#new anti-slavery commissioner

[coochiequeens]

And what will happen to the baby if the purchasing parents are caught and arrested for human trafficking?

Michael Cook April 25, 2024

A British charity working with victims of modern slavery has reported that it had received three reports of “forced surrogacy” for the first time. 

Unseen said that calls to its anti-slavery hotline in 2023 had reached a record high – 11,700 contacts. . The number of potential victims in the care sector had risen by nearly one-third. 

Unseen has defined “forced surrogacy” as forcing or coercing a woman into carrying a pregnancy for another individual.

“Criminals are finding new and shockingly ruthless ways to exploit victims,” said the Anti-Slavery Commissioner, Eleanor Lyons. “Alarmingly, for the first time we have seen cases of forced surrogacy being reported.”

No details were released, for fear of identifying trafficking victims. 

In 2023 Unseen noted three emerging kinds of modern slavery – surrogacy, organ harvesting, and scamming. Although the numbers were small, they were described as “worrying”. Most slavery involves labour, sexual, or criminal exploitation. 

[racefortheironthrone]

great info on the mayors / political leaders of New York - on the anti side, how about the absolute worst and most destructive , regressive, or otherwise harmful in its history?

This one is mostly covered by my first post about NYC mayors, where I discussed the mayors from Lindsay to the present. However, I can talk about earlier mayors, even though most of them were bland non-entities. One major exception to this rule was Fernando Wood.

If there was one consistent theme of Wood's career - other than fraud (Wood stole from his bank and his own brother-in-law) and corruption - it was racism and violence.

From the very beginning of Wood's political career, he distinguished himself as the most pro-slavery man in New York Democratic politics, seeking the patronage of figures like John C. Calhoun and James Buchanan. When he shifted from Congress to mayoral politics, Wood went back and forth on what variety of pro-slavery politics he preferred (variously backing Douglas' popular sovereignty position and Buchanan's anti-Douglas position), but was a consistent enemy of John Van Buren's Free Soil Democrats, "Black Republicans," and abolitionism as a concept. Nevertheless, he managed to win election in 1854 with a bare third of the total vote.

Unlike more pliable Tammany mayors, Wood believed in "one-man rule" rather than collective pursuit of power, particularly when it came to direct mayoral control of the police force. While claiming to stand for home rule, democratic accountability, and efficiency, in reality Fernando sought to remove any commissioners on the police board who stood between him and turning the Municipal Police into his personal army. In the 1856 election, Wood gave the police the day off so that the Dead Rabbits gang could engage in street violence, physical intimidation of voters and poll workers, and theft of ballot boxes. Evidently Wood needed the help, because he won with a tiny plurality of the vote and ran well behind the Democratic ticket.

Wood managed to skate from any indictment from Election Day violence, but he had gone too far politically. Tammany broke with Wood, barring him from the building and promoting his political opponents to Federal patronage positions. The Republican-controlled state legislature enacted a new Municipal Charter that ordered a new election for 1857 and transferred control over public works to state commissioners appointed by the governor, and then a Metropolitan Police Act that abolished Wood's Municipal Police and replaced them with a new force under state commissioners.

Wood refused to accept the Metropolitan Police Act or the Municipal Charter as law, ordered his Municipal Police to physically remove state commissioners from government buildings, and when the new Metropolitan Police attempted to arrest him for selling the office of Street Commissioner for $50,000, Wood mobilized the Municipal Police against the "Black Republicans," leading to the "Great Police Riot" in which the two police forces met in open combat on the steps of City Hall. 53 people were injured, the state militia had to be called out to disperse the Municipal Police, and Wood was arrested (and then promptly released by a friendly judge).

New York City's gangs, with Wood's allies the Dead Rabbits very much in the lead, realized that with the city's two police forces at war (Wood had directed the Municipal Police to stop the Metropolitan Police from carrying out arrests, leading to frequent skirmishes), there was no state monopoly on violence to restrain them.

Amid a rising crime wave, the Dead Rabbits Riot broke out on July 4th - in which the Five Points gangs under the leadership of the Dead Rabbits invaded the Bowery and went to war with both the Bowery gangs and the Metropolitan Police. At its height, the riot involved 800-1,000 armed men and women who responded to police charges by building barrricades. Once again, the state militia had to be called out to quell the violence (at least 8 people killed and about 100 injured), although fighting would continue for another week. Ultimately, the courts ruled against Wood and the Municipal Police were disbanded.

In the election that year, Wood ran on a pro-slavery platform that praised the Dred Scott decision and Buchanan's pro-slavery policy in Bleeding Kansas, while attacking Republican efforts to expand voting rights to black New Yorkers. This race-baiting failed to distract voters from the violence and corruption of the Wood Administration, to say nothing of the Panic of 1857 which had sent unemployment in the city skyrocketing. To get rid of Wood, Tammany formed a fusion ticket with the Republicans and Know-Nothings that narrowly defeated the incumbent mayor.

Learning nothing from his defeat, Wood blamed the loss on a shadowy cabal of "Black Republicans" who had supposedly infiltrated Tammany Hall and formed his own rival Democratic machine out of Mozart Hall. In 1859, Wood once again used armed violence, this time to try to seize control of the State Democratic Convention from Tammany delegates. When this didn't work, Wood once again turned to racism in his campaign to get back into the mayoralty, running on a pro-slavery, anti-John Brown, and anti-abolition platform. He just barely managed to pull out another tiny plurality victory with only 38% of the total vote.

In his next term, Wood crossed the line from mere bigotry to open treason, calling for New York City to secede from both New York state and the United States (both controlled by "Black Republican" abolitionists, according to Wood) so that it could trade freely with the Confederacy. In 1861, Wood came in third place for re-election, finishing only a thousand votes behind both the Republican and the Tammany Democrat.

Despite (or arguably because of) his vocal pro-Confederacy stance and his supporters having caused the 1863 Draft Riots, Wood became the leader of the so-called "Peace" Democratic faction against the War Democrats. Lest you think that Wood was motivated by his abbhorence of war, Wood made the reasons for his opposition clear when he pushed for constitutional amendments to protect slavery, attacked War Democrats as "a white man's face on the body of a negro," and led the Congressional opposition to the passage of the 13th Amendment. In 1868, Wood was censured by Congress for his verbal attacks on the Reconstruction Acts. This censure accomplished nothing, and Wood continued his Congressional career unabated, which culminated in becoming Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee following the end of Reconstruction.

Wood had the reverse Midas touch of turning everything he touched to shit, such that even the few good things he supported - like home rule for New York City and public works jobs for the unemployed - became tainted by association with his violence and corruption. As far as I'm concerned, they should have done him like they did Vallandigham.

Compared to Wood, the faults of every other NYC mayor seem like the most minor of venal sins.

"Gentleman" Jimmy Walker was corrupt as fuck - supporting his lavish lifestyle by taking bribes from anyone with a pulse, selling the services of the NYPD to the mob, getting in bed with Arnold Rothstein, and perhaps having been connected to the murder of a whistleblower on police corruption and the disappearance of a New York Supreme Court judge - but he was also part of the progressive wing of Tammany Hall and a talented administrator (albeit one who only worked from 3-5 so as not to interfere with his more important time with showgirls, nightclubs, speakeasies, and boxing matches). He supported social welfare policies, opposed the KKK, built municipal waterworks and subway lines (albeit through corrupt contracts), and created the Sanitation and Hospitals Departments.

Similarly, William O'Dwyer was a typical Tammany politician who oversaw a massive police corruption scandal in Brooklyn, and ultimately had to flee to Mexico to avoid investigations from the Justice Department and the Brooklyn DA into his ties with organized crime, but he was in most other respects a typical if unremarkable mid-century NYC Mayor.

Shouldn't have raised the subway fare to ten cents, tho.

[tomorrowusa]

If you were an academic, would you remain in a state which is willing to prosecute you if you deviate from the governor's political line?

With the start of the 2023-24 academic year only six weeks away, senior officials at New College of Florida (NCF) made a startling announcement in mid-July: 36 of the small honors college’s approximately 100 full-time teaching positions were vacant. The provost, Bradley Thiessen, described the number of faculty openings as “ridiculously high”, and the disclosure was the latest evidence of a brain drain afflicting colleges and universities throughout the Sunshine state. Governor Ron DeSantis opened 2023 with the appointment of six political allies to the college’s 13-member board of trustees who vowed to drastically alter the supposedly “woke”-friendly learning environment on its Sarasota campus. At its first meeting in late January, the revamped panel voted to fire the college president, Patricia Okker, without cause and appoint a former Republican state legislator and education commissioner in her place. Over the ensuing weeks, board members have dismissed the college’s head librarian and director of diversity programs and denied tenure to five professors who had been recommended for approval.

Essentially, the DeSantis education gestapo is killing off the institution — or at least making it very unattractive to students to the left of Mussolini. Of course it's not just NCF that's been affected.

The new laws have introduced a ban on the funding of diversity, equity and inclusion programs at Florida’s public colleges and universities, withdrawn a right to arbitration formerly guaranteed to faculty members who have been denied tenure or face dismissal, and prohibited the teaching of critical race theory, which contends that inherent racial bias pervades many laws and institutions in western society, among other changes. In the face of that and other legislation backed by DeSantis and Republican lawmakers that has rolled back the rights of Florida’s LGBTQ+ community, many scholars across the state are taking early retirement, voting with their feet by accepting job offers outside Florida or simply throwing in the towel with a letter of resignation. [ ... ]

The prevailing political climate in Florida has complicated efforts to recruit qualified scholars from outside the state to fill some vacancies. Kenneth Nunn served on a number of appointment committees during the more than 30 years he spent on the faculty of the University of Florida’s law school. He said the task of persuading highly qualified applicants of color to move to Gainesville has never been more difficult under a governor who, earlier this year, prohibited a new advanced placement course in African American studies from being taught in high schools. DeSantis came under renewed criticism this month when the state department of education issued guidelines recommending that middle school students be taught about the skills slaves acquired “for their personal benefit” during their lifetimes in bondage.

DeSantis is so fond of slavery that every public college and university in Florida is now an anti-woke plantation run by a DeSantis overseer.

Degrees from public educational institutions in the state may henceforth be looked upon like those from Trump University.

[lboogie1906]

Henry O. Wagoner (February 27, 1816 – January 27, 1901) was an abolitionist and civil rights activist in Chicago and Denver. As a free African American man in Maryland, he worked on a farm and worked to free slaves with a loose group of individuals that are known as the Underground Railroad. He left Maryland under suspicion for his activities and settled in Chicago after spending a few years in Chatham, Ontario. Continuing to work with the Underground Railroad, he was a typesetter and journalist for radical anti-slavery newspapers before the abolition of slavery in Chicago. He befriended Frederick Douglass, with whom he would remain close throughout his life. He helped recruit African American soldiers for Illinois and Massachusetts regiments. He moved to Denver. He worked to secure African Americans the right to vote and equality in education and under the law. He hosted Frederick Douglass, Jr. and Lewis Henry Douglass, two of Frederick Douglass' sons, in Denver, and taught them typography. About this same time, along with William J. Hardin, Lewis taught reading, writing, and other subjects to adult African Americans in his home until the Denver school board approved a segregated school building in 1867 and integrated public schools in 1873. He operated a saloon and restaurant and in 1870 was estimated to be the wealthiest African American in the city. The elder Douglass would repay the favor in 1874 when he helped secure his son, Henry O. Wagoner, Jr. a position as consular clerk in Paris. He was appointed a clerk in the first Colorado State Legislature, and he was appointed deputy sheriff of Arapahoe County, Colorado, where he worked as bailiff of the District Court. He served as sheriff for three years and served as a ward election judge in Denver. In 1882, he briefly edited the Denver Star, which had been founded by Lewis Price. As an editor, he argued for civil rights, speaking out against Supreme Court decisions in the Civil Rights Cases in 1883 and in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. He was a commissioner at the 1884 World Cotton Centennial in New Orleans. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence https://www.instagram.com/p/CpKmBHjr5oi/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[thoughtlessarse]

In an interview with The Journal, the former President of Ireland also said the US and other Western countries need to do more to end the conflict in Gaza. Mary Robinson has said people need to “learn the lessons” of Irish history, including the Famine and mass emigration, as part of our response to immigration into the country. Anti-migrant and anti-refugee protests have become commonplace in Ireland in recent months, with some turning violent. In an interview with The Journal, Robinson, former Irish president and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said people should respond to migration in a thoughtful manner. “We need to think more about what it is to be a migrant, and think more about our history, about the Irish Famine, about the many, many Irish who went to get a better life from poverty, from conflict, or maybe their sexual orientation,” she said. She described migrants as “brave, courageous people” who often experience “terrible” things and sometimes put their lives at risk when trying to enter Europe or the United States. “They try to get a better life, and then they send lots of money home to those who haven’t made it. So, we should welcome these talented, good people who’ve come looking for a better life. “We need to talk more about changing our attitudes towards migrants, partly because it’s always been a phenomenon of movement of people in our world – and it’s going to increase with the climate and nature crisis. “People will not be able to live in certain places because of drought, heat, flooding, whatever, islands going under, and they will have to move. And, you know, we’re anticipating the numbers will increase. So, let’s prepare ourselves more thoughtfully.”

continue reading

The similarity of mass emigration from Ireland to immigration to Ireland starts and ends with moving to another country. The Irish moved to countries colonised by the Brits, where white people took control of everything. The Irish joined them in the theft of land from indigenous people and enslaving first the indigenous populations and when they proved less resilient to the diseases brought by Europeans, kidnapped and enslaved people from another continent. The Irish migrants who were seen as subhuman at home suddenly became white and were accepted in their new homes and where they could lord it over the non-whites, which they did with alacrity. They became slave overseers, ran the slave patrols (it's no accident slang for slave patrols was paddy rollers) and when slavery was abolished, cops. Much the same thing happened in all WASP countries. If it wasn't the Irish it was the Scots displaced by the alliance of English and lowland Scots (i.e. Sassenachs).

Migrant arriving in Ireland today are not there to enslave anybody nor steal land, and many cannot disguise their origins. They stand out like a sore thumb and make all to easy targets.

[yatescountyhistorycenter]

Born on the Fourth of July - for a purpose

By Jonathan Monfiletto

Perhaps being born on the 17th birthday of the United States of America, and being born to a father who had served in the cause of America’s independence from Great Britain, had something to do with instilling in Isaac Lanning the sense of always doing the right thing and never the popular thing or the easy thing. “In politics, in religion, temperance, and all social, moral and public concerns he has been a positive and effective man, leaning uniformly to the right side without regard to temporary expediency or the direction of the popular breeze, he was always a man to rely upon,” is how an unidentified newspaper article – likely the Yates County Chronicle version of the Lanning family vignette by Stafford Cleveland for his History and Directory of Yates County – describes Lanning, circa 1870 when he was 77 years old. “What the cause for which he enlisted expected of him, he endeavored to do with heartiness and with his might. And such was his bold, outspoken sincerity, that he always had the respect of those who opposed him.”

Lanning is best remembered for an incident in which he was involved – and that certainly tested and proved his character – that took place in the hamlet of Eddytown (now called Lakemont) in the town of Starkey when he was a 37-year-old husband of his first wife, Catharine, and father of their five children aged around 14, 10, 9, 6, and 4. In 1830, the territory encompassing Starkey had been ceded from Schuyler County to Yates County only four years before and slavery existed within New York State’s boundaries until three years before, when the state completed a process of gradual emancipation. “The inhabitants of this part of the State at that time, as a rule, regarded slavery, if not with favor, at least with a passive indifference, but there were some among them whose idea in this respect was that slavery was a great evil, which should be abolished. The number holding this extreme view were small, but they were very outspoken and active in expressing their opinion,” historian Walter Wolcott write in his Military History of Yates County. Lanning was among their number.

Lanning was born – along with his twin brother, James B. Lanning – on July 4, 1793 in Sussex, New Jersey to Richard – a Revolutionary War veteran – and Martha Lanning. They had an older brother, John, and a younger sister, Eliza. When Isaac and James were about 3 years old, the family moved to Northumberland, Pennsylvania. Ten years later, in 1806, the family relocated to the town of Reading, which had been established that year in what was then Steuben County. Around age 17, Isaac went to work in the blacksmith shop his father owned with another man. When the partnership dissolved, Isaac and Richard continued their trade in a blacksmith shop owned solely by the father. Two years later, Isaac started his own blacksmith shop at Eddytown and then became a private in Captain Timothy Hurd’s Company of Light Infantry during the War of 1812. Starting in September 1813, Isaac served three months under General George McClure.

Lanning married Catharine Swarts on February 3, 1814; she was also a native of New Jersey who had come to the Reading area in 1809. In 1814, the Lannings built a home and Isaac organized his blacksmith shop and established the first blast furnace in the area. He served as commissioner of highways and assessor for Reading, and when a portion of the town was annexed to Yates County and named Starkey he became the first supervisor of Starkey. He later served as overseer of the poor, justice of the peace, and excise commissioner for Yates County and ran unsuccessfully as the Anti-Masonic candidate for county sheriff and as the anti-Masonic candidate for town supervisor. He later became the first postmaster for Starkey.

After Catharine died on July 1, 1848, Lanning married Lydia Myers. They had one child born February 7, 1850, but the child died just two years later. Lydia died on October 30, 1853, and then Lanning married Emeline Palmer on July 1, 1854. They had three children. Meanwhile, Lanning continued operating his blacksmith shop: “His life has been one of laborious industry, and now in the seventy-seventh year of his age, his brawny arm swings the blacksmith’s hammer in the same village where he begun the trade fifty-nine years ago, and in the same shop where he has worked over fifty years,” the Chronicle article states. Lanning had been “an honorable and conspicuous part in the history of Yates county,” and Eddytown – the community he called home – had at one time been more important than even Penn Yan, the county seat.

The most honorable and most conspicuous part of Lanning’s role in local history happened in the summer of 1830 when a couple of slaveholders from Virginia and their aides galloped into Eddytown on horseback in pursuit of seven runaway slaves. Those helping the slaveholders were, according to Wolcott, “certain residents of this neighborhood, who cared more for their pecuniary benefit than for the claims of humanity.” Three of the freedom seekers were working for in a harvest field just south of Eddytown, while a fourth was working at a nearby mill. The slaveholders sped off for those spots, while Lanning and two other men chased after them in hopes of foiling their work. That effort wasn’t to be, and the four freedom seekers were captured.

Nevertheless, Lanning demanded of the slaveholders what they planned to do with the men and declared, “You won’t take them back.” The slaveholders eventually agreed to stay in Eddytown overnight, with the enslaved men detained, in order to have the matter of their authority to take the men back to Virginia investigated by a judge. Meanwhile, Lanning knew where the other three enslaved men were – working at a site in Milo – though the slaveholders did not know their whereabouts. Lanning gave his horse to a neighbor and told the man to ride to Milo and alert the freedom seekers. Upon reaching them, the man told the freedom seekers to flee to Penn Yan and seek the help of Henry Bradley, a resident known to have served on the Underground Railroad.

In the morning, Isaac Seymour, a justice of the peace, determined the men from Virginia were indeed the rightful owners of the four enslaved men and had the lawful right to take the men back with them. However, while the Virginians and their aides attempted to track down the other three freedom seekers, some were led in one direction and others in another direction to mislead and confuse them. After a week, the slaveholders returned to Virginia. While four men went back into slavery, thanks to the work of Lanning, three men found their freedom that day in 1830.

While Lanning was born on the Fourth of July, he fittingly died at age 83 on May 24, 1879, a few days short of what was then known as Decoration Day – a day set aside to honor those who died in the Civil War and served to give enslaved people their freedom, just as Lanning himself had strived to do.

[thxnews]

Australian Government's Commitment to Combat Human Trafficking

  Bolstering Efforts to Counter Global Crimes

On World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, the Australian Government reaffirms its unwavering commitment to combatting these abhorrent crimes. Embracing this year's global theme of 'reach every victim of trafficking, leave no one behind', the government exhibits a steadfast dedication to bolstering its efforts in countering human trafficking and all forms of modern slavery. Both domestically and internationally, the Australian government is resolutely committed to protecting the vulnerable and ensuring that no victim is left without support or assistance. By actively participating in the fight against this heinous crime, the nation sets an example for others to follow, championing the cause for justice and human rights on a global scale.   National Awareness Campaign Empowering Communities To mark this significant day, a national social media awareness campaign is launched by the Attorney General's Department, in collaboration with the Australian Federal Police and civil society partners. The campaign, titled 'Look a Little Deeper Human Trafficking Happens in Australia', aims to empower communities and raise awareness about the deceptive tactics used by traffickers to recruit victims into modern slavery. The campaign's multi-language translation seeks to amplify its impact and reach.  

Ambitious Policy Program Addressing the Scourge

The Albanese Government is actively implementing an ambitious policy program to combat the insidious scourge of human trafficking and modern slavery. This comprehensive program includes: - A $24.3 million boost to the Support for Trafficked People Program over the next four years. - Allocating $8 million over four years to establish Australia's first federal Anti-Slavery Commissioner. - Providing $2.73 million over the next two years through the Modern Slavery Grants program. - Offering $1 million to United Nations trusts, supporting victims of trafficking in their rehabilitation and recovery. - Contributing up to $24 million of Official Development Assistance in the past financial year. - Extending support for the first facility dedicated to combatting the trafficking of persons in Southeast Asia.   Global Recognition and Advocacy Australia's dedicated efforts in combating human trafficking have garnered global recognition, as evidenced by maintaining a Tier One ranking in the US Government's 2023 Trafficking in Persons Report for an impressive 20 years in a row. Furthermore, the nation continues to be a prominent advocate on this issue in international forums. Actively participating as a co-chair of the Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons, and Related Transnational Crime, Australia demonstrates its commitment to addressing this pressing concern on a global scale. The Australian government's unwavering commitment, coupled with its comprehensive policy program and active global advocacy, collectively reinforces its strong stance against human trafficking. This determination reaffirms the country's resolve to eliminate this heinous crime and provides crucial support to victims on their path to recovery and justice.   Sources: THX News & Minister for Foreign Affairs. Read the full article

[96thdayofrage]

How lawmakers block progress and maintain oppressive policies

Many lawmakers, especially in the South, fought to maintain the nation’s founding principles of white supremacy.

In Alabama’s Dallas County, more than half the population was Black in 1961 but fewer than one in 100 Black citizens were registered to vote due to daunting poll taxes and other measures meant to disenfranchise Black voters. 

Across the South, registrars could selectively ask Black voters to read part of the Constitution, then decide whether the text had been read to their liking, said Carol Anderson, an African American studies professor at Emory University in Atlanta.

As such, they had enormous power to block people from voting, Anderson said.

A modest civil rights act passed in 1957 had enabled the Justice Department to sue states for voting rights violations but put the onus on people whose rights had been violated, requiring them to challenge systems designed to keep them down, Anderson said. By 1963, a federal report examining 100 counties in eight Southern states found that Blacks remained substantially underrepresented at the polls.

Selma, the seat of Dallas County, became an important battleground as tensions escalated. A local judge stifled demonstrations by declaring public gatherings of more than two people illegal, drawing a visit from Martin Luther King Jr. and thrusting Selma into the national spotlight.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Southern legislators repeatedly derailed civil rights-related proposals while chairing key committees, said David Bateman, an associate professor of government at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. 

“Their control over these committees allowed them to gate-keep the agenda,” Bateman said.

Images of officers attacking voting rights activists – including then 25-year-old activist John Lewis – on a Selma bridge with clubs and tear gas in March 1965 helped sway public support. Days after the so-called “Bloody Sunday” incident, President Lyndon Johnson pressed lawmakers to pass broad voting rights legislation. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 banned literacy tests and other discriminatory practices while requiring federal approval of proposed voting-eligibility standards before states could implement them.

Today, Bateman said, as increasing voting restrictions continue to disproportionately affect people of color, “there’s every reason to believe voter disenfranchisement campaigns will persist.”

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 reversed a key part of the landmark Voting Rights Act, allowing states to alter voting rules before obtaining federal consent. This summer, the court issued a ruling that disqualifies votes cast in the wrong precinct and only allows family members or caregivers to turn in another person’s ballot.

At least 18 states have enacted laws making voting harder this year, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. In Montana, legislators abolished Election Day registration. Florida curtailed after-hours drop boxes.

Georgia shortened absentee ballot request periods, criminalized providing food and water to queued-up voters and made opening polls optional on Sundays, traditionally a day when the Black vote spikes as congregants vote after church. 

“We still have not dealt with anti-Blackness in this society,” said Anderson, of Emory University. “We’re really looking at the same pattern, the same rhymes.”

In September, Democrats introduced an elections and voting rights bill that would expand early voting options, identification requirements and access to mail-in ballots while allowing Election Day registration.

Police have long upheld racist laws, often with violence

As Blacks demanded equality during the civil rights movement, they faced hostility not just from fellow civilians but from those entrusted to protect and to serve.

In 1961, Freedom Rides occurred throughout the South as activists challenged Southern non-compliance with a Supreme Court decision ruling that declared segregated bus travel unconstitutional. The campaign met with often ugly resistance: In Birmingham, riders were attacked by a Ku Klux Klan mob, reportedly with baseball bats, iron pipes and bicycle chains.

Within the mob was an FBI informant who told the agency of the impending attack, but the agency did nothing, reluctant to expose its mole. Two decades later, a U.S. District Court judge excoriated the FBI for its inaction.

“The FBI was passively complicit,” said Diane McWhorter, author of “Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution.”

The attack occurred with the blessing of Alabama public safety commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor, who told Klan leaders that police would wait 15 minutes before stepping in.

Paul Butler, a law professor at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., said he sees the links between the police violence of Birmingham and “Bloody Sunday” and the tanks, tear gas and rubber bullets employed at today’s Black Lives Matter demonstrations.

“We have John Lewis and others marching on that bridge protesting police brutality, and they get attacked and beat up by police,” said Butler, author of the book “Chokehold; Policing Black Men.” “And last summer, throughout the country there were marches on police brutality – and at these marches, police attacked the people protesting police brutality. The parallels are clear.”

People of color continue to be disproportionately affected by fatal police shootings, with significantly higher death rates than whites over the previous five years, researchers at Yale University in Connecticut and the University of Pennsylvania reported last year. “So it’s unclear whether change is actually occurring,” Butler said.

Critics note the police presence and brutality faced by Black Lives Matter protesters during the unrest following Floyd’s murder – the open-source database Bellingcat found more than 1,000 incidents of police violence – in contrast with the relatively unprepared force that was unable to stop hordes of mostly white Donald Trump supporters from breaching perimeter fencing and entering the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection.

“There has never been a time when policing of public speech hasn’t been racially biased,” said Justin Hansford, executive director of Howard University’s Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center in Washington, D.C. “With the civil rights-era protests, most people understood that they were standing up for core American principles as opposed to Jan. 6, where they were trying to stop people’s votes from being counted.”

A USA TODAY analysis of arrests linked to the insurrection found that 43 of 324 people arrested were either first responders or military veterans; at least four current and three former police officers now face federal charges.

Education leaders have maneuvered to keep segregation, hide racist history

Education leaders have also at times sought to stall progress.

Two years after the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 decision ruling segregated schools unconstitutional, Virginia Rep. Howard Smith took the floor to address his colleagues.

There, he introduced a document signed by 82 representatives and 19 senators, all from former Confederate states. The so-called Southern Manifesto called for resisting desegregation and blasted the Brown decision as an abuse of judicial power violating states’ rights.

The gesture demonstrated how deep resistance to desegregation ran in the South. The next year, Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus summoned the National Guard to prevent nine Black students from entering Little Rock’s Central High, in defiance of a federal order.

“After the ruling comes down, you have massive resistance in the South,” said Sonya Ramsey, an associate history professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. “You have school boards saying they’re not going to do it. You have government officials saying they’re not going to do it. That’s a system.”

Resistance came in many forms, she said, from committees formed to study the matter in perpetuity to policies that allowed whites, but not Blacks, to transfer schools. 

Some institutional leaders did make positive strides, Ramsey noted, even if for economic reasons. While many Southern cities resisted desegregation efforts, officials in Charlotte, North Carolina, eager to promote the area as a progressive business climate, constructed a districtwide busing plan designed to have schools reflect the community with the help of Black and white families and local leaders.

But institutional ills continue, Ramsey and others say – in charter schools now struggling with diversity, in faulty school funding formulas and in ongoing debates about what students should be taught about slavery and racism. Bills limiting how educators can teach about racism have been introduced this year in at least 28 states.

A 2018 Southern Poverty Law Center study of educational standards in 15 states found none addressed slavery’s justification in white-supremacist ideology nor its integral part in the economy; furthermore, the report noted, a separate survey found just 8% of high school seniors identified slavery as the Civil War’s cause.

“It’s fear of the unknown and of disruption,” said Donnor, of William & Mary. “And seeing that the status quo is no longer acceptable. One of the major parallels is in the hostility of the pushback. If you peel back the layers, you can see the similarities.”

News media shapes how Americans view race

The news media has throughout the nation’s history helped Americans understand racial issues – for better or worse. 

In 1962, after James Meredith tested federal law to become the first Black student admitted to the formerly all-white University of Mississippi, the station manager of Jackson’s WLBT decried the decision on-air, saying states should make their own admission decisions.

Station officials strongly supported segregation, rebuffing calls for opposing views, avoiding civil rights coverage and notoriously blaming technical problems for interruption of a 1955 “Today Show” interview of attorney Thurgood Marshall. Ultimately, after repeated complaints to the Federal Communications Commission and a crucial federal court decision affirming public input in FCC hearings, the station lost its license.

“These are the stories we weren’t taught in journalism school,” said Joseph Torres, co-author of “News For All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media.” “They (civil rights groups) were saying, it’s a public airwave, and it’s not being fair to the Black community.”

Black media stepped up to offer different perspectives of mainstream narratives or provide coverage that wasn’t otherwise there. When 14-year-old Emmett Till was lynched in 1955 by two men who would ultimately be acquitted by an all-white jury, Jet magazine published a photo of Till’s mutilated body that helped kickstart the civil rights movement.

While some white-owned media such as Mississippi’s Delta Democrat Times and Lexington Advertiser condemned segregation and violence, others such as Jackson’s Clarion-Ledger held to the status quo. Gannett, the parent company of USA TODAY, purchased the newspaper in 1982.

“Had the Clarion-Ledger taken a leadership position denouncing atrocities going on in front of their faces, the state would be farther along in terms of getting past some of the pain,” said Mississippi Public Broadcasting executive editor Ronnie Agnew, who served as the newspaper’s executive editor until 2011.

In 1968, the landmark Kerner Commission, appointed to investigate the unrest that had exploded in national riots, faulted the media in addition to longstanding racism and economic inequalities. “The press has too long basked in a white world looking out of it, if at all, with white men's eyes and white perspective," the commission’s final report read.

“They made it absolutely clear that the white press had done a terrible job of covering civil rights,” said Craig Flournoy, a journalism professor at the University of Minnesota who has critiqued the Los Angeles Times’ “incendiary” coverage of the 1965 Watts riots, for which the newspaper won a Pulitzer.

Flournoy said the Times relied heavily on white police and white elected officials for material. In one particularly egregious example, he said the newspaper, having no Black reporters on staff, sent a young Black advertising staffer into Watts to dictate dispatches by payphone, but his notes were repurposed into sensational stories that exaggerated the supposed Black threat.

[gravalicious]

When [James] Stephen drafted the 1833 anti-slavery bill, he knew that a price would have to be paid for Parliament’s assent, given how divisive the debates had been. That price was compensation, not for the formerly enslaved but for their owners. They would be paid for the confiscation of their property. The rate, set by commissioners in London, would vary according to the colony and the estimated productivity of each enslaved person. Enslaved people were worth the most in Honduras, where owners were paid £195 per slave, and least in Bahamas, were they were worth only £35. The amount required in total, for some 800 000 enslaved people, was vast. At £20 million, it equated to some 40 per cent of Treasury revenue – a sum equivalent to that which bailed out the UK banks during the 2008 financial crisis. Rather than increasing taxation to pay off the slave owners, the Treasury raised a loan through the issue of new government securities. In 1835 the new chancellor, Thomas Spring Rice, invited potential bidders for the contract to raise it. Baring Brothers & Co., Reid, Irving & Co. and Ricardo, Maubert and Melville all expressed interest but then withdrew from competition, leaving a syndicate led by Nathan Mayer Rothschild and Moses Montefiore (Jacob’s cousin) as the sole bidder. Parliament agreed to a loan of £15 million for the Caribbean slave owners, with a further £5 million raised later for those in the Cape Colony and Mauritius. John Finlayson, the actuary of the national debt, expressed his gratitude to Rothschild for assisting the government ‘on terms the very lowest that were consistent with his own [financial] safety’.[3] The British government finished paying off this loan only in 2015.(p. 39)

Alan Lester, Kate Boehme and Peter Mitchell - Ruling the World: Freedom, Civilisation and Liberalism in the Nineteenth-Century British Empire (2021)

[orikoaurora]

Slavery.

By the beginning of the 19th century, slavery in the U.S. was firmly established with a series of statutes and penal codes enacted in various states to regulate the activity of slaves and all conduct involving slaves and free blacks. With the Louisiana Purchase, the question of slavery became both geographical and political, and ushered in a period of national debate between pro- and anti-slavery states to gain political and economic advantage. But by 1820, Congress was embroiled in the debate over how to divide the newly acquired territories into slave and free states.

The Missouri Compromise—also referred to as the Compromise of 1820—was an agreement between the pro- and anti-slavery factions regulating slavery in the western territories. It prohibited slavery in new states north of the border of the Arkansas territory, excluding Missouri. Constitutionally, the Compromise of 1820 established a precedent for the exclusion of slavery from public territory acquired after the Constitution, and also recognized that Congress had no right to impose upon states seeking admission to the Union conditions that did not apply to those states already in the Union. After Missouri's admission to the Union in 1821, no other states were admitted until 1836 when Arkansas became a slave state, followed by Michigan in 1837 as a free state. Indeed, the debate over slave and free states remained relatively calm for almost 30 years. However by the late 1840s, several events occurred that upset the balance: the U.S. added new territory as a result of the Mexican war, and the question of whether that territory would be slave or free arose again. California, beneficiary of an increased population because of the gold rush—petitioned Congress to enter the Union as a free state. At the same time, Texas laid claim to territory extending all the way to Santa Fe. Of course Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital, not only allowed slavery but was home to the largest slave market in North America.

In January 1850, Henry Clay presented a bill that would become known as the Compromise of 1850. The terms of the bill included a provision that Texas relinquish its disputed land in exchange for $10 million to be paid to Mexico. The territories of New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah were defined while leaving the question of slavery off the table, on the understanding that the issue would be decided when the territories applied for statehood. In addition, the slave trade would be abolished in the District of Columbia, although slavery would still be permitted in the nation’s capitol. It was agreed that California would be admitted as a free state, but the Fugitive Slave Act was passed to mollify pro-slavery states. This bill was the most controversial of all the bills that made up the Compromise of 1850. According to its tenets, citizens were required to aid in the recovery of fugitive slaves. Fugitives had no right to a jury trial. The cases were handled by special commissioners, who were paid $5 if a fugitive was released and $10 if the captive was returned to slavery. In addition, the act called for changes that made the process for filing a claim against a fugitive easier for slave owners. The new law was devastating. Many former slaves who had been attempting to build lives in the North left their homes and fled to Canada, which added approximately 20,000 blacks to its population over the following decade. Harriet Jacobs, a fugitive living in New York, described this period as “the beginning of a reign of terror to the colored population.” She was one of the runaways who remained in New York, despite learning that slave catchers had been hired to track her down. Many were captured and returned to slavery, however, including Anthony Burns, a fugitive living in Boston. Even free blacks, too, were captured and sent to the South, completely defenseless with no legal rights. The compromise lasted until the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, when Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas proposed legislation allowing the issue of slavery to be decided in the new territories.

In 1801, Congress extended Virginia and Maryland slavery laws to the District of Columbia, establishing a federally sanctioned slave code.

In 1803, the Louisiana Purchase added Creoles and French settlers to the U.S. population. Congress approved the Louisiana Purchase from France for $15 million, which virtually doubled the country’s land size. It also re-ignited controversy over the spread of slavery in the territory.

In 1807, Congress banned the importation of slaves into the U.S., although smuggling continued in some parts of the South. Once the transatlantic slave trade was prohibited, domestic slave trading throughout the South increased.

The 1820 census added free colored persons to its racial categories.

In 1820, the Missouri Compromise brought Missouri and Maine into the Union. By this time more than 20,000 Indians lived in virtual slavery on California missions. The same year, Congress made trade in foreign slaves an act of piracy.

In 1821, Missouri entered the Union as the 24th state and a slave-holding state, maintaining the balance of slave and free states.

The Office of Indian Affairs was created in 1824.

In 1825, a ship operated by the U.S. Revenue seized a slave ship, the Antelope, sailing under a Venezuelan flag with a cargo of 281 Africans. The case was brought before the U.S. Supreme Court, which issued a unanimous opinion declaring the slave trade to be a violation of natural law. Only some of the Africans were set free, however, since the ruling also held that the U.S. could not prescribe law for other nations, and the slave trade was legal in Spain, Portugal and Venezuela. The 39 Africans designated by the court as property of Spain and the Antelope itself were restored to their owners.

The Compromise of 1850 admitted California as a free state; voters in New Mexico and Utah territories would decide whether they would be slave or free upon applying for statehood.

The new Fugitive Slave Act, also passed in 1850, made the federal government responsible for apprehending fugitive slaves in the North, and sending them back to the South. This extended slavery and its enforcement beyond the South. The South, however, felt that even this law was not strong enough, and the demand for more effective legislation resulted in enactment of a second Fugitive Slave Act that same year. However, the law was so severe that its implementation was open to abuses that defeated its purpose. Even during the Civil War, the Fugitive Slave Acts were used to prosecute blacks fleeing their masters in border states that were loyal to the Union. The acts were eventually repealed, but not until June of 1864.

In 1851 Shadrach Minkins, an African American working as a waiter in Boston, was abducted by slave catchers. Before he could be freed by legal means in a challenge to the Fugitive Slave law, Minkins was rescued by a group of African Americans.

In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act passed, dividing the region along the 40th parallel, with Kansas to the south and Nebraska to the north, and providing both territories the right to vote on whether to be slave or free. For all practical purposes the act effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850, which had attempted to regulate the spread of slavery. As a result of the new law, both pro- and anti-slavery supporters tried to convince settlers to move to Kansas in order to sway the vote. The New England Emigrant Aid Company, an anti-slavery group, was very successful, and a group of anti-slavery activists was established around the town of Lawrence, Kansas. At the same time, pro-slavery settlers from Missouri began moving across the border to Kansas, some establishing themselves as residents of the territory, others simply coming across to vote. They were called “border ruffians” by their opponents. Lecompton, Kansas, the territorial capital, boiled with tension over the issue, and so-called “free-soilers” felt so threatened there that they set up their own unofficial legislature at Topeka. The enmity between the sides verged on civil war, and the period became known as "Bleeding Kansas."

The Dred Scott decision was handed down in 1857, which denied citizenship to free and enslaved blacks.

[blackkudos]

Georgia Douglas Johnson

Georgia Blanche Douglas Camp Johnson, better known as Georgia Douglas Johnson (September 10, 1880 – May 15, 1966), was an African-American poet, one of the earliest African-American female playwrights, and an important figure of the Harlem Renaissance.

Early life

She was born as Georgia Blanche Douglas Camp in 1880 in Atlanta, Georgia, to Laura Douglas and George Camp (her mother's last name is listed in other sources as Jackson). Both parents were of mixed ancestry, with her mother having African-American and Native American heritage, and her father of African-American and English heritage.

Camp lived for much of her childhood in Rome, Georgia. She received her education in both Rome and Atlanta, where she excelled in reading, recitations and physical education. She also taught herself to play the violin. She developed a lifelong love of music that she expressed in her plays, which make distinct use of sacred music.

She graduated from Atlanta University's Normal School 1896. She taught school in Marietta, Georgia. In 1902 she left her teaching career to pursue her interest in music, attending Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio. She wrote music from 1898 until 1959. After studying in Oberlin, Johnson returned to Atlanta, where she became assistant principal in a public school.

Marriage and family

On September 28, 1903, Douglas married Henry Lincoln Johnson (1870-1925), an Atlanta lawyer and prominent Republican party member who was ten years older than she. Douglas and Johnson had two sons, Henry Lincoln Johnson, Jr., and Peter Douglas Johnson (d. 1957). In 1910 they moved to Washington, DC, as her husband had been appointed as Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia, a political patronage position under Republican President William Howard Taft. While the city had an active cultural life among the elite people of color, it was far from the Harlem literary center of New York, to which Douglas became attracted.

Douglas's marital life was affected by her writing ambition, for her husband was not supportive of her literary passion, insisting that she devote more time to becoming a homemaker than on publishing poetry. But she later dedicated two poems "The Heart of a Woman" (1918) and "Bronze" (1922) to him; these were praised for their literary quality.

Career

After the Johnson family moved to Washington, D.C., in 1910, Douglas Johnson began to write poems and stories. She credited a poem written by William Stanley Braithwaite, about a rose tended by a child, as her inspiration for writing poetry. Johnson also wrote songs, plays, short stories, taught music, and performed as an organist at her Congregational church.

Poetry

She had already begun to submit poems to newspapers and small magazines when she lived in Atlanta. Her first poem was published in 1905 in the literary journal The Voice of the Negro. Her first collection of poems was not published until 1916.

Johnson published a total of four volumes of poetry, beginning in 1916 with The Heart of a Woman. In the 21st century, her poems have been described as feminine and "ladylike", or "raceless". They have titles such a "Faith", "Youth", and "Joy".

Her poems were published in several issues of The Crisis, the journal of the NAACP that was founded and edited by W. E. B. Du Bois. "Calling Dreams" was published in January 1920, "Treasure" in July 1922, and "To Your Eyes" in November 1924.

During the 1920s, Douglas Johnson traveled extensively to give poetry readings. In 1925 her husband died, and she was widowed at the age of 45. She had to rear their two teenage sons by herself. For years she struggled to support them financially, sometimes taking the clerical jobs generally available to women.

But as a gesture to her late husband's loyalty and political service, Republican President Calvin Coolidge appointed Douglas Johnson as the Commissioner of Conciliation, a political appointee position within the Department of Labor. In 1934, during the Democratic administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, she lost this political appointee job. She returned to supporting herself with temporary clerical work.

Johnson's literary success resulted in her becoming the first African-American woman to get national notice for her poetry since Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. In 1962 she published her last poetry collection, Share My World.

The Heart of a Woman

Johnson was well recognized for her poems collected in The Heart of a Woman (1918). She explores themes for women such as isolation, loneliness, pain, love and the role of being a woman during this time. Other poems in this collection consist of motherly concerns.

Bronze

Johnson's collection published as Bronze had a popular theme of racial issues; she continued to explore motherhood and being a woman of color. In the foreword of Bronze she said: "Those who know what it means to be a colored woman in 1922- know it not so much in fact as in feeling ..."[1]

Plays

Johnson was a well-known figure in the national black theatre movement and was an important "cultural sponsor" in the early twentieth century, assembling and inspiring the intellectuals and artists who generated the next group of black theatre and rising education (16). Johnson wrote about 28 plays. Plumes was published under the pen name John Temple. Many of her plays were never published because of her gender and race. Gloria Hull is credited with the rediscovery of many of Johnson's plays. The 28 plays that she wrote were divided into four groups: "Primitive Life Plays", "Plays of Average Negro Life", "Lynching Plays" and "Radio Plays". The first section, "Primitive Life Plays", features Blue Blood and Plumes, which were published and produced during Johnson's lifetime.

Like several other plays that prominent women of the Harlem Renaissance wrote, Sunday Morning in the South (1925) was provoked by the inconsistencies of American life. These included the contrast between Christian doctrine and white America's treatment of black Americans, the experience of black men who returned from fighting in war to find they lacked constitutional rights, the economic disparity between whites and blacks, and miscegenation.

In 1926, Johnson's play Blue Blood won honorable mention in the Opportunity drama contest. Her play Plumes also won in the same competition in 1927. Plumes is a folk drama that relates the dilemma of Charity, the main character, whose baby daughter is dying. She has saved up money for the doctor, but also she and her confidante - Tilde - don't believe the medical care would be successful. She has in mind an extravagant funeral for her daughter instead - with plumes, hacks, and other fancy trimmings. Before Charity makes a decision, her daughter dies. Plumes was produced by the Harlem Experimental Theatre between 1928 and 1931.

Blue-Eyed Black Boy is a 1930 lynching genre play written to convince Congress to pass anti-lynching laws. This lesser known play premiered in Xoregos Performing Company's program: "Songs of the Harlem River" in New York City's Dream Up Festival, from August 30 to September 6, 2015. "Songs of the Harlem River - a collection of five one-act plays including Blue-Eyed Black Boy also opened the Langston Hughes Festival in Queens, New York, on February 13, 2016.

In 1935, Johnson wrote two historical plays, William and Ellen Craft and Frederick Douglass. William and Ellen Craft describes the escape of a black couple from slavery, in a work about the importance of self-love, the use of religion for support, and the power of strong relationships between black men and women. Her work Frederick Douglass is about his personal qualities that are not as much in the public eye: his love and tenderness for Ann, who he met while still enslaved, and then was married to in freedom for over four decades. Other themes include the spirit of survival, the need for self-education, and the value of the community and of the extended family.

Johnson was one of the only women whose work was published in Alain Locke's anthology Plays of Negro Life: A Source-Book of Native American Drama. Although several of her plays are lost, Johnson's typescripts for 10 of her plays are in collections in academic institutions.

Anti-lynching activism

Although Johnson spoke out against race inequity as a whole, she is more known as a key advocate in the anti-lynching movement as well as a pioneering member of the lynching drama tradition. Her activism is primarily expressed through her plays, first appearing in the play Sunday Morning in the South in 1925. This outspoken, dramatic writing about racial violence is sometimes credited with her obscurity as a playwright since such topics were not considered appropriate for a woman at that time. Unlike many African-American playwrights, Johnson refused to give her plays a happy ending since she did not feel it was a realistic outcome. As a result, Johnson had difficulty getting plays published. Though she was involved in the NAACP's anti-lynching campaigns of 1936 and 1938, the NAACP refused to produce many of her plays claiming they gave a feeling of hopelessness. Johnson was also a member of the Writers League Against Lynching, which included Countée Cullen, James Weldon Johnson, Jessie Fauset, and Alain Locke. The organization sought a federal anti-lynching bill.

Gloria Hull in her book Color, Sex, and Poetry, argues that Johnson's work ought to be placed in an exceedingly distinguished place within the Harlem Renaissance, and that for African-American women writers "they desperately need and deserve long overdue scholarly attention". Hull, through a black feminist critical perspective, appointed herself the task of informing those within the dark of the very fact that African-American women, like Georgia Douglas Johnson, are being excluded from being thought of as key voices of the Harlem Renaissance. Johnson's anti-lynching activism was expressed through her plays such as The Ordeal, which that was printed in Alain Locke's anthology The New Negro. Her poems describe African Americans and their mental attitude once having faced prejudice towards them and the way they modify it. Isolationism and anti-feminist prejudice however prevented the sturdy African-American women like Johnson from getting their remembrance and impact with such contributions.

S Street Salon

Soon after her husband's death, Johnson began to host what became 40 years of weekly "Saturday Salons" for friends and authors, including Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer, Anne Spencer, Richard Bruce Nugent, Alain Locke, Jessie Redmon Fauset, Angelina Weld Grimké and Eulalie Spence — all major contributors to the New Negro Movement, which is better known today as the Harlem Renaissance. Georgia Douglas Johnson's house at 1461 South Street NW would later become known as the S Street Salon. The salon was a meeting place for writers in Washington, D.C. during the Harlem Renaissance. Johnson's S Street Salon helped to nurture and sustain creativity by providing a place for African-American artists to meet, socialize, discuss their work, and exchange ideas. According to Akasha Gloria Hull, Johnson's role in creating a place for black artists to nurture their creativity made the movement a national one because she work outside of Harlem and therefore made a trust for intercity connections. Johnson called her home the "Half Way House" for friends traveling, and a place where they "could freely discuss politics and personal opinions" and where those with no money and no place to stay would be welcome. Although black men were allowed to attend, it mostly consisted of black women such as May Miller, Marita Bonner, Mary Burrill, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Zora Neale Hurston, and Angelina Weld Grimke. Johnson was especially close to the European-American writer Angelina Grimké. This Salon was known to have discussions on issues such as lynching, women's rights, and the problems facing African-American families. They became known as the "Saturday Nighters."

Weekly column

Between 1926 and 1932, she wrote short stories, started a letter club, and published a weekly newspaper column called "Homely Philosophy."

The column was published in 20 different newspapers, including the New York News, Chicago Defender, Philadelphia Tribune, and Pittsburgh Courier and ran from 1926 to 1932. Some of the topics she wrote on were considered inspirational and spiritual for her audience, such as "Hunch," "Magnetic Personality," and "The Blessing of Work." Some of her work was perceived to help people cope with the hardships of the Great Depression.

One of the articles that focused on spirituality was "Our Fourth Eye", in which she wrote that "closing one's natural eyes" to look with the "eyes of one's mind". She explains that the "fourth eye" assists with viewing the world in this way. Another essay of Johnson's, "Hunch" discusses the idea that people have hunches, or intuition, in their lives. She goes on to explain that individuals must not quiet these hunches because they are their "sixth sense- your instruction".

Legacy

Throughout her life she had written 200 poems, 28 plays and 31 short stories which is a pretty great achievement to have especially during this period of time. In 1962, she then published her last poetry book called "Share My World". Throughout "Share My World" and the poems inside, they reflect on love towards all people and forgiveness which shows how much wisdom she has gained throughout her entire life. In 1965 Atlanta University had presented Douglas with an honorary doctorate of literature which praised her for all the accomplishments she has had and for the great woman she was and still is known as.

When she died in Washington, D.C., in 1966, one of her sister playwrights and a former participant of the S Street Salon, sat by her bedside "stroking her hand and repeating the words, 'Poet Georgia Douglas Johnson'".

Johnson received an honorary doctorate in literature from Atlanta University in 1965. In September 2009, it was announced that Johnson would be inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame.

Major works

Poems

The Heart of a Woman (1918)

Bronze (1922)

An Autumn Love Cycle (1928)

Share My World (1962)

The Ordeal

Plays

A Sunday Morning in the South (1925)

Blue Blood (1926)

Paupaulekejo (1926)

Plumes (1927)

Safe (c. 1929)

Blue-Eyed Black Boy (c. 1930)

Starting Point (play) (1930s)

William and Ellen Craft (1935)

Frederick Douglass (1935)

And Yet They Paused (1938)

A Bill to Be Passed (1938)

[creepingsharia]

A Month of Islam in America: June 2019

Another month, and another step forward for sharia in America as more censorship was exposed. A whistleblower leak confirmed that @Pinterest protects Muslims and censors any reference to “creeping sharia,” and many other non-liberal topics.

Click any link below for more details and link to original source.

Jihad in America in June

Brooklyn: Muslim Immigrant Sentenced to 20 Years for Attempting to Join Islamic State (ISIS) Mohamed Rafik Naji was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment by United States District Judge Frederic Block for attempting to provide material support or resources to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), a foreign terrorist organization.  Naji pleaded guilty to the charge in February 2018.

Brooklyn: Muslim Woman Who Helped ISIS Gets 4 Years, But Will Be Out in 18 Months

With credit for time served, Sinmyah Amera Caesar will end up only serving about 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to charges accusing her of using social media to help recruit IS fighters under the nom de guerre “Umm Nutella.” She had also admitted violating a cooperation agreement with the government a — betrayal that infuriated prosecutors.

Illinois: Bosnian Muslim refugee and mother of 4  jailed for sending money, supplies to ISIS

Mediha Medy Salkicevic, a/k/a Medy Ummuluna, a/k/a Bosna Mexico, 39, was sentenced to 78 months in prison for conspiring to provide material support to terrorists.

Salkicevic, aka Medy Ummuluna and Bosna Mexico, espoused the ISIS philosophy that infidels should be killed and once said that unbelievers should be buried alive.

At the time of her arrest, she was working for an air cargo company at Chicago O'Hare Airport...

Illinois: Two Muslim converts convicted of aiding Islamic State (ISIS)

Joseph D. Jones and Edward Schimenti proudly waved a terrorist flag during a photo at a Lake Michigan park in Zion, had plotted to attack the Navy’s main U.S. training center near North Chicago and once had their eyes on planting an ISIS flag atop the White House.

Now Jones and Schimenti, both 37, have been found guilty of providing material support to ISIS.

Indiana: Yemeni Muslim who tried to join Islamic State terrorists gets 8 years in prison

U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Evans Barker handed down the 100-month sentence Friday afternoon in the case against 21-year-old Akram Musleh, U.S. Attorney Josh Minkler announced.

He admitted in the plea agreement that from about April 2016 through June 21, 2016, he offered himself to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, also known as IS, knowing it was a “designated foreign terrorist organization.”

Pittsburgh: Syrian Muslim Refugee Arrested for Planning Jihad Attack on Christian Church

Mustafa Mousab Alowemer, 21, a resident of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was arrested today based on a federal complaint charging him with one count of attempting to provide material support and resources to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), a designated foreign terrorist organization, and two counts of distributing information relating to an explosive, destructive device, or weapon of mass destruction in relation to his plan to attack a church in Pittsburgh.

“Court documents show Mustafa Alowemer planned to attack a church in the name of ISIS, which could have killed or injured many people...”

Ohio: Jordanian Muslim Immigrant Sentenced to 15 Years for Trying to Join Islamic State (ISIS)

A Dayton, Ohio man was sentenced today in U.S. District Court to 180 months in prison and 25 years of supervised release for attempting, and conspiring, to join the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). 

Laith Waleed Alebbini, 28, was convicted following a bench trial in November and December 2018 before U.S. District Judge Walter H. Rice.

Alebbini attempted, and conspired, to provide material support and resources to ISIS in the form of personnel, namely himself.

Alebbini, a citizen of Jordan and a U.S. legal permanent resident, was arrested by the FBI on April 26, 2017, at the Cincinnati/Kentucky International Airport, as he approached the TSA security checkpoint.

South Carolina: Muslim - twice convicted for attempts to join ISIS and kill Americans - gets 20-year prison sentence

A federal judge has sentenced a South Carolina man who tried to join ISIS to 20 years in prison.

Zakaryia Abdin, 20, pleaded guilty in September 2018. The Ladson man was arrested in March 2017.

New York: Bangladeshi Muslim immigrant arrested in Times Square terror plot

Ashiqul Alam was arrested Thursday after arranging through an undercover agent to buy a pair of semiautomatic pistols with obliterated serial numbers, prosecutors said. Police Commissioner James O’Neill said that development was “a clear indicator of (Alam’s) intent to move his plot forward.”

The defendant, a legal resident born in Bangladesh, moved to the U.S. as a child about 12 years ago...

He talked about wanting to “shoot down” gays, referring to them with a slur; using a “rocket launcher, like a huge one,” to cause havoc at the World Trade Center; and obtaining an enhanced driver’s license so he could walk onto a military base and “blow it up,” the documents said.

Illinois: Muslim Arrested for Threatening to Bomb Aurora Casino for Allah

A recently released affidavit and search warrant claimed that 30-year-old Musatdin M. Muadinov,  while detained by police on Feb. 12, vowed to “pray to Allah” to “destroy the casino.” He further demanded to meet with President Donald Trump, saying that if his demands were not met, “we would all meet Allah,” according to the affidavit obtained by the Daily Herald.

Muadinov — who was dressed in what police described as “Muslim attire” when arrested — waived his right to remain silent.

More Jihad in America in June

Florida: Suspect sent bomb threats to judges ‘for cause of Islamic State’

Nebraska: Heavily armed Marine arrested trying to enter Air Force Base

Arizona: Muslim shared terror propaganda before attacking police officer

Brooklyn: Muslim in Jail for ISIS Support Pleads Guilty to Slashing Correctional Officer

South Carolina: Man who pledged allegiance to ISIS hid explosive device in teddy bear

Arizona: Witness in probe of 2015 Islamic jihad attack on free speech event convicted of lying to FBI

Libyan National Found Guilty of Terrorism Charges in 2012 Attack on U.S. Facilities in Benghazi

Iraqi Muslim who orchestrated jihad attack that killed 5 U.S. troops gets 26 years prison, then release to Canada

Immigration Jihad in America

Minnesota’s first Somali Muslim cop gets 12 years for murdering Australian woman

Minnesota: St. Paul’s first Somali Muslim city council member says criticizing his homophobic comments is… Islamophobic

New York: Brooklyn Mosque Blasts Islamic Call to Prayer to 20 Block Radius (VIDEO)

Somalis have Changed Minneapolis

New York: Thousands of Muslims take over two city blocks in Brooklyn to pray in the streets

Four Muslim ISIS suspects arrested in Nicaragua, likely headed for US

Islamization of America

Pennsylvania: 167-year-old Catasauqua church will become Islamic mosque

Pennsylvania: Former Easton church is now a Sunni mosque

Pennsylvania: Former daycare in residential Salisbury to become Muslim “community center”

Virginia: Residential home in Annandale to become a Muslim funeral home

Education Jihad in America

New Jersey Public School District to Students: “May Allah Continue to Shower You Love and Wisdom”

Maryland school fails Christian student for refusing Islamic prayer

New York: Cornell Univ. Muslim Students Demand More “Prayer Rooms”

Stanford administrators say advertising for conservative event threatens Muslim students

The Muslim Brotherhood’s Muslim Students Association: What Americans Need to Know

DOE Investigating Elite Colleges For Hiding Saudi, Qatari Cash from Regulators

Islamic Slavery & Sexual Jihad in America

Virginia: Three Muslim family members arrested for conspiracy, forced labor, and document servitude 

Detroit Imam: Wife-Beating Serves to Remind Her That She Misbehaved (VIDEO)

Dhimmitude in Elected Office

Trump Admin Sues Greyhound for Banning Muslim Driver from Wearing Full Length Islamic Robe 

Democrat majority passes defense authorization bill that funds transfer of remaining Gitmo jihadis to U.S.

Minnesota: City of Bloomington allows terror mosque to flout local laws (VIDEO)

Minnesota city council votes 5-0 to ditch Pledge of Allegiance (to avoid offending Muslims)

Diversity is our Strength Alert

Minnesota’s first Somali Muslim cop gets 12 years for murdering Australian woman

Minnesota: St. Paul’s first Somali Muslim city council member says criticizing his homophobic comments is… Islamophobic

Boston Police Dept’s First Muslim Captain Put On Administrative Leave Amid ‘Anti-Corruption’ Investigation

Minnesota: First Muslim congresswoman Ilhan Omar fined by state for unlawful use of campaign funds

Minnesota Muslim Rep. Ilhan Omar filed joint tax returns before she married husband

Fraud for Jihad

Connecticut: Muslim Grocery Store Worker Pleads Guilty in $3.2M Federal Food Stamp Fraud

Massachusetts: Muslim Restaurant Owner Pleads Guilty to Tax Fraud Conspiracy

That’s just what we had time to compile for just the month of June.

Far too many steps forward for the sharia, and only a few pushbacks, but worth noting:

New Jersey: School District Scraps Posters Calling upon “Allah” to “Shower” Students with Blessings After Threat of Lawsuit 

Rather Than Go to Trial, Terror-linked CAIR Settles with the Victims They Defrauded 

Tunisian Muslim who swore allegiance to ISIS removed from U.S.

New York: Albany mosque imam convicted of terrorism is deported back to Iraq It’s almost midnight and Americans are losing their first amendment rights to sharia supremacists and the big technology, media and politicians who support them.

Please share this report before it’s too late.

[cloudtales]

U.K. anti-slavery commissioner warns of lack of support for trafficking victims in Rwanda

U.K. anti-slavery commissioner warns of lack of support for trafficking victims in Rwanda

Dame Sara Thornton, the U.K.’s anti-slavery commissioner, has expressed “significant concerns” over the government’s proposal to send people seeking asylum to Rwanda. In an interview with the Independent, she warned that trafficking victims would be unlikely to receive adequate support there. Will trafficking survivors be sent to Rwanda under the proposed deal?  Under new plans announced on April…

[lboogie1906]

The American Missionary Association was an abolitionist group founded on Protestant beliefs. It was focused on the abolition of slavery, education for African Americans, gaining racial equality, and promoting Christian values. They were most prominent in the US from the antebellum period through Reconstruction.

The AMA was founded on September 3, 1846, in Albany, New York by disaffected members of the American Home Missionary Society and the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. The founders were upset that the AHMS and ABCFM failed to take a stand against slavery and accepted contributions from slaveholders. The first board of the AMA consisted of eight white men and four Black men.

The AMA founded anti-slavery churches and Black schools. In Illinois alone, they were able to help start over 115 churches founded on the belief that slavery is wrong. The AMA recruited teachers to help educate Black people. Many AMA teachers instructed freed enslaved in contraband camps in Union-controlled Confederate territory.

The AMA increased the number of schools and colleges it founded for freed enslaved. African Americans and white sympathizers believed that education should be a top priority for freed enslaved and was the best way to help them gain their civil rights. They founded more than five hundred schools and colleges in the South. Those colleges included Fisk University, Hampton Institute, Tougaloo College, Atlanta University, Dillard University, Talladega College, and Howard University. The AMA created the Freedmen’s Aid Society to recruit Northern teachers to teach in the South and help find those teachers housing.

The AMA expressed its dissatisfaction with the federal government’s withdrawal of support for the interracial governments in the former Confederate states. Its strongest efforts outside of the US were in India, China, and East Asia.

The AMA saw a decrease in support as its members joined other organizations. Many joined the United Church of Christ which absorbed most AMA members. The remaining members of the AMA formally merged with the Justice and Witness Ministries division of the UCC. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence