05/mcin-m18.html

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Nevins

[3] Drawn with the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War, by James M. McPherson

Thomas R Turner Volume 18, Issue 2, Summer 1997, pp. 47-54

[4] Racial-communalist politics and the second assassination of Abraham Lincoln- https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/06/25/pers-j24.html

[5] Drawn with the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War

By James M. McPherson

[6] An exchange with a Civil War historian- https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/1999/05/mcp2-m19.html

[7] The New York Times’s 1619 Project: A racialist falsification of American and world history- https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/09/06/1619-s06.html

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jamesscottbrownfoundation · 2 years ago

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Join the Fight Against Child Abuse: Here’s What You Can Do

by James Scott Brown Foundation

Abstract:

Child abuse, a pervasive global issue, necessitates collective action to mitigate its devastating consequences. Drawing from expertise in child abuse, trauma, and exploitation, as well as academic research, this article presents five actionable strategies that individuals can employ to combat child maltreatment. Through involvement and informed action, each person can contribute to the fight against child abuse.

Educate Yourself and Others:

Acquire a comprehensive understanding of child abuse, its indicators, and ramifications. Disseminate this knowledge within your social networks, fostering informed discussions and raising awareness (Sedlak et al., 2010).

2. Recognize the Signs:

Familiarize yourself with the common signs of child maltreatment, such as unexplained injuries, sudden behavioral changes, or neglectful appearance. Early detection can facilitate intervention and prevent further harm (Gilbert et al., 2009).

3. Report Suspected Abuse:

If you suspect a child may be experiencing maltreatment, promptly report your concerns to local child protection authorities or designated helplines. Timely reporting enables professionals to assess the situation and intervene as necessary (Mathews & Bross, 2014).

4. Support and Volunteer with Local Organizations:

Engage with organizations dedicated to preventing child abuse and supporting affected children. Offer financial assistance or volunteer your time and skills, thereby augmenting their capacity to enact positive change (Stoltenborgh et al., 2011).

5. Advocate for Policy Change:

Lobby for the implementation of comprehensive child protection policies and legislation at local and national levels. Advocacy efforts can contribute to the adoption of more effective measures to address child abuse and its underlying causes (Sedlak et al., 2010).

Conclusion:

The responsibility to combat child abuse lies with each individual. By embracing the strategies delineated above, every person can contribute to the prevention of maltreatment and the support of affected children. Through collective action, meaningful progress can be made in the fight against child abuse.

References:

Gilbert, R., Widom, C. S., Browne, K., Fergusson, D., Webb, E., & Janson, S. (2009). Burden and consequences of child maltreatment in high-income countries. The Lancet, 373(9657), 68–81.

Mathews, B., & Bross, D. C. (2014). Mandatory reporting laws and the identification of severe child abuse and neglect. Springer Netherlands.

Sedlak, A. J., Mettenburg, J., Basena, M., Petta, I., McPherson, K., & Greene, A. (2010). Fourth National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (NIS-4): Report to Congress. Washington, DC: US Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families.

Stoltenborgh, M., van IJzendoorn, M. H., Euser, E. M., & Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J. (2011). A global perspective on child sexual abuse: Meta-analysis of prevalence around the world. Child Maltreatment, 16(2), 79–101.

Read more at the James Scott Brown Foundation.

#james scott brown foundation #jsbfoundation

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thehistoriansmanifesto · 2 years ago

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Review of The War that Forged a Nation: Why the Civil War Still Matters, by James M. McPherson

There seems to be no end to writing about the Civil War. Although thousands of volumes have been published over more than a century and a half and seemingly every major event thoroughly investigated, we continue to want to learn more about the conflict and historians continue to debate the many ways it influenced American history. It seems surprising, then, that on occasion we as Americans seem…

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atletasudando · 2 years ago

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Los velocistas sobresalen en Guyana

Informe: A. Hutson /AA Guyana Las actuaciones de los velocistas fueron las más salientes del tercer torneo de desarrollo del 2023 desarrollado en la pista sintética de Leonora, este 4 de marzo, como preparación del atletismo de Guyana hacia los próximos compromisos internacionales. En el sector femenino se destacó Keliza Smith (FOTO) quien transitando en su primera temporada en mayores, ganó en 100 metros con 11.61 y en 200 con 24.48. En el hectómetro fue escoltada por Athaley Hnckson (clase 2008) quien marcó 11.91, mientras que en 200 el segundo puesto fue para Tianna Springer (clase 2007) con 24.87. Springer, además, se impuso en 400 con 54.68, delante de Naris McPherson (2006) con 54.73. Otra figura en damas fue Ruth Sanmoogan quien, tras su tercer puesto en los 100 metros con 11.97, se adjudicó el salto en largo con 6.14 m. En la final masculina de los 100 metros, Noelex Holder marcó 10.30y luego llegó el juvenil Ezekiel Newton con 10.46, con Stephon Boodie en el tercer puesto con 10.69. Sobre 200 metros, quedaron adelante los juveniles Omar James con 21.69, Jahel Cornette con 21.88 y Malachi Austin con 21.92. Read the full article

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apilgrimpassingby · 2 years ago

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Reading about the rise of the industrial economy in James M. McPherson's book "Battle Cry of Freedom" (as an explanation of how America ended up divided over slavery, sparking the Civil War eventually) shaped many of political and economic views, but the relevant bit is this.

You hear a lot about how Prohibition was a failure. But very rarely about how the temperance movement, the precursor to Prohibition, was a massive success. You'll often hear quoted online how, in 1820, the mean annual consumption of hard liquor by American adults was 7 gallons, but you don't hear how, by 1850, that figure had fallen to about 2 gallons - and most of that two gallons was consumed by German and Irish immigrants for whom beer gardens and pubs were core parts of their culture.

As a rule, top-down cultural change will fail. If you want to change society, start by campaigning from the bottom and legislation will either follow or be unnecessary.

"Liberty is not an end, but a means. Whoever mistakes it for an end does not know what to do once he attains it."

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deadpresidents · 4 years ago

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What are the best books on the Confederate government/government figures? I don’t really want to read Jefferson Davis’ apologies.

I’m glad you specified Confederate government or government officials because list would be endless if we included Confederate generals or military leaders!

•Look Away!: A History of the Confederate States of America by William C. Davis (Free Press/2002/BOOK | KINDLE): You’re going to see the name of William C. Davis a few times on the list. In my opinion, he’s the preeminent historian of the Confederacy and he’s certainly no apologist. This book primarily focuses on the formation of the Confederacy and its government throughout its brief history rather than the battles and military history that dominate so many Civil War books.

•An Honorable Defeat: The Last Days of the Confederate Government by William C. Davis (Harcourt/2002/BOOK): A riveting account of the hectic collapse of the Confederacy after Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox and the fall of Richmond as the remnants of the Confederate government fled to the South in a desperate attempt to avoid Union troops and possibly continue the fight in the West.

•April 1865: The Month That Saved America by Jay Winik (Harper Perennial/2006/BOOK | KINDLE): This book doesn’t focus just on the Confederacy, but it’s worth including because it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read. Winik also tells the story of the last days of the Confederacy and fall of Richmond, but also writes about everything else that happened in what was probably the most eventful month in American history: Lee surrenders to Grant at Appomattox, the nation celebrates the end of the Civil War, Lincoln is assassinated, the nation mourns Lincoln as his funeral train passes through much of the Union, there’s a manhunt underway for John Wilkes Booth, there’s a manhunt under way for Jefferson Davis and other Confederate leaders, and more. And Winik writes about it all like a novel. An incredible book.

•Bloody Crimes: The Funeral of Abraham Lincoln and the Chase for Jefferson Davis by James L. Swanson (William Morrow/2011/BOOK | KINDLE): Another book that doesn’t solely focus on the Confederacy, but it ties in with the events of April 1865 and is a compelling read. Swanson’s previous book, Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer (William Morrow/2007/BOOK | KINDLE), is also a must-read.

•Jefferson Davis, American by William J. Cooper, Jr. (Vintage/2001/BOOK | KINDLE) and Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour by William C. Davis (HarperCollins/1991/BOOK | KINDLE): In my opinion, these are the two best single-volume biographies ever published on Davis, and you can’t really go wrong with either of them. If I had to choose one, I’d pick Cooper’s book, but these are both definitive biographies of the Confederate President. Fair, critical, expertly-researched, and well written, you won’t find any of the hagiography sometimes found in books about Davis, particularly by Southern writers. What I really appreciate about these two books is that they tell Jefferson Davis’s entire life story. Obviously, the most important part of Davis’s history was his role as a leading defender of slavery through his leadership of the secessionist movement and Confederacy. But he also had an impressive career in the military and public service that would be worth exploring even if he had lived in different times. Davis was arguably the most effective Secretary of War in American history, a leading member of Congress, and one of the most influential people involved in the construction of the U.S. Capitol building. Both of these biographies tell the whole story of Jefferson Davis, and are both worthy of your time.

•Embattled Rebel: Jefferson Davis as Commander in Chief by James M. McPherson (Penguin Press/2014/BOOK | KINDLE): While the previous two books are comprehensive biographies of Jefferson Davis’s life, this book, written by one of the most accomplished Civil War historians of all-time, focuses primarily on the performance of Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederacy and Commander-in-Chief of Confederate military forces. What really adds to this book’s impact is the fact that it can be seen as a companion piece to the a similar book that McPherson wrote about Davis’s Civil War opponent -- Tried By War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief (Penguin Press/2008/BOOK | KINDLE).

•Breckinridge: Statesman, Soldier, Symbol by William C. Davis (University Press of Kentucky/2010/BOOK): Breckinridge spent most of the Civil War commanding troops as a Confederate General, but I’m including this book about him because he was a fascinating figure and this biography is another great work by William C. Davis. Breckinridge is still the youngest person to ever serve as Vice President of the United States. At 36 years old when he was sworn in as President’s Buchanan’s VP, he was barely older than the Constitutional requirement for holding the office. In 1860, he was one of the four candidates for President who received Electoral votes and came in second place behind Abraham Lincoln. In the final months of the Civil War, Confederate President Davis appointed Breckinridge as the Confederate Secretary of War in hopes that having an effective administrator at his side in Richmond might help salvage what was left of Confederate forces, but it was too little, too late. After the fall of Richmond and the dissolution of the Confederate government, Breckinridge made a harrowing escape which included hijacking a boat and sailing to Cuba to begin his exile. It’s a remarkable, little-remembered story that I definitely suggest checking out.

•The Cause Lost: Myths and Realities of the Confederacy by William C. Davis (University Press of Kansas/1996/BOOK | KINDLE): It’s only fitting that I end this list with one more book by William C. Davis. You won’t find any apologist arguments in this book. In fact, you’ll find all the arguments you need to shut down anyone who tries to claim that the Civil War wasn’t about slavery. This isn’t a very long book, but Davis clears up many of the misconceptions, misunderstandings, and misdirection that many people have tried to use to justify secession and the Civil War.

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