Harriet and Dred Scott
Commentary by Black Kos Editor Denise Oliver Velez
Today marks the anniversary of the Dred Scott decision on March 6, 1857
As we have moved from Black History Month into Women's History Month, let us not forget that the wife of Dred Scott, Harriet Robinson Scott, had filed her own petition.
Harriet Robinson Scott was a slave who tried for more than a decade to gain her freedom through the court system. In separate cases that were later combined, Harriet Scott and her husband, Dred, sued for their freedom before several courts in Missouri. Their case eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, DC. It is one of the most important cases ever tried in the United States...In the spring of 1846, Harriet Robinson Scott took legal action to claim her freedom. On April 6, 1846, Harriet and Dred Scott each filed separate petitions in the St. Louis Circuit Court to gain their freedom from Irene Emerson...Their cases came to trial on June 30, 1847, but were dismissed on a technicality. Their lawyer moved for a new trial...Before the retrial took place, Irene Emerson made arrangements for the Scotts to be under the charge, or custody, of the sheriff of St. Louis County. For nine years, from March 17, 1848, until March 18, 1857, Harriet and her family remained in the custody of the sheriff. He was responsible for hiring them out and collecting and keeping their wages until the freedom suit was resolved.
(Painting of Dred Scott, a slave from Missouri and the plaintiff in the infamous Dred Scott Supreme Court Case of 1857. The painting was done by Louis Schultze, commissioned by a “group of Negro citizens,” and presented to the Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, in 1882.)
Even though this is one of the most famous cases in the history of the Supreme Court, I find it interesting that efforts to raise funds for a memorial statue dedicated to Harriet and Dred Scott have not yet triumphed.
Descendant keeps Dred Scott's legacy alive
ST. LOUIS — For Lynne Jackson, the 11-year legal struggle of slaves Harriet and Dred Scott to win their freedom is more than a pivotal moment in history; it is the courageous saga of her own family. "It’s our story and our history," said Jackson, who is the Scotts’ great-great-granddaughter. "Growing up in St. Louis, my cousins and I were continuously reminded of the story at school when some of our teachers would tell the class that we were descendents of Dred Scott. Other teachers wouldn’t believe us, so some of my cousins were put out of the classroom for ‘lying.’"
Since 1995, Jackson, a graduate of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, has been conducting extensive research to fill in the details of the story, including learning more about the individuals who helped Scott and specifics pertaining to the case.
Jackson founded the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation to support events commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Dred Scott Decision in 2007 and to promote education about the case and to further reconciliation. "While doing research, I realized that there wasn’t a statue of Harriet and Dred Scott anywhere," she said. This realization prompted Jackson to begin a campaign to raise funds to erect a statue near the Old Court House. A committee selected St. Louis artist Harry Weber for the commission, leading to the unveiling of a maquette in 2010; Jackson said she hopes the statue will be completed sometime this year.
To support the capital campaign, the foundation also initiated a penny drive, because visitors to Dred Scott’s grave in St. Louis’ Calvary Cemetery often leave pennies on the headstone in tribute to President Lincoln. Jackson encourages schools, organizations, families and individuals to participate. As a way of bringing together diverse voices and experiences, the foundation sponsored its first Dred and Harriet Scott Reconciliation Forum last year in Marshfield, Mo., in conjunction with its annual Cherry Blossom Festival. Forum participants included descendents of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, Thomas and Martha Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemming, Jefferson Davis, Justice Curtis McLean and Dred Scott, with the goal of sharing how they are preserving the legacy of their ancestors together and working toward unity.
(Dred & Harriet Scott Maquette by Artist Harry Weber)
Here is the link to the penny drive to raise funds.
For those of you who are interested in children's books to pass along to your own family or friends, or to use in school, I suggest Dred and Harriett Scott: A Family's Struggle For Freedom
The landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Dred Scott v. Sandford, in which the slave Dred Scott was denied freedom for himself and his family, raised the ire of abolitionists and set the scene for the impending conflict between the northern and southern states. While most people have heard of the Dred Scott Decision, few know anything about the case's namesake. In this meticulously researched and carefully crafted biography of Dred Scott, his wife, Harriet, and their daughters, Eliza and Lizzie, award-winning children's book author Gwenyth Swain brings to life a family's struggle to become free. Beginning with Dred’s childhood on a Virginia plantation and later travel with his masters to Alabama, Missouri, Illinois, and the territory that would become Minnesota, this "family biography" vividly depicts slave life in the early and mid-nineteenth century. At Fort Snelling, near St. Paul, Dred met and married Harriet, and together they traveled with their master to Florida and then Missouri, finally settling in St. Louis, where the Scotts were hired out for wages. There they began marshalling evidence to be used in their freedom suit, first submitted in 1846. Their case moved through local and state courts, finally reaching the U.S. Supreme Court in 1857. But the Court's decision did not grant them the freedom they craved. Instead, it brought northern and southern states one step closer to the Civil War. How did one family's dream of freedom become a cause of the Civil War? And how did that family finally leave behind the bonds of slavery? In Dred and Harriet Scott: A Family's Struggle for Freedom, Swain looks at the Dred Scott Decision in a new and remarkably personal way. By following the story of the Scotts and their children, Swain crafts a unique biography of the people behind the famous court case. In the process, she makes the family's journey through the court system and the ultimate decision of the Supreme Court understandable for readers of all ages. She also explores the power of family ties and the challenges Dred and Harriet faced as they sought to see their children, the daughters of slaves, live free.
For a more comprehensive adult history, I suggest Pulitzer Prize winning,
The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics, by Don Edward Fehrenbacher.
Let us never forget how important it is to have a Supreme Court uncontrolled by bigots. .
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News by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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I'm hopeful that in November 2012 America will prove to the GOP dinosaurs that we moved on. ColorLines: The New-Old Southern Strategy Mixes Racism and Sexism for Nasty Results
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Often, when I’m trying to sum up what sounds like a dangerously antiquated policy or idea, I’ll ask, “What is this? 1919?” That year, white anxiety and hostility over the post-World War I appearance of black advancement boiled over into a summer of racist rampages in cities such as Chicago and Washington, D.C.
But lately 1919 hasn’t been working for me. Certainly the election of President Obama has resulted in some of the most blatant expressions of white supremacist anxiety I’ve seen in my life. But I’ve been struggling to understand how the 2008 election of the first black president of the United States syncs up with the surge of anti-choice, anti-woman political activity.
Between the near record number of state anti-choice bills, the growing Personhood movement, those stupid billboards branding abortion as Black genocide and recent skirmishes over Obama’s co-pay free contraceptive policy, 2012 is looking more and more like 1873, when Congress outlawed the interstate sale and mailing of birth control via the Comstock Law.
For decades conventional wisdom has been that reproductive healthcare is a white feminist issue, that it’s a dangerous distraction from the “real” struggles of people of color. I believe that kind of thinking has been quite comforting for folks of all races who traffic in made-up nostalgia for a time when so-called traditional values were the bedrock of American society. When I hear black stylecasters revering Old Hollywood glamour as if we weren’t “The Help” and “Strange Fruit” during that period; when I watch country groups like Lady Antebellum and The Civil Wars get love at the Grammys; when girls on the Internet joke that Chris Brown can beat them anytime, it’s clear that many of us either don’t know or care about how strong the backlash has been against the ever-intertwined struggles of racial and gender justice.
It’s a pipe dream, I know. But I sincerely hope that the surge of sometime GOP presidential frontrunner Rick Santorum will clear up a few things about how race and gender justice aren’t two different issues.
A few months ago, the big Santorum story was about how he tried to weasel out of his race baiting comments with the ludicrous “blah people” defense. Now we’re hearing all about his extreme anti-birth control stance. And although some 99 percent of women in this country will use contraceptives in their lives, Santorum’s opponents are allowing this fool to set the tone. Note how Mitt Romney won’t even criticize him for saying things like, “Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that’s okay, contraception is okay. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”
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Thousands of people in south-eastern Nigeria have attended the funeral of former Biafran secessionist leader Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu. BBC: Ex-Biafra leader Chukwuemeka Ojukwu buried in Nigeria
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Col Ojukwu died in the UK after a long illness, aged 78. His 1967 declaration of independence for Biafra sparked a civil war, in which more than a million people died.
He remained a prominent figure in Nigerian politics, running twice as a presidential candidate in the 2000s.
Col Ojukwu went into exile after the Biafrans surrendered in 1970, returning more than a decade later, after he was officially pardoned. Following his amnesty, he is being granted full military honours at the funeral, with a military band playing at his family home in Nnewi, Anambra state. His coffin, draped in a Nigerian flag, has been transported around the country after it was flown back to Nigeria on Monday.
Our reporter says family members, villagers, politicians and Biafra war veterans took turns to file pass the golden casket which was kept at an open space in the family compound, where female mourners dressed in garments printed with Col Ojukwu's portrait sang.
Security was tight and guests allowed into the compound, decorated with the logos of his political party, the All Progressive Grand Alliance, were screened by the anti-bomb squad.
Outside in the town, young men played their traditional drums and danced along the major roads, while all commercial activity ground to a halt.
Col Ojukwu's death appears to have bridged a gap between opposition political groups as everyone paid tributes to his doggedness and political ideology, our correspondent says.
President Goodluck Jonathan, Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka and former Ghanaian President Jerry Rawlings were among those who went to the funeral. Following Col Ojukwu's death, the president said it was his "immense love for his people, justice, equity and fairness which forced him into the leading role he played in the Nigerian civil war".
Colonel Ojukwu went into exile for more than a decade after losing the Biafran war
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Missed this last week. Traditions stretching back to the 1600s are on display as the poorer region emerges from the shadows of such dominant cities as Rio and Sao Paulo. LA Times: Northeast Brazil has its own distinct Carnaval
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The Victorious Lion troupe, a collection of middle-aged Brazilian men wearing unwieldy and colorful costumes, banged their drums to the rhythm of maracatu music as they made their way through the hot streets of Recife.
A few blocks over, teenage dancers twisted and twirled umbrellas on stage as they moved to brass-heavy frevo, another musical style associated with the traditional Carnaval celebration in northeastern Brazil.
"Samba? No, that's the least traditional thing to have in our Carnaval," said Jorge Diogo Souza Costa, a 24-year-old student from Recife. "All that elaborate spectacle, with women exposing themselves, that's for the cameras in Rio. We don't do that stuff around here."
Every year, business in Latin America's largest country comes to a stop for almost a week and most of its 200 million residents throw themselves so completely into revelry that reports of the proceedings often seem hyperbolic to those who haven't seen them firsthand. For audiences abroad, that is usually limited to Rio's polished samba school competition.
But in the state of Pernambuco, distinct Carnaval traditions stretching back to the 1600s are on display as the poorer northeastern region emerges from the shadows of such dominant cities as Rio and Sao Paulo.
Slave plantations in the northeast provided the bulk of the economic output in the early colonial period. As power and influence shifted to the southeast in the early 20th century, states such as Pernambuco, Bahia and Paraiba languished in poverty, and many residents were forced to move to find work, often facing racism and hostility toward their cultures.
But in the years since former Brazilian president and onetime northeasterner Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office, the area has been growing much faster than even the booming southeast. Recife has become a new regional hub, and locals are more proud of their culture than ever.
"We're here tonight celebrating our historical heritage," boomed the voice of the master of ceremonies Sunday night. "We're strengthening and preserving the culture of the people."
Those who favor the Recife Carnaval call it unpretentious and fully democratic. There are no ropes separating the VIPs from the paying customers or the excluded crowds, as there are elsewhere. There are no competitions. Almost all the acts are free, and talent mingles with the crowds. Big-name musicians play both on the main stage and in poor neighborhoods far outside town.
One parade, organized around the "Morning Rooster" float, brought together more than 1.5 million people, according to event organizers. The oversized animal makes its way across one of downtown's many bridges, amid architecture remaining from the period of Dutch dominance in the early 17th century.
The Galo da Madrugada street Carnaval band marches in Recife, northeastern Brazil. (Leo Caldas / AFP/Getty Images / February 18, 2012)
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Construction has begun on a $23bn (£14.5bn) port project and oil refinery in south-eastern Kenya's coastal Lamu region near war-torn Somalia's border. BBC: Lamu port project launched for South Sudan and Ethiopia
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An oil pipeline, railway and motorway will also be built linking Lamu to South Sudan and Ethiopia. Newly independent South Sudan plans to use Lamu as its main oil export outlet.
A BBC reporter says security concerns for the project may explain the presence of Ethiopian and Kenyan troops in Somalia aiming to pacify the region.
Kenya's leader Mwai Kibaki launched the project along with his South Sudanese and Ethiopian counterparts, Salva Kiir and Meles Zenawi respectively.
"I have no doubt that this day will go down in history as one of the defining moments - when we made a major stride to connect our people to the many socio-economic opportunities that lie ahead," AFP news agency quotes Mr Kibaki as saying at the inauguration ceremony.
Known as Lamu Port South Sudan Ethiopia Transport Corridor (Lapsset), it is expected to be completed within four years with initial costs coming from the three governments and plans to attract international investment.
"I am proud to say this is one of the biggest projects that we are carrying out in Africa."
The BBC's Noel Mwakugu in Lamu says there are worries about the impact of the project on Lamu district, which is one of East Africa's most beautiful and relatively unspoiled environments along the Indian Ocean and includes a cultural heritage site on Lamu Island.
"Lamu is a living heritage. Already Unesco has declared Lamu a World Heritage Site - as an endangered site," Mualimu Badi from the Save Lamu group told the BBC.
"If 500,000 people come to work as workers, we stand to lose that status."
There have been protests against the port by some environmentalists and residents of Lamu island.
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This guy makes rulings, that are suppose to be fair and impartial? ColorLines: How a Racist Email Reveals the Grand Old Party Has Become a Petty Affair
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It’s no great insight to point out it’s a tough election year for the Republican Party. The presumed front-runner is uninspiring at best; his rotating cast of challengers are wildly off-putting to wide swaths of the electorate. But for all the hours of analysis spent sussing out how the GOP arrived in this place, a federal judge in Montana offered this week what is perhaps the most succinct explanation.
On Wednesday, District Court Judge Richard Cebull admitted to sending around an email that jokes about President Obama being the mongrel child of a white mom’s drunken night of misbehaving. Some things can’t be paraphrased, so here’s the joke itself, courtesy of USA Today:
“A little boy said to his mother; ‘Mommy, how come I’m black and you’re white?’ ” the e-mail joke reads. “His mother replied, ‘Don’t even go there Barack! From what I can remember about that party, you’re lucky you don’t bark!’ “
Ok, we’ve already established that Barack and Michelle Obama make some white people very crazy. As Akiba Solomon wrote, one tires of having to learn the names and lives of each of “bumblef@#k politician” who makes a childish remark about the Obamas. But in this case, Cebull’s gross joke is less significant than his explanation for it.
“I can obviously understand why people would be offended,” Cebull has acknowledged. Rather than obfuscate on the racist content, he offered this explanation for why he’d forward something he knew to be offensive: “I didn’t send it as racist, although that’s what it is. I sent it out because it’s anti-Obama.”
And there you have it. His response illuminates the tragic story of today’s Republican Party: It stands for nothing. The formerly Grand Old Party has devolved into a small, petty affair defined by a thoughtless defense of greed, the cynical deployment of xenophobia and a blind hatred of Barack Obama.
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Voices and Soul
by Justice Putnam
Black Kos Poetry Editor
When a particularly fatuous political commentator opined that women who exercise their reproductive health care were sluts and prostitutes, I took to various social media sites to assert I stand with all women in this struggle. I refuse to allow my Sisters' medicine to be used as a political tool; I refuse to allow the health of my Sisters to be compromised for wont of cheap, political gain.
Lines Composed on the Body Politic: An Accounting
Less than the charting of each dawn’s resolutions,
less than each evening’s trickle of doubt,
less than a crown’s weight in silver, a diamond’s
scratch against glass, less than the touted
ill luck of my rich beginnings—and yet
more than Eve’s silence, my mute ingratitude.
More than music’s safe passage, its rapturous net,
more than this stockpile of words, their liquid solicitude;
more desired than praise (the least-prized of my dreams),
less real than dreaming (castle keep for my sins),
more than no more, which seems
much less than hoped-for, again—
one mutiny, quelled; one wish lost, a forgotten treasure:
to live without scrutiny, beyond constant measure.
-- Rita Dove
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Welcome to the Black Kos Community Front Porch
Front Porch birthday music today celebrating Mary Wilson.
Front Porch Memorial - RIP Louis Reyes Rivera
Poet, writer and political activist.
(thanks to Aint Supposed to Die a Natural Death for the hat tip)