#University of North Carolina Board of Governors

[reportwire]

DEI Legislation Tracker

The Chronicle is tracking legislation that would prohibit colleges from having diversity, equity, and inclusion offices or staff; ban mandatory diversity training; prohibit institutions from using diversity statements in hiring and promotion; or prohibit colleges from using race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in admissions or employment. All four proscriptions were identified in model…

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Robert Reich:

Friends, Mark Robinson, the GOP gubernatorial candidate in North Carolina and current lieutenant governor, is in trouble again. Not just because Robinson has referred to himself as a “black NAZI” and a “perv,” expressed support for reinstating slavery, said he watched transgender pornography, called homosexuality “filth” and the Holocaust “hogwash,” and has asserted that “some folks need killing.” He’s in trouble now because he blew off a vote on a declaration that would have granted Governor Roy Cooper key emergency powers ahead of Hurricane Helene’s landfall. Robinson was the only member on the Council of State — a board of nine — who didn’t vote in favor of the declaration. Cooper got the power he needed, but Robinson is now criticizing him for not doing more in the wake of the storm.

Yet Robinson still commands the support of 63 percent of Republicans in North Carolina, according to an East Carolina University poll released Wednesday. Something seriously troubling has happened to the Republican Party. It’s become filled with wacko candidates for office who are being supported by large percentages of Republican voters. The trend started in the 1980s with Rush Limbaugh’s radio program, which attracted a wide audience with a toxic mixture of lies, conspiracy theories, fear-mongering, and thinly veiled racism. It accelerated in 1996 when Rupert Murdoch hired Roger Ailes to emulate Limbaugh with a new TV channel, Fox News. Additional media imitators followed.

The growing supply of this poison offered the (predominantly) white working-class an easy explanation for why the wages and status of many blue-collar men had hit the skids: They could blame immigrants, Black people, Latinos, “coastal elites,” government bureaucrats, pedophiles, women, secularists, Muslims, liberals, Democrats, and Satan. In the 1990s, Newt Gingrich saw an opportunity to build the Republican Party around similar lies and conspiracy theories. Gingrich’s efforts attracted the first group of modern crackpot candidates into the GOP.

Starting in 2016, Trump attracted another group, even wackier than the previous one. It’s become a doom loop. As both the demand and the supply of these lies, conspiracy theories, fear-mongering, and racism have grown, the Republican Party’s base has ventured farther from reality. Meanwhile, sane Republicans have left, reasonable people have drifted away, and normal Republican officials have been purged or voted out. If Trump loses the 2024 election, the Republican Party won’t change, because its base is filled with this poison. So it will continue to attract more crackpot candidates loaded with even more venom; it will nominate them, and some of them will win. In the current election cycle, the poison doesn’t begin or end with Trump. It includes a Republican vice presidential candidate who calls women who choose not to have children “childless cat ladies,” claims Haitian immigrants are eating people’s pets, won’t concede that Trump lost the 2020 election, and won’t commit to be bound by the outcome of the 2024 election.

[...] You see the problem. When the base of one of our two political parties both fuels and is fueled by crackpots, some of those crackpots get elected. The only way forward is with an entirely new Republican Party that rejects and detoxifies the old one and puts an end to this doom loop. Will Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney, and some as yet unknown young politicians lead the way?

Robert Reich has an excellent explainer in his Substack on how the GOP became the home of conspiracy theories of all stripes and where such thought is rewarded.

[beardedmrbean]

UNC Charlotte announced sweeping changes to its diversity, equity and inclusion programming Thursday, including eliminating three offices.

The school’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion, Office of Identity, Equity and Engagement and the Office of Academic Diversity and Inclusion all closed as part of the move— though university officials say no one was laid off as a result. Instead, 11 employees were reassigned to new positions.

The shift comes after the University of North Carolina System in May repealed its diversity, equity and inclusion policy, when all but two members of the UNC system board of governors voted to roll back the policy originally adopted in 2019.

What is DEI?

Attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, often referred to simply as “DEI,” began gaining traction in early 2023. Conservative politicians targeted policies intended to attract and retain candidates of color at universities, corporations and government agencies. Since then, 85 anti-DEI bills geared toward programs at colleges have been introduced in 28 states, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

While proponents of DEI programs say they’re a strategy to correct injustices from decades of exclusionary practices, opponents say they’re discriminatory toward white Americans and violate the First Amendment.

UNC System President Peter Hans said the change was motivated by the university’s duty to remain neutral on political matters.

“We have well-established laws and policies that prohibit discrimination, protect equal opportunity, and require a safe and supportive learning environment for all students,” Hans said in a written statement this May. “We will continue to uphold those responsibilities.”

What will changes look like at UNC Charlotte?

The UNC system’s previous policy required the employment of a diversity and inclusion officer at each of the system’s 17 schools and the creation of a UNC system diversity and inclusion council. It’s been replaced with a new one titled “Equality Within the University of North Carolina.”

The new policy “requires offices and positions at all System institutions to comply with institutional neutrality, refrain from compelling others’ speech and refrain from promoting political or social concepts through training or required beliefs,” UNC Charlotte Provost Jennifer Troyer and Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Kevin Bailey wrote in a letter to students and faculty Thursday. “Specifically, it does not allow any institution in the System to have offices that focus on diversity, equity and inclusion.”

According to the new policy, the university may not promote a particular set of concepts related to race and sex nor include them in any types of training for employees.

The new policy still allows faculty full discretion in decisions around research design and course material.

Students and student organizations still are allowed to engage in political and social advocacy as long as they do not speak on behalf of the university.

“UNC Charlotte is committed to creating a culture of belonging for everyone, from every background and identity,” a university spokesperson wrote in a statement to The Observer. “The university’s care and concern for its students is unchanged, as are student organizations, which help students build community and identity with others.”

Money previously allocated to diversity, equity and inclusion will now be diverted to “student success,” which includes improving graduation rates, degree efficiency and student mental health and well-being. The university will continue to permit identity-based mentoring, programming and support as long as they align with student success initiatives.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

[Daily Don]

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

AUG 30, 2023

Four days ago, on Saturday, August 26, in the early afternoon, a heavily armed, 21-year-old white supremacist in a tactical vest and mask, who had written a number of racist manifestos and had swastikas painted on his rifle, murdered three Black Americans at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida. He had apparently intended to attack Edward Waters University, a historically Black institution, but students who saw him put on tactical gear warned a security guard, who chased him off and alerted a sheriff’s deputy. 

As David Kurtz of Talking Points Memo put it two days later, “America is living through a reign of white supremacist terror,” and in a speech to the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law on Monday, President Joe Biden reminded listeners that “the U.S. intelligence community has determined that domestic terrorism, rooted in white supremacy, is the greatest terrorist threat we face in the homeland—the greatest threat.” 

Biden said he has made it a point to make “clear that America is the most multiracial, most dynamic nation in the history of the world.” He noted that he had nominated the first Black woman, Ketanji Brown Jackson, for the Supreme Court and has put more Black women on the federal circuit courts than every other U.S. president combined. Under him, Congress has protected interracial and same-sex marriages, and his administration has more women than men. He warned that “hate never dies. It just hides.”   

But in his Editorial Board newsletter, John Stoehr pointed out that the increasing violence of white supremacists isn’t just about an “ideology of hate” rising, but it is “about a minority faction of the country going to war, literal war, with a majority faction.” He pointed to former governor of Alaska Sarah Palin’s recent prediction of civil war because “We’re not going to keep putting up with this…. We do need to rise up and take our country back.” Stoehr calls these white supremacists “Realamericans” who believe they should rule and, if they can’t do so lawfully, believe they are justified in taking the law into their own hands. 

Indeed, today’s white supremacist violence has everything to do with the 1965 Voting Rights Act that protected the right to vote guaranteed by the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1870 after white supremacists refused to recognize the right of Black Americans to vote and hold office. Minority voting means a government—and a country—that white men don’t dominate.

In the 1870s, once the federal government began to prosecute those white men attacking their Black neighbors for exercising their right to vote, white supremacists immediately began to say that they had no issues with Black voting on grounds of race. Their issue, they said, was that Black men were poor, and they were voting for lawmakers—some Black but primarily white—who supported the construction of roads, schools, hospitals, and so on. While these investments were crucial in the devastated South and would help white Americans as well as Black ones, white supremacists insisted that such government action redistributed wealth from white people to Black people and thus was a form of socialism. 

It was a short step from this argument to insisting that Black men shouldn’t vote because they were “corrupting” the American system. By 1876, former Confederates had regained control of southern state legislatures, where they rewrote voting laws to exclude Black men and people of color on grounds other than that of race, which the Fifteenth Amendment had made unconstitutional. 

By the end of the nineteenth century, white southerners greeted any attempt to protect Black voting as an attempt to destroy true America. Finally, in North Carolina in 1898, Democrats recognized they were losing ground to a biracial fusion ticket of Republicans and Populists who promised economic and political reforms. Before that year’s election, white Democratic leaders ran a viciously racist campaign to fire up their white base. “It is time for the oft quoted shotgun to play a part, and an active one,” one woman wrote, ”in the elections.”

Blocking Fusion voters from the polls and threatening them with guns gave the Democrats a victory, but in Wilmington the biracial city government had not been up for reelection and so remained in power. Vigilantes said they would never again be ruled by Black men and their unscrupulous white allies who intended to “dominate the intelligent and thrifty element in the community.” They destroyed Black businesses and property and killed as many as 300 Black Americans, then portrayed themselves as reluctant victims who had been obliged to remove inefficient and stupid officials before they reduced the city to further chaos. 

In 2005, white supremacists in North Carolina echoed this version of the Wilmington coup, claiming it was a natural reaction to “oppressive radical social policies” and a “carnival of corruption and criminality” by their opponents, who used the votes of ignorant Black men to stay in power.  

That echo is no accident. The 1965 Voting Rights Act ended the power of white supremacists in the Democratic Party once and for all, and they switched to the Republicans. Then-Democratic South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond had launched the longest filibuster in U.S. history to try to stop the 1957 Civil Rights Act; Republican candidate Richard Nixon deliberately courted him and those who thought like him in 1968.

Republicans adopted the same pattern Democrats had used in the late nineteenth century, claiming their concerns were about taxes and government corruption, pushing voter suppression legislation by insisting they cared about “voter fraud,” insisting their opponents were un-American socialists attempting to overthrow a fairly-elected government. 

This political side of white supremacy is all around us. As Democracy Docket put it last month, “Republicans have a math problem, and they know it. Regardless of their candidate, it is nearly certain that more people will vote to reelect Joe Biden than his [Republican] opponent.” After all, Democrats have won the popular vote since 2008. Under these circumstances and unwilling to moderate their platform, “Republicans need to make it harder to vote and easier to cheat.” 

Republican-dominated state legislatures are working to make it as hard as possible for minorities and younger Americans to vote, while also pushing the election denier movement to undermine the counting and certification of election results. At the same time, eight Republican-dominated states have left the nonpartisan Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a compact between the states that makes it easier to share voter information to avoid duplicate registration and voting, and three more are considering leaving. 

In a special session of the Tennessee legislature this week, Republican lawmakers blocked the public from holding signs (a judge blocked the rule), kicked the public out of a hearing, and passed new rules that could prohibit Democrats from speaking. House speaker Cameron Sexton silenced young Black Democratic representative Justin Jones for a day and today suggested the Republicans might make the rule silencing minority members permanent.

In Wisconsin, where one of the nation’s most extreme gerrymanders gives Republicans dominance in the legislature, Republicans in 2018 stripped Democratic governor-elect Tony Evers of power before they left office, and now right-wing Chief Justice Annette Ziegler has told the liberal majority on the state supreme court that it is staging a “coup” by exercising their new power after voters elected Justice Janet Protasiewicz to the court by a large majority in April. Now the legislature is talking about keeping the majority from getting rid of the gerrymandered maps by impeaching Protasiewicz.  

The courts are trying to hold the line against this movement. In Washington, D.C., today, U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell decided in favor of Black election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, who claimed that Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani defamed them when he claimed they had committed voter fraud. Not only did Howell award the two women court costs and damages, she called out Giuliani and his associates for trying to keep their records hidden. 

But as the courts are trying to hold the line, its supporters are targeting the courts themselves, with MAGA Republicans threatening to defund state and federal prosecutors they claim are targeting Republicans, and announcing their intention to gather the power of the Department of Justice into their own hands should they win office in 2024. 

After pushing a social studies curriculum that erases Black agency and resistance to white supremacy, Florida governor Ron DeSantis on Monday suggested the Jacksonville shooting was an isolated incident. 

The Black audience booed. 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[marta-bee]

I know I'm harping on a lot about US politics and voting in particular. Bear with me, because it's been a rough few days in local news on the voter suppression front.

Here in North Carolina, RFK successfully sued to have his name removed from the ballot. Fair enough, except he asked for it after the deadline and after the ballots had been designed and were being printed. It was a 4-3 vote by elected judges, and it will mean mail-in ballots will go out several week later than the law requires.

There's also a legal challenge to University of NC students using an electronic photo ID issued by their school. Several physical school ID's are allowed as voter ID, the issue they're claiming here is no other electronic ID's were specifically included in the law until the state board of election authorized the UNC app, and electronic cards are less secure than physical.

North Carolina isn't a deep red state. There was a bit of a conservative turn after Obama was elected, and we've voted in some pretty ugly ballot measures in recent years that have made national news. But things have been getting better. Our outgoing governor Roy Cooper was a Democrat and on the short-list for Harris's running mates. We've got several largeish cities with a real progressive streak; I feel comfortable living in one. Our universities are quite good and well known. We're actually surprisingly purple, with the RNC usually winning for president but high state-level races going to the DNC candidates in the same election. And if the ads I keep seeing on TV are any indication, we're something of a swing state in 2024. (Honestly, please go away on that one....)

Shenanigans like this always raise my ire, both because they're so anti-democratic but also because they're avoidable. They happen because someone on a mundane, usually local-level position lets them happen. And local races are won by such smaller margins.

If you still needed a reason, let this be it.

[lboogie1906]

Michael Stanley Regan, Sr. (August 6, 1976) is the first African American to lead the EPA and its 16th Administrator. He was nominated to serve as Administrator by President Joe Biden on December 17, 2020. He is the first African American to serve as the environmental regulator secretary of North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality. He was an air quality specialist in the EPA.

He was born in Goldsboro, North Carolina. He is the son of Zeb Stuart Regan Jr., a Vietnam veteran and retired colonel in the North Carolina Army National Guard, and Mavis Regan.

He graduated from North Carolina A&T State University, where he received a BS in Earth and Environmental Science. He graduated from George Washington University where he received a MPA.

He began his career serving in a summer internship in the EPA’s Office of Air Quality Planning and Standard. He continued to serve in the EPA’s two-year management internship program. He served as the National Program Manager, Program Design, in the Office of Air Quality Planning & Standards. He served as an environmental regulator.

He served as Senior Director of State Strategic Implementation for the US Climate and Energy Program. He served as the Environmental Defense Fund Associate Vice President, US Climate and Energy & Southeast Regional Director. He founded his consulting company M. Regan & Associates, LLC. Governor Roy Cooper named Regan Secretary of North Carolina. Department of Environmental Quality, where he served as the Governor’s 17th Cabinet Secretary in that post. As Chief Executive Officer of the Department, he oversaw approximately 2 billion dollars in state-owned assets, 1,600 employees, and seven regional offices across the state.

He served on several environmental boards and commissions, including the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Law Center for Climate, Energy, Environment, and Economics, Green 2.0, the North Carolina Commission on Global Climate Change, the North Carolina Energy Policy Council, and the Executive Steering Committee of Envision Charlotte.

He and his wife, Melvina have two sons. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[noro-noro-noro]

guys be fr with me do you think the north carolina board of governors is going to blow up diversity equity & inclusion in universities like actually? can you tell them not to do that? i'm really trying to get a raise here which won't work super well if they vote to reduce staff & funding. also generally policing how much diversity is in the school system is a bad thing. if you don't do it for me, your favorite mid blogger, can you stand up for DEI if they try to bring it down after the 3pm meeting they're having today

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 11.7 (after 1970)

1972 – United States presidential election: U.S. President Richard Nixon is re-elected in the largest landslide victory at the time. 1973 – The United States Congress overrides President Richard Nixon's veto of the War Powers Resolution, which limits presidential power to wage war without congressional approval. 1975 – In Bangladesh, a joint force of people and soldiers takes part in 1983 – United States Senate bombing: A bomb explodes inside the United States Capitol. No one is injured, but an estimated $250,000 in damage is caused. 1983 – Cold War: The command post exercise Able Archer 83 begins, eventually leading to the Soviet Union to place air units in East Germany and Poland on alert, for fear that NATO was preparing for war. 1987 – In Tunisia, president Habib Bourguiba is overthrown and replaced by Prime Minister Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. 1987 – The Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system in Singapore opens for passenger service. 1989 – Douglas Wilder wins the governor's seat in Virginia, becoming the first elected African American governor in the United States. 1989 – David Dinkins becomes the first African American to be elected Mayor of New York City. 1989 – East German Prime Minister Willi Stoph, along with his entire cabinet, is forced to resign after huge anti-government protests. 1990 – Mary Robinson becomes the first woman to be elected President of the Republic of Ireland. 1991 – Magic Johnson announces that he is HIV-positive and retires from the NBA. 1994 – WXYC, the student radio station of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, launches the world's first internet radio broadcast. 1996 – NASA launches the Mars Global Surveyor. 1996 – ADC Airlines Flight 086 crashes into the Lagos Lagoon in Epe, Lagos State, Nigeria, killing all 144 people on board. 2000 – The controversial US presidential election is later resolved in the Bush v. Gore Supreme Court case, electing George W. Bush as the 43rd President of the United States. 2000 – The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration discovers one of the country's largest LSD labs inside a converted military missile silo in Wamego, Kansas. 2004 – Iraq War: The interim government of Iraq calls for a 60-day state of emergency as U.S. forces storm the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah. 2007 – The Jokela school shooting in Jokela, Tuusula, Finland, takes place, resulting in the death of nine people. 2012 – An earthquake off the Pacific coast of Guatemala kills at least 52 people. 2017 – Shamshad TV is attacked by armed gunmen and suicide bombers, with a security guard killed and 20 people wounded; ISIS claims responsibility for the attack. 2020 – Joe Biden is elected the 46th president of the United States, defeating incumbent Donald Trump. 2023 – António Costa resigns as Prime Minister of Portugal following news of an investigation in a corruption scandal implicating members of his cabinet.

[tocitynews]

University Of North Carolina Board Of Governors Voted To Replace Its Dei Policy Which Has Been In Place Since 2019. The Policy Required Universities To Report Data On How They Were Promoting Diversity And Inclusion –Raleigh North Carolina reporting

[pashterlengkap]

LGBTQ+ groups band together to challenge school district over Don’t Say Gay policies

Three LGBTQ+ advocacy groups in western North Carolina have fired an opening salvo in their effort to overturn the state’s discriminatory Don’t Say Gay law. The Campaign for Southern Equality, Youth OUTright WNC, and PFLAG Asheville have joined forces to challenge the Buncombe County School District (near Asheville) over SB49, enacted in August after North Carolina Republicans overrode a veto by Democratic Governor Roy Cooper. Related: Gay student rips into hate group co-founder to her face: “You deserve to be fired” Zander Moricz didn’t mince words when telling anti-LGBTQ+ school board member Bridget Ziegler she’s “terrible” at her job. The Don’t Say Gay legislation, also known as the Parent’s Bill of Rights, bans instruction on “gender identity, sexual activity, or sexuality” in kindergarten through fourth grade and requires parents to be notified “prior to any changes in the name or pronoun used for a student in school records or by school personnel,” with some discretion accorded to school administrators. Never Miss a Beat Subscribe to our daily newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights. Promotions (occasional) * Week in Good News (one on the Weekend) * Week in Review (one on the Weekend) * Daily Brief (one each weekday) * Sign Up The law went into effect immediately with its passage, and in the months since, school districts across the state have been grappling with how to implement it. In a complaint addressed to the Title IX Coordinator for Buncombe County Schools, the three groups allege SB49 violates the education provisions of Title IX. “The policies passed by the Buncombe County Board of Education to comply with the state law SB49 (alternately called the ‘Don’t Say LGBTQ’ law and the ‘Parents’ Bill of Rights’) create a hostile educational environment for LGBTQIA+ students, families, staff and faculty,” the complainants write, “and in doing so violate Title IX and Buncombe County Schools’ obligation to provide every student with a safe and non-discriminatory school environment.” The complaint cites Title IX’s ban on sex discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funding, which includes discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. In October, the Campaign for Southern Equality addressed their allegations over Title IX to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, which responded, “Absent a determination by USED Office of Civil Rights or a court order affirming your position, neither the State Board nor DPI can knowingly fail to comply with a duly enacted state law.” The groups’ strategy then moved to obtain just such a determination from a local official entrusted with enforcing Title IX. In Buncombe County, that responsibility falls to Shanon Martin, Title IX Coordinator for Buncombe County Schools. “We request that, should these allegations of a Title IX violation be confirmed, the Buncombe County Schools Title IX Coordinator instruct the Superintendent to delay all implementation of the SB49-related policies passed on December 7, 2023, until such time as the federal complaint against DPI and SBE has been resolved,” the complaint to Martin reads. Craig White, supportive schools director at Campaign For Southern Equality, told Blue Ridge Public Radio that his team expects to file a federal complaint in January. Rob Elliot, chairman of the policy committee for the Buncombe County Board of Education, said figuring out how to enforce SB49 has been “very stressful” and a “noisy, big, complex legal discussion.” “We don’t exist just under the confines of this one new law, Elliot said. “This doesn’t define our entire world. We exist under a whole universe of federal law and state law, all of which we have to abide by as well.” http://dlvr.it/T0ZHBZ

[mystlnewsonline]

Texas Governor - Appoints Five to Council

Texas Governor Abbott Appoints Five To Texas Workforce Investment Council AUSTIN, TX (STL.News) Texas Governor Greg Abbott has appointed Johnny Vahalik, Ed.D., and Michelle Harper to the Texas Workforce Investment Council for terms set to expire on September 1, 2029, and September 1, 2025, respectively.  Additionally, the Governor has reappointed Jesse Gatewood, John Langdon Martin, and Richard Craig Rhodes for terms set to expire on September 1, 2029.  The Council engages in a collaborative, systematic view of workforce development programs throughout the state and provides planning, evaluation, research, and other functions related to 19 workforce programs. Johnny Vahalik, Ed.D. of San Antonio, is the assistant superintendent of college, career, and military readiness for San Antonio Independent School District, which includes adult and community education that serves over a thousand adults.  He is a member of the Alliance for Technology Education in Applied Math and Sciences and Career and Technical Administrators of Texas.  He volunteers with the San Antonio Community Action Committee.  Vahalik received a Bachelor of Accounting from The University of Texas at San Antonio and a Master of Education Leadership, and a Doctor of Education in Education Leadership from Walden University. Michelle Harper of San Marcos is the president and chief executive officer of United Way of Hays & Caldwell Counties.  She serves as vice chair of the San Marcos Academy Bear Network, board secretary for the Master’s School of San Marcos Foundation, board member for the First United Methodist Church of San Marcos Foundation, and a volunteer assistant tennis and basketball coach for San Marcos Academy.  Harper received a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication and Public Relations from Southwest Texas State University, as well as a teacher certificate from Texas State University. Jesse Gatewood of Corpus Christi is an employee of Power Line Electric, LLC.  He serves as a board member of Workforce Coastal Bend and of the Coast Life credit union.  He is a former business manager and financial secretary of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union 27 and training director for the Texas Gulf Coast Electrical Joint Apprenticeship & Training Committee (JATC). John Langdon Martin of San Antonio is the training director for the South Texas Electrical JATC.  He is a member of the National Electrical Training Directors Association and serves on the Curriculum Development Committee.  He is the state vice president and San Antonio Chapter president of the Apprenticeship and Training Association of Texas and a member of the Texas Workforce Commission Apprenticeship and Training Advisory Committee.  He is a former board member of the Durham, North Carolina Workforce Development Board and was appointed by the North Carolina Secretary of Labor to the North Carolina Apprenticeship Council.  He has worked as a registered apprentice, an electrician by trade, and holds his Master Electrician license through the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. Richard “Rick” Craig Rhodes of Austin is the rural engagement coordinator for the Texas Rural Funders.  He previously worked in senior state government positions with the Texas Department of Agriculture and the Office of the Texas Governor.  Additionally, he has experience in the private sector as a small business owner and a commercial banker.  He is a member of the Texas Economic Development Council and previously volunteered as an elder at The Lakeway Church and Hill Country Bible Church and as a deacon at First Baptist Church of Sweetwater.  Governor Abbott previously named Rhodes chair of the Texas Workforce Investment Council, and he continues to serve in that capacity.  Rhodes received a Bachelor of Business Administration from The University of Texas at Austin. SOURCE: Texas Governor Read the full article

[mariacallous]

This past Monday, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a program that bills itself as “the Nation’s Report Card,” released its first set of findings since the start of the pandemic. The main N.A.E.P. assessment, which is administered to fourth, eighth, and twelfth graders every two years and measures their proficiency in math and reading, showed the biggest drop in scores in the thirty-year history of the test. The response in the press, predictably, was filled with a great deal of catastrophizing. “New NAEP Test Scores Are a Disaster. Blame Teachers Unions,” a Washington Examiner headline read, a sentiment echoed by the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, which wrote that the results proved that “pandemic lockdowns were a policy blunder for the ages, and the economic, social and health consequences are still playing out.”

The news coincided with another ongoing saga in American education: this coming Monday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on the future of affirmative action. A decision on two cases—one against Harvard and another against the University of North Carolina, both brought by the conservative legal advocacy organization Students for Fair Admissions—is expected sometime this term.

The timing of these two events is accidental, but both speak to burgeoning anxieties about young people that cut across racial and class lines. These days, nobody—not even the rich—seems all that sure that their children will live better, or even slightly less privileged, lives than they did. That fear has only been made worse by the pandemic, and the constant stream of stories about falling ACT and SAT scores, learning loss, and a generation of children who, absent some large-scale intervention, may fall well short of expectations.

Preoccupations like these have fuelled a revanchist current in education, which has taken many forms. Freak-outs over critical race theory and book bans—which, at their core, were attempts to remove perceived threats to the old forms of meritocracy—will seem tame in comparison to the coming school wars, as parents worry about the potential closure of traditional pathways toward a professional life. Over the next decade, the scarcity mind-set that says that the only path toward class mobility runs through exclusive academic institutions will intensify, and, in turn, bring education into a new political prominence.

Just hours after the N.A.E.P. released its results, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis took a victory lap. A press release from DeSantis’s office boasted that his policy of keeping schools open through the pandemic represented the state’s “commitment to closing achievement gaps.” “We insisted on keeping schools open and guaranteed in-person learning in 2020 because we knew there would be widespread harm to our students if students were locked out,” DeSantis said. “Today’s results once again prove we made the right decision.” He went on to point out that Florida’s fourth graders ranked third in the country in reading and fourth in math, and saved a little dig for the “lockdown” blue states California and New York, which “aren’t even in the top 30.”

I’ve written about education for the past few years, and one thing I’ve found consistently is that it’s incredibly difficult to create a convincing argument out of the mountains of data that schools generate every year. That doesn’t mean that people don’t try, and much of the silliness that surrounds education discourse and policy comes out of the bad math that people do in their supposed effort to teach kids how to do better math. Politics too often becomes a frenzy over who can pick the right numbers out of a data set to justify what are ultimately political decisions. It’s clear that here DeSantis is doing some cherry-picking: fourth graders in Florida have been on a long-term upward trend since 2005, and, although that didn’t slow down during the pandemic, it’s a fool’s errand to try to pinpoint the exact effects of keeping schools open. Given that the concern is about learning loss over time, you can’t assess one state’s performance merely in comparison with other states; what really matters is how one state did relative to its recent past.

Some of the coverage of the N.A.E.P. results has focussed on deepening inequalities between racial groups. But a closer look at the numbers shows that, across racial lines, students’ scores mostly fell in lockstep. The average math test scores for Black and Hispanic eighth graders fell seven points each (from a 260 average score to 253 and 268 to 261, respectively). Asian students’ scores also fell seven points, from 313 to 306. These declines are about the same as the fall that white students took, from 292 to 285. Reading scores for eighth graders seem to have been even less affected by the pandemic, and some racial achievement gaps in that category actually got smaller. The results across different student competencies were similarly mixed. While high-performing fourth graders suffered less learning loss than low-performing kids in math and reading, the results for eighth graders showed a much more uniform decline across all competencies.

What we seem to have, then, is as close to an equal-opportunity problem as one can find in this country. Everyone’s scores are down, and the relatively small differences between racial groups on one test could very well be attributed to a whole range of inputs, including the fallibility of standardized testing.

For better or worse, the universality of this decline is what will move the needle politically. It’s one thing for parents who have every reason to be confident in their child’s advantages to worry that poor minority kids in their cities aren’t measuring up to standards; it’s quite another for those same parents to suddenly get told that their own kids are behind, too.

But, even if declining scores are worrisome, we don’t have to treat the N.A.E.P. results as a catastrophe, or something that requires us to reify existing hierarchies. It makes sense that, if students miss school for an extended period and are taken out of the classroom setting during a multiyear plague, they likely won’t do all that well on a standardized test, especially if they haven’t taken one in more than two years. Over the past two years, studies conducted in the United States and Europe showed that students were falling behind in most subjects. Given that reading scores experienced only a small decline and math scores didn’t crater in a disastrous way, the somewhat boring but ultimately correct conclusion might just be “Hey, it could’ve been worse.”

That, of course, will not stem parental anxiety, nor will it curb the opportunism of political actors who gain from making parents think that their children are in crisis. Every set of scores that gets printed will kick up the outrage machine, which will spit out invectives at teachers’ unions, progressive politicians, or whoever else can absorb the blame. The rub, of course, is that the scramble for resources would likely continue even if the test results were better. The panicked parents are panicking again because it’s in their best interest to do so.

The pandemic and its interruptions to schooling presented an opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to public education as a common good. But, instead, we’re likely looking at an increasingly polarized school system, where remediations for struggling students might take up even more classroom time, and, in turn, accelerate the already growing demand for tracked and gifted-and-talented programs. Competition for spots at exclusive schools will only intensify, and no amount of data literacy will change the screaming headlines about the disaster in schools. The parents who have the time, resources, networks, and influence to dictate how things go in the aftermath will almost certainly win out, because they usually do.

As the parent of an elementary-school child, I understand the impulse to worry. I thought school closures in my progressive West Coast city went on too long. I’ve picked up brochures from tutoring centers, researched Russian math schools, purchased more than a few supplementary-learning books, and spent countless hours with my child to insure that her education will not be a casualty of the past two years. Like everyone else, I invoke the mantra “I’m just trying to do what’s best for my kid.” But it’s clear to me that the blame game that politicians and pundits are playing will do nothing to ameliorate learning loss; nor will anyone be helped by further polarization of children’s successes and failures. My kid might be a winner in an intensified academic race, or someone else’s might be, but the greater chance that both will struggle is harmful to us all. ♦

[robertreich]

6 Crucial Races That Will Flip the Senate

This November, we have an opportunity to harness your energy and momentum into political power and not just defeat Trump, but also flip the Senate. Here are six key races you should be paying attention to. 1. The first is North Carolina Republican senator Thom Tillis, notable for his “olympic gold” flip-flops. He voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, then offered a loophole-filled replacement that excluded many with preexisting conditions. In 2014 Tillis took the position that climate change was “not a fact” and later urged Trump to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord, before begrudgingly acknowledging the realities of climate change in 2018. And in 2019, although briefly opposing Trump’s emergency border wall declaration, he almost immediately caved to pressure. But Tillis’ real legacy is the restrictive 2013 voter suppression law he helped pass as Speaker of the North Carolina House. The federal judge who struck down the egregious law said its provisions “targeted African Americans with almost surgical precision.” Enter Democrat Cal Cunningham, who unlike his opponent, is taking no money from corporate PACs. Cunningham is a veteran who supports overturning the Supreme Court’s disastrous Citizens United decision, restoring the Voting Rights Act, and advancing other policies that would expand access to the ballot box. 2. Maine Senator Susan Collins, a self-proclaimed moderate whose unpopularity has made her especially vulnerable, once said that Trump was unworthy of the presidency. Unfortunately, she spent the last four years enabling his worst behavior. Collins voted to confirm Trump’s judges, including Brett Kavanaugh, and voted to acquit Trump in the impeachment trial, saying he had “learned his lesson” through the process alone. Rubbish. Collins’ opponent is Sara Gideon, speaker of the House in Maine. As Speaker, Gideon pushed Maine to adopt ambitious climate legislation, anti-poverty initiatives, and ranked choice voting. And unlike Collins, Gideon supports comprehensive democracy reforms to ensure politicians are accountable to the people, not billionaire donors. Another Collins term would be six more years of cowardly appeasement, no matter the cost to our democracy. 3. Down in South Carolina, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham is also vulnerable. Graham once said he’d “rather lose without Donald Trump than try to win with him.” But after refusing to vote for him in 2016, Graham spent the last four years becoming one of Trump’s most reliable enablers. Graham also introduced legislation to end birthright citizenship, lobbied for heavy restrictions on reproductive rights, and vigorously defended Brett Kavanaugh. Earlier this year, he said that pandemic relief benefits would only be renewed over his dead body. His opponent, Democrat Jaime Harrison, has brought the race into a dead heat with his bold vision for a “New South.” Harrison’s platform centers on expanding access to healthcare, enacting paid family and sick leave, and investing in climate resistant infrastructure. Graham once said that if the Republicans nominated Trump the party would “get destroyed,” and “deserve it.” We should heed his words, and help Jaime Harrison replace him in the Senate. 4. Let’s turn to Montana’s Senate race. The incumbent, Republican Steve Daines, has defended Trump’s racist tweets, thanked him for tear-gassing peaceful protestors, and parroted his push to reopen the country during the pandemic as early as May. Daine’s challenger is former Democratic Governor Steve Bullock. Bullock is proof that Democratic policies can actually gain support in supposedly red states because they benefit people, not the wealthy and corporations. During his two terms, he oversaw the expansion of Medicaid, prevented the passage of union-busting laws, and vetoed two extreme bills that restricted access to abortions.The choice here, once again, is a no-brainer.

5. In Iowa, like Montana, is a state full of surprises. After the state voted for Obama twice, Republican Joni Ernst won her Senate seat in 2014. Her win was a boon for her corporate backers, but has been a disaster for everyone else.

Ernst, a staunch Trump ally, holds a slew of fringe opinions. She pushed anti-abortion laws that would have outlawed most contraception, shared her belief that states can nullify federal laws, and has hinted that she wants to privatize or fundamentally alter social security “behind closed doors.” Her opponent, Democrat Theresa Greenfield, is a firm supporter of a strong social safety net because she knows its importance firsthand. Union and Social Security survivor benefits helped her rebuild her life after the tragic death of her spouse. With the crippling impact of coronavirus at the forefront of Americans’ minds, Greenfield would be a much needed advocate in the Senate. 6. In Arizona, incumbent Senate Republican Martha McSally is facing Democrat Mark Kelly. Two months after being defeated by Democrat Kyrsten SINema for Arizona’s other Senate seat, McSally was appointed to fill John McCain’s seat following his death. Since then, she’s used that seat to praise Trump and confirm industry lobbyists to agencies like the EPA, and keep cities from receiving additional funds to fight COVID-19. As she voted to block coronavirus relief funds, McSally even had the audacity to ask supporters to “fast a meal” to help support her campaign. Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and husband of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, became a gun-control activist following the attempt on her life in 2011. His support of universal background checks and crucial policies on the climate crisis, reproductive health, and wealth inequality make him the clear choice. These are just a few of the important Senate races happening this year. In addition, the entire House of Representatives will be on the ballot, along with 86 state legislative chambers and thousands of local seats.

Winning the White House is absolutely crucial, but it’s just one piece of the fight to save our democracy and push a people’s agenda. Securing victories in state legislatures is essential to stopping the GOP’s plans to entrench minority rule through gerrymandered congressional districts and restrictive voting laws — and it’s often state-level policies that have the biggest impact on our everyday lives. Even small changes to the makeup of a body like the Texas Board of Education, which determines textbook content for much of the country, will make a huge difference. Plus, every school board member, state representative, and congressperson you elect can be pushed to enact policies that benefit the people, not just corporate donors. This is how you build a movement that lasts.

[lboogie1906]

Mayor Howard Nathaniel Lee (born July 28, 1934) is a politician who served as Mayor of Chapel Hill, North Carolina (1969-75). He was the first African American mayor elected in Chapel Hill, and the first African American to be elected mayor of any majority-white city in the South.

He was born to Howard Lee and Lou Temple outside Lithonia, Georgia. He began his freshman year at Clark College, he graduated from Fort Valley State College.

He was drafted into the Army during the summer of 1959 and completed basic training at Fort Benning. He received medical corpsman training at Fort Sam Houston, before being stationed at Fort Hood. He organized two sit-ins in the town of Killeen to protest segregated public facilities. The second sit-in was reported back to Fort Hood, and he was stationed in Korea the next week.

He moved to Savannah, Georgia, where he served as a juvenile probation officer, and married Lillian Wesley (1962). They moved to North Carolina in 1964, where he earned an MSW from UNC Chapel Hill. He joined the faculties of Duke University and North Carolina Central University.

In February 1969, he announced his mayoral candidacy. The ensuing election saw a record 4,734 votes cast. He won by a narrow margin but was re-elected twice.

In 1976, He sought the Democratic Party nomination for Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina. He was defeated in the primary runoff. He was appointed as the Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Natural Resources and Community Development.

He was elected to the North Carolina Senate (1990-94 and 1996-2002). He concentrated particularly on issues affecting public education.

The North Carolina State Board of Education elected him as its chairman. He was appointed as the new executive director of the NC Education Cabinet. He had to give up his seat on the Board of Education. He served as a member of the North Carolina Utilities Commission. He and Lillian Lee were nominated as “Town Treasures” by the Chapel Hill Historical Society He founded the Howard N. Lee Institute, which “focuses on erasing the achievement gap and improving academic performance for minority males.”#africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[im-the-punk-who]

The Real People of Black Sails!

Here’s a quick(I promise....I promise this is as short as I could make it without leaving out some really choice shit) rundown of all the real historical figures peppered throughout Black Sails! I think I caught them all but if you know of others please mention them and I’ll add them on! Under a readmore because this is....so long y’all.

Pirates & Maroons

Anne Bonny (possibly 1697 – unknown; possibly April 1782) Started life crossdressing at her dad’s behest to avoid his wife(who wasn’t Bonny’s mom), married a guy her dad didn’t like, moved to Nassau. There her husband became a spy for Rogers and Anne was like ‘Not cool bro’. She met Jack, they started fucking, and Anne discovered she was really good at stabbing things. Resumed dressing as a man and started trying to seduce Mary Read who was also dressed as a man. They did indeed fall victim to one of the classic queer blunders. Anyway, Anne’s like ‘it’s not gay I’m a chick!’ And Mary is like ‘really?? Then it’s a little gayer than you realize because I’m a chick too!’ They (probably) start banging. Rackham’s like ‘hang on! I’m the only dick in Anne’s life’ and Mary and Anne are like ‘you sure are’ and Mary shows him her boobs and then they have some sort of complicated and probably not totally consensual threeway. Then they get captured because, Jack is That Guy Who Was Too Drunk To Realize His Ship Was Under Attack and Mary and Anne had to defend the ship against like, a whole other crew. Jack is hung(not a dick joke), but both Anne and Mary plead stays of execution due to pregnancy. Anne disappears but possibly is maybe referred to later. No one knows. Neat!

Edit: According to sources from this post there is a genealogical record that refers to Anne and it records her death as 1782. Very neat!

Israel Hands (c.1701-death unknown) Israel Hands was a real pirate and Blackbeard’s first mate. Not much else is known about where he came from or his life, other than that Blackbeard shot him in the knee at one point while supposedly aiming for another man. ‘Oops my bad this pistol is from like, the 18th century or something.’ While recuperating in Bath he was arrested after Teach’s death but took a pardon in exchange for ratting out the colonial officials who had been bribed by Teach. It’s unknown what happened to him after that although That Book About Pyrites says he died a beggar in London.

Benjamin Hornigold (1680–1719) Horny4gold was one of the most well known and influential pirates of the Golden Age. Most other pirates sailed under him or with him at one point, and he was one of the founders of the Pirate Republic of Nassau. He never attacked british ships during his time as captain so that he could be like ‘but brooooo I was acting in Britain’s Interests!!! Bro!!!!!’ But his co-pirates didn’t like that and eventually voted to replace him with Sam Bellamy. He accepted the king's pardon in 1718 and became a pirate hunter instead. Bummer. He was reportedly killed in a shipwreck.

Okay listen Horingold in any universe is a fucking JOKE I have to share this passage with y’all:

“Hornigold is recorded as having attacked a sloop off the coast of Honduras, but as one of the passengers of the captured vessel recounted, "they did us no further injury than the taking most of our hats from us, having got drunk the night before, as they told us, and toss'd theirs overboard"” WHAT A JOKE.

Dr. Howell - (birth/death unknown) John Howell was a pirate surgeon forced into service by Hornigold sometime in early 1717. He sailed with various pirate crews until October before returning into the service of Governor Rogers.

Ned Low (1690–1724) N’EDWARD. Okay I’m serious again. Born in London, Lowe grew up a thief in a thief family before moving to Boston. His wife died in childbirth in 1719, so he decided ‘fuck it I’ll become a Pirate Captain’ and did just that. He was known for torturing the people on board the ships he captured before murdering them and burning the ship. Interestingly though, Lowe was known to have a huge amount of regret over abandoning his daughter when he turned pirate, and wouldn’t force married men into his service. He also reportedly would allow women to return to port safely. Because of his numerous captures and cruelties, he was one of the most well known pirates in his day. There are differing reports about Low’s death - some say his crew mutinied and marooned him and he was subsequently hung, others say his ship sunk in a storm, and some say he just straight up disappeared. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Jack Rackham - (December 26, 1682 – November 18, 1720) Really a pirate, really named himself after a housecat pattern. (No, okay, he didn’t, it was because of his threads. But wouldn’t the cat thing fit too?) Sailed with Vane, Anne Bonny, and Mary Read. Was mostly known for being That Guy Who Was Too Drunk To Realize His Ship Was Under Attack and being Anne and Mary’s captain. He was captured and sentenced to hang after the aforementioned Drunk Blunder in 1720.

Mary/Mark Read - (1685 – 28 April 1721) Much like Anne Bonny, Mary dressed as a boy for much of her youth so a parent could swindle someone out of money. From her teenage years on she continued dressing as a man to find work in the military and as a sailor. She did marry but her husband died young and so she decided to become a pirate. Like ya do. She accepted the king’s pardon in 1718, then mutinied on the privateer she was aboard, once again becoming a pirate. Because pirates are sexy. In 1720 she joined Jack Rackham’s crew and sailed with him and Bonny. Cue the whole ‘Hey you’re hot, also I’m a woman.’ ‘Oh, hey, same hat!’ with Anne. In November of 1720, Rackham’s ship was captured. Mary died of a fever in prison(likely due to her pregnancy) in 1721.

Edward Teach - (c. 1680 – 22 November 1718) He started piracy sailing under Hornigold, and built the fleet alongside him and Stede Bonnet until Hornigold retired. COOL fact about Blackbeard is he was a MASTER showman who liked to light slow burning fuses under his hat to scare his enemies, and he relied more heavily on creating an image his prizes feared than violence. He did a lot of cool shit including ransoming the entire town of Charles Town and annoying the shit out of Woodes Rogers before settling in Bath and later dying of like, a shit ton of wounds while battling Lieutenant Maynard. The battle on Roger’s ship is pretty much what happened minues the keelhauling. Afterwards he was beheaded, his head hung from the bow of Maynard’s ship, and his body was thrown in the bay in Bath, where it’s said his ghost still haunts! Funky!

Charles Vane - (1680 – 29 March 1721)  Really a pirate captain! Known for being Not A Nice Dude. Sailed with Henry Jennings, Edward England and Jackie Rackhammie. He led the pirates in resisting Rogers in Nassau, and yeah he really did light a ship on fire and 18th centuryeet it into Rogers’ line in order to escape. There’s a note that he returned to Nassau to get married but I couldn’t find any info on who he married so he’s gay now. That’s a rule I just made up. Anyway so at one point his ship got into a fight with another ship and Vane ordered a retreat and the crew was like ‘this is BOOshit’ and voted him out in favor of Jack Rackham. Ouch. Vane and some of the crew that supported him left aboard the Katherine(I believe) but then they got caught in a storm that said ‘fuck you specifically to Charles Vane,’ and he was marooned on an island. He survived! Just long enough for a British ship to stop at the island for him to attempt to board, get caught, and then hung. Deus ex piratica.

(Honorary mentions)

John Silver + Captain Flint (sort of but I’m not kidding!) Okay so of course there are a bunch of suspected origins of the characters of Captain Flint and Long John Silver, but the one I like the most is of two brothers - one of whom had a peg leg! - who captured an enormous Spanish treasure and buried it near Ocracoke island. Their names were John and Owen Lloyd. (And yes, John was the one-legged brother.) In 1750 a Spanish treasure fleet named the Flotas de Indias attempted to sail from Havana to Spain in late August, and three ships were wrecked during a hurricane. By a stroke of luck, the Lloyd brothers had been blown to the same inlet as the wrecked ships Guadalupe and Soledad , and managed to convince the Captain to hire them to transport the treasure to Norfolk. 

But of course because they thought the Spanish SUCKED they said ‘psyche’ and just fucked off with it while the Captain was fighting Bureaucratic red tape in North Carolina. Iconique. Owen Lloyd reportedly buried the treasure on Norman Island and  the pair became folk heroes in the area, particularly in St. Kitts.  (P.s., the Stevenson family ran a sugar production business on St. Kitts, and R.L. Stevenson’s great grandfather worked there as early as 1773 - just 25 years after the epic heist. COOL STORY BRO.)

Captain Throckmorton (Okay not really but I just love this guy’s name) Okay so this guy wasn’t really a pirate captain but he was a Steamboat captain in the 1830s and his name is just too ridiculous for someone to make up. Toot toot, motherfucker.

---------

Queen Nanny(Maroon Queen/Madi) (c. 1686 – c. 1755) The spiritual, cultural, and military leader of the Windward Maroons (who the Black Sails Maroons are based on.) She led them alongside her ‘brother’ Quao although the relationship between them isn’t known. Exact information about her origins are not known but best guess is that she was of royal lineage from present-day Ghana, born sometime in the 1680’s. She did have a husband named Adou(who may have been the same person as Quao? I’ve read conflicting stuff), but they had no children. Many of the guerilla warfare tactics we now think of as common practice were developed by Queen Nanny and the other Maroons in their fight against British incursions. (The trap that Flint lays, covering themselves with paint and leaves, and the pits the Maroons lay in the forest are tactics known to have been used by the Windward Maroons.)

Nanny was a fucking legend okay a LEGENDS ONLY legend. She was one of the most instrumental people in preserving African culture among freed slaves and Maroons, and in encouraging the resistance to slavery in the Bahamas and surrounding areas. She was one of three leaders of the First Maroon War (which the war in Black Sails is based on). She initially refused to sign the treaty offered to Cudjoe because she knew the British were losing and was like ‘Why????? Would I surrender???? In a war??? I’m winning?????’

Anyway Queen Nanny was a fucking badass please read every piece of literature you can find on her. (You should absolutely read her full bio because she was fucking badass.)

Cudjoe (not exactly, but Julius is very close) (c. 1690s – 1764) Likely a freeborn son of one of the original escaped slaves turned Maroons, Cudjoe is hailed as one of the greatest Maroon leaders(after Queen Nanny). Much like in Black Sails, these original Maroons were slaves who escaped or overran their masters, forming free communities in the Mountains of Jamaica. The treaty in Black Sails is based on the one Cudjoe negotiated with the British, wanting an ‘honorable peace’ with the enemy, rather than the continued war and better terms that Queen Nanny and Quao wanted. (sound familiarrrrrr?) I do want to note that by the end of his life he became completely disillusioned with the idea that the British should be reasoned with and basically started fights with every British superior he could.

The English, Spanish, and Scottish!

The Guthries So while there wasn’t ever a female head of the Guthrie clan in Nassau, the Guthries were a Scottish merchant clan who emigrated to Boston around 1652 due to religious and racial persecution. While most of the family stayed around Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, John Guthrie moved to Virginia and his brother James Guthrie moved to Bermuda sometime after 1683.

(James Guthrie of Suffolk County, Massachusetts was listed in the will of John Richardson, dated 7 May 1683, in which Richardson says, “I give and bequeath unto James Guthrie all I have in the world except twenty shillings to buy John Harris a ring and ten shillings to buy John Kyte a ring.” This was witnessed by John Raynsford and John Ramsey.) Fellas is it gay.

Anyway, between Virginia and Boston and James’ ties in the Bermuda islands, the family made a shit ton fencing pirated goods during the Golden Age of Piracy, particularly from the Pirate Republic of Nassau.

A John Guthrie(likely a son of James’) was also a Colonel who was part of the peace talks with Cudjoe and the Maroons. Neat!

James Oglethorpe (22 December 1696 – 30 June 1785) Okay listen Oglethorpe was COOL AS FUCK. He is the founder of the colony of Georgia and is imo who Thomas Hamilton is probably based on. Oglethorpe was a HUGE humanitarian and even before he decided to form an entire colony around people not owning slaves. He advocated for better conditions for sailors, and prison reform. In 1732 he read a letter by a slave in Maryland named Ayuba Suleiman Diallo and on the spot decided slavery was terrible, divested himself of his stock in the African Trading Company, and resolved to include a law banning slavery in Georgia to the colony’s charter. Radical, man.

Speaking of Georgia, and specifically his plantation near Savannah, Oglethorpe actively spoke with the native Yamacraw who populated the land to ask permission and trade for the land he sought to build Georgia on. His plantation was meant to help debtors in London, released without any support, from falling back into debt and offering them a way forward to landownership through indentured servitude. I highly recommend anyone interested in early attempts at an equality based colonial system read up on the original charter of Georgia. (Of course there were still problems, but Oglethorpe was one of the most prominent proponents of a non hierarchical society - including limits to the acreage any person could own based on how helpful that land was to the people who worked it, and communal resources.) Oglethorpe was also a lifelong friend with Tomochichi, the chief of the Yamacraw, and worked very closely with him on colonial-indigenous relations.

Vincente de Raja (birth/death unknown) He was the real Governor and military Captain of Cuba from 1716-1717. He was a devoted pirate hunter and encouraged Spanish privateering against the pirates. Due to an attempt by Spain to increase tobacco profits at the expense of the farmers, there was a large revolt which resulted in many of the Cuban officials, including Raja, being replaced. 

William Rhett (4 September 1666 – 12 January 1723) He was a merchant captain and plantation owner in Carolina who served in the colonial militia and hunted pirates. He captured Stede Bonnet and was probably just as much of an asshole as he is in the show.

Woodes Rogers - (c. 1679 – 15 July 1732) The Governor of Nassau who was largely responsible for ending piracy in the Bahamas. He really did offer a universal pardon, which a large number of the pirates took. Fun fact: before he was Governor, he rescued Alexander Selkirk, who is believed to be the guy Robinson Crusoe is based off of! Neat! He really did have a brother who really did die during his privateering exploits which also really did leave him ‘disfigured’. He got sued by his crew, went bankrupt, wrote a book, got famous for writing the book, and he really did have a wife named Sarah whom he divorced shortly after all this happened. He then became Governor of Nassau for the first time. This first term did end in him being imprisoned for debts incurred defending the island from Vane and Teach and the Spanish, but he was released, helped write that most famous A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, and became governor again in 1728. He died in 1732 of just plain exhaustion from dealing with the bureaucracy. Alexa play tiny violin.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 10.12 (before 1970)

539 BC – The army of Cyrus the Great of Persia takes Babylon, ending the Babylonian empire. (Julian calendar) 633 – Battle of Hatfield Chase: King Edwin of Northumbria is defeated and killed by an alliance under Penda of Mercia and Cadwallon of Gwynedd. 1279 – The Nichiren Shōshū branch of Buddhism is founded in Japan. 1398 – In the Treaty of Salynas, Lithuania cedes Samogitia to the Teutonic Knights. 1406 – Chen Yanxiang, the only person from Indonesia known to have visited dynastic Korea, reaches Seoul after having set out from Java four months before. 1492 – Christopher Columbus's first expedition makes landfall in the Caribbean, specifically on San Salvador Island. (Julian calendar) 1654 – The Delft Explosion devastates the city in the Netherlands, killing more than 100 people. 1692 – The Salem witch trials are ended by a letter from Province of Massachusetts Bay Governor William Phips. 1748 – War of Jenkins' Ear: A British squadron wins a tactical victory over a Spanish squadron off Havana. 1773 – America's first insane asylum opens. 1792 – The first celebration of Columbus Day is held in New York City. 1793 – The cornerstone of Old East, the oldest state university building in the United States, is laid at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 1798 – Flemish and Luxembourgish peasants launch the rebellion against French rule known as the Peasants' War. 1799 – Jeanne Geneviève Labrosse becomes the first woman to jump from a balloon with a parachute. 1810 – The citizens of Munich hold the first Oktoberfest in celebration of the marriage of Crown Prince Louis of Bavaria and Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen. 1822 – Pedro I of Brazil is proclaimed the emperor. 1849 – The city of Manizales, Colombia, is founded by 'The Expedition of the 20'. 1856 – An M 7.7–8.3 earthquake off the Greek island of Crete cause major damage as far as Egypt and Malta. 1871 – The British in India enact the Criminal Tribes Act, naming many local communities "Criminal Tribes". 1890 – Uddevalla Suffrage Association is formed. 1892 – The Pledge of Allegiance is first recited by students in many US public schools. 1901 – President Theodore Roosevelt officially renames the "Executive Mansion" to the White House. 1909 – Foundation of Coritiba Foot Ball Club. 1915 – World War I: British nurse Edith Cavell is executed by a German firing squad for helping Allied soldiers escape from occupied Belgium. 1917 – World War I: The First Battle of Passchendaele takes place resulting in the largest single-day loss of life in New Zealand history. 1918 – A massive forest fire kills 453 people in Minnesota. 1928 – An iron lung respirator is used for the first time at Boston Children's Hospital. 1933 – The military Alcatraz Citadel becomes the civilian Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. 1944 – World War II: The Axis occupation of Athens comes to an end. 1945 – World War II: Desmond Doss is the first conscientious objector to receive the U.S. Medal of Honor. 1945 – The Lao Issara took control of Laos' government and reaffirmed the country's independence. 1959 – At the national congress of the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance in Peru, a group of leftist radicals are expelled from the party who later form APRA Rebelde. 1960 – Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev pounds his shoe on a desk at the United Nations to protest a Philippine assertion. 1962 – The Columbus Day Storm strikes the U.S. Pacific Northwest with record wind velocities. There was at least U.S. $230 million in damages and 46 people died. 1963 – After nearly 23 years of imprisonment, Reverend Walter Ciszek, a Jesuit missionary, was released from the Soviet Union. 1964 – The Soviet Union launches the Voskhod 1 into Earth orbit as the first spacecraft with a multi-person crew, and the first flight without pressure suits. 1967 – A bomb explodes on board Cyprus Airways Flight 284 while flying over the Mediterranean Sea, killing 66. 1968 – Equatorial Guinea becomes independent from Spain.