Getty images. A young boy at the blackboard of a school in Gaza, August 2014. Via BBC.
Gaza got bombed 97 years ago when the British seized it, in World War I.
In the 21st century, things have not changed enough for the people who live in the area.
It’s even worse in Gaza than it was for the West Bank earlier.
3 Comments | 
Civil Rights, Classroom technology, Education, History, History images, Human Rights, Israel | Tagged: Civil Rights, Classroom technology, Education, Gaza Strip, History, Human Rights, Israel | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Is it an unprecedented coincidence? 205 years ago today, just minutes apart according to unconfirmed accounts, Abraham Lincoln was born in a rude log cabin on Nolin Creek, in Kentucky, and Charles Darwin was born into a wealthy family at the family home in Shrewsbury, England.
Gutzon Borglum’s 1908 bust of Abraham Lincoln in the Crypt of the U.S. Capitol – Architect of the Capitol photo
Lincoln would become one of our most endeared presidents, though endearment would come after his assassination. Lincoln’s bust rides the crest of Mt. Rushmore (next to two slaveholders), with George Washington, the Father of His Country, Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, and Theodore Roosevelt, the man who made the modern presidency, and the only man ever to have won both a Congressional Medal of Honor and a Nobel Prize, the only president to have won the Medal of Honor. In his effort to keep the Union together, Lincoln freed the slaves of the states in rebellion during the civil war, becoming an icon to freedom and human rights for all history. Upon his death the entire nation mourned; his funeral procession from Washington, D.C., to his tomb in Springfield, Illinois, stopped twelve times along the way for full funeral services. Lying in state in the Illinois House of Representatives, beneath a two-times lifesize portrait of George Washington, a banner proclaimed, “Washington the Father, Lincoln the Savior.”
Charles Darwin statue, Natural History Museum, London – NHM photo
Darwin would become one of the greatest scientists of all time. He would be credited with discovering the theory of evolution by natural and sexual selection. His meticulous footnoting and careful observations formed the data for ground-breaking papers in geology (the creation of coral atolls), zoology (barnacles, and the expression of emotions in animals and man), botany (climbing vines and insectivorous plants), ecology (worms and leaf mould), and travel (the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle). At his death he was honored with a state funeral, attended by the great scientists and statesmen of London in his day. Hymns were specially written for the occasion. Darwin is interred in Westminster Abbey near Sir Isaac Newton, England’s other great scientist, who knocked God out of the heavens.
Lincoln would be known as the man who saved the Union of the United States and set the standard for civil and human rights, vindicating the religious beliefs of many and challenging the beliefs of many more. Darwin’s theory would become one of the greatest ideas of western civilization, changing forever all the sciences, and especially agriculture, animal husbandry, and the rest of biology, while also provoking crises in religious sects.
Lincoln, the politician known for freeing the slaves, also was the first U.S. president to formally consult with scientists, calling on the National Science Foundation (whose creation he oversaw) to advise his administration. Darwin, the scientist, advocated that his family put the weight of its fortune behind the effort to abolish slavery in the British Empire. Each held an interest in the other’s disciplines.
Both men were catapulted to fame in 1858. Lincoln’s notoriety came from a series of debates on the nation’s dealing with slavery, in his losing campaign against Stephen A. Douglas to represent Illinois in the U.S. Senate. On the fame of that campaign, he won the nomination to the presidency of the fledgling Republican Party in 1860. Darwin was spurred to publicly reveal his ideas about the power of natural and sexual selection as the force behind evolution, in a paper co-authored by Alfred Russel Wallace, presented to the Linnean Society in London on July 1, 1858. On the strength of that paper, barely noticed at the time, Darwin published his most famous work, On the Origin of Species, in November 1859.
The two men might have got along well, but they never met.
What unusual coincidences.
Go celebrate human rights, good science, and the stories about these men.
A school kid could do much worse than to study the history of these two great men. In fact, we study them far too little, it seems to me.
Resources:
Charles Darwin:
Abraham Lincoln:
More:
Anybody know what hour of the day either of these men was born?
This is mostly an encore post.
Yes, you may fly your flag today for Lincoln’s birthday; the official holiday, Washington’s Birthday, is next Monday, February 17th — and yes, it’s usually called “President’s Day” by merchants and calendar makers.
12 Comments | Abraham Lincoln, Charles Darwin, Civil Rights, Civil War, Evolution, History, Holidays, Human Rights, Politics, Science | Tagged: Abraham Lincoln, Charles Darwin, Darwin, Emancipation, Evolution, History, Lincoln, Politics, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Hard to believe this cartoon was published back in May.
Steve Benson cartoon for the Arizona Republic, May 10, 2013: “Speaking of holding women in captivity . . .”
Apparently the Texas Lege thought it was a model for action, and not a ridiculing of their ideas.
More:
Leave a Comment » | Cartoons, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Political cartoons, Politics, War on Women, Women's rights | Tagged: Arizona Republic, Civil Rights, Editorial cartoon, Human Rights, Political cartoons, Politics, Republican Party, Steve Benson | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
A picture is worth a thousand words? For some pictures, no adequate words exist.
Photo by Ammar Awad, Reuters; caption from L’Express: De l’audace! – 17/03/2010 Afin de se rendre à l’école, une enfant traverse les lieux des affrontements entre les troupes israéliennes et les Palestiniens, dans le camp de réfugiés de Shuafat, près de Jérusalem.
L’Express caption in English:
The audacity! – 17/03/2010
To go to school, a child crosses the scene of clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinians in the refugee camp Shuafat, near Jerusalem.
Rather puts into a different perspective the whines of students about “having to go to school,” not bringing pencils or paper, and not making it to class on time, doesn’t it? What value does this girl and her family place on education?
To those who think the U.S. should in no case offer aid to Palestinians to build or operate schools, I ask: Who do you want to pay for this child’s schooling, and direct the curriculum?
Teachers, is this photo useful for studying human rights? Education? Middle Eastern human geography (AP), geography, or other issues? Contrast this girl’s path to school with that of Linda Brown in Topeka, Kansas, in 1951 (Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education).
Is education a civil right? Is education a basic human right?
Tip of the old scrub brush to James Kessler, who posted a slightly profanely-captioned version of this on Facebook.
Update: Amusing Planet has this photo (with a nice shout out) and several others, showing kids risking their lives to get to school in China, Vietnam, and Indonesia — it’s awe-inspiring, scary and encouraging at the same time.
More:
8 Comments | Civil Rights, Education, History, Human Rights, Israel | Tagged: Civil Rights, Education, History, Human Rights, Human Spirit, Palestine, photography, War | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Creationists, Intelligent Design proponents, and several other anti-science and historical revisionist groups come unglued every February about this time — February 12 is Charles Darwin’s birthday. He was born in 1809, on the exact same day as Abraham Lincoln.
Part of creationists’ coming unglued revolves around that fact that the science behind evolution grows stronger year by year, and at this point no argument exists that creationists can make against evolution that has not been soundly, roundly and thoroughly. This makes creationists nervous in a discussion, because even they recognize when they lose arguments. Creationists don’t like to lose arguments about how well Darwin’s theories work, because they erroneously believe that if Darwin is right, God and Jesus are wrong.
God and Jesus cannot be wrong, in their view, but intellectually they see they are losing the argument, and they grow desperate. In their desperation they grasp for claims that shock uneducated or unfamiliar viewers. Since about 1970, among the more shocking arguments one can make is to claim one’s opponent is racist.
Claiming Darwin, and hence evolution, boost racism, slaps history with irony. Creationism’s roots were in denying that Europeans and Africans are evolutionarily equal, a claim necessary to allow slave holders to enslave Africans and go to church on Sundays. The Civil War is 150 years away, the Emancipation Proclamation 148 years old, and even die-hard creationists generally have forgotten their own history.
Creationists accuse Darwin of being a racist, they claim evolution theory is racist, and they claim, therefore, it cannot be scientifically accurate. There are a lot of holes in that chain of logic.
This is Darwin’s birthday. Let me deal with major wrong premise, and give creationists room to correct their views with accurate history, so we don’t have a shouting match.
Way back in 2008, nominally-liberal evangelical preacher Tony Campolo got suckered in by a conservative evangelicals claim to him that evolution and Darwin are racist. Below is my answer to him then — I think Campolo learned his lesson — but this builds on the claims Campolo made which are really copied from creationists.
In short, Darwin is not racist, and here are some explanations why, with a few updated links and minor edits for Darwin’s birthday, and Lincoln’s birthday, in 2013:
Tony Campolo is an evangelical Christian, a sociology professor and preacher who for the past 15 years or so has been a thorn in the side of political conservatives and other evangelicals, for taking generally more liberal stands, against poverty, for tolerance in culture and politics, and so on. His trademark sermon is an upbeat call to action and one of the more plagiarized works in Christendom, “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s Coming” (listen to it here).
Rev. Tony Campolo
Since he’s so close to the mainstream of American political thought, Campolo is marginalized by many of the more conservative evangelists in the U.S. Campolo is not a frequent guest on the Trinity Broadcast Network, on Pat Robertson’s “700 Club,” nor on the white, nominally-Christian, low-budget knock-off of “Sabado Gigante!,” “Praise the Lord” (with purple hair and everything).
Campolo came closest to real national fame when he counseled President Bill Clinton on moral and spiritual issues during the Lewinsky scandal.
His opposite-editorial piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer back in 2008, “The real danger in Darwin is not evolution, but racism,” is out of character for Campolo as a non-conservative evangelistic thinker — far from what most Christians expect from Campolo either from the pulpit or in the college classroom. The piece looks as though it was lifted wholesale from Jerry Falwell or D. James Kennedy, showing little familiarity with the science or history of evolution, and repeating canards that careful Christians shouldn’t repeat.
Campolo’s piece is inaccurate in several places, and grossly misleading where it’s not just wrong. He pulls out several old creationist hoaxes, cites junk science as if it were golden, and generally gets the issue exactly wrong.
Evolution science is a block to racism. It has always stood against racism, in the science that undergirds the theory and in its applications by those scientists and policy makers who were not racists prior to their discovery of evolution theory. Darwin himself was anti-racist. One of the chief reasons the theory has been so despised throughout the American south is its scientific basis for saying whites and blacks are so closely related. This history should not be ignored, or distorted.
Shame on you, Tony Campolo.
6 Comments | Accuracy, Biology, Charles Darwin, Darwin, Evolution, History Revisionism, Hoaxes, Human Rights, Junk science, Racism, Religion | Tagged: Civil Rights, Darwin, Evolution, History, Human Rights, Junk science, Politics, Racism, Religion, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Is it an unprecedented coincidence? 204 years ago today, just minutes apart according to unconfirmed accounts, Abraham Lincoln was born in a rude log cabin on Nolin Creek, in Kentucky, and Charles Darwin was born into a wealthy family at the family home in Shrewsbury, England.
Gutzon Borglum’s 1908 bust of Abraham Lincoln in the Crypt of the U.S. Capitol – Architect of the Capitol photo
Lincoln would become one of our most endeared presidents, though endearment would come after his assassination. Lincoln’s bust rides the crest of Mt. Rushmore (next to two slaveholders), with George Washington, the Father of His Country, Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, and Theodore Roosevelt, the man who made the modern presidency, and the only man ever to have won both a Congressional Medal of Honor and a Nobel Prize, the only president to have won the Medal of Honor. In his effort to keep the Union together, Lincoln freed the slaves of the states in rebellion during the civil war, becoming an icon to freedom and human rights for all history. Upon his death the entire nation mourned; his funeral procession from Washington, D.C., to his tomb in Springfield, Illinois, stopped twelve times along the way for full funeral services. Lying in state in the Illinois House of Representatives, beneath a two-times lifesize portrait of George Washington, a banner proclaimed, “Washington the Father, Lincoln the Savior.”
Charles Darwin statue, Natural History Museum, London – NHM photo
Darwin would become one of the greatest scientists of all time. He would be credited with discovering the theory of evolution by natural and sexual selection. His meticulous footnoting and careful observations formed the data for ground-breaking papers in geology (the creation of coral atolls), zoology (barnacles, and the expression of emotions in animals and man), botany (climbing vines and insectivorous plants), ecology (worms and leaf mould), and travel (the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle). At his death he was honored with a state funeral, attended by the great scientists and statesmen of London in his day. Hymns were specially written for the occasion. Darwin is interred in Westminster Abbey near Sir Isaac Newton, England’s other great scientist, who knocked God out of the heavens.
Lincoln would be known as the man who saved the Union of the United States and set the standard for civil and human rights, vindicating the religious beliefs of many and challenging the beliefs of many more. Darwin’s theory would become one of the greatest ideas of western civilization, changing forever all the sciences, and especially agriculture, animal husbandry, and the rest of biology, while also provoking crises in religious sects.
Lincoln, the politician known for freeing the slaves, also was the first U.S. president to formally consult with scientists, calling on the National Science Foundation (whose creation he oversaw) to advise his administration. Darwin, the scientist, advocated that his family put the weight of its fortune behind the effort to abolish slavery in the British Empire. Each held an interest in the other’s disciplines.
Both men were catapulted to fame in 1858. Lincoln’s notoriety came from a series of debates on the nation’s dealing with slavery, in his losing campaign against Stephen A. Douglas to represent Illinois in the U.S. Senate. On the fame of that campaign, he won the nomination to the presidency of the fledgling Republican Party in 1860. Darwin was spurred to publicly reveal his ideas about the power of natural and sexual selection as the force behind evolution, in a paper co-authored by Alfred Russel Wallace, presented to the Linnean Society in London on July 1, 1858. On the strength of that paper, barely noticed at the time, Darwin published his most famous work, On the Origin of Species, in November 1859.
The two men might have got along well, but they never met.
What unusual coincidences. Today is the first day of a year-long commemoration of the lives of both men. Wise historians and history teachers, and probably wise science teachers, will watch for historical accounts in mass media, and save them.
Go celebrate human rights, good science, and the stories about these men.
Resources:
Charles Darwin:
Abraham Lincoln:
More:
Anybody know what hour of the day either of these men was born?
4 Comments | Abraham Lincoln, Charles Darwin, Civil Rights, Civil War, Evolution, History, Holidays, Human Rights, Politics, Science | Tagged: Abraham Lincoln, Charles Darwin, Darwin, Emancipation, Evolution, History, Lincoln, Politics, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
I get earnest, interesting e-mail, too. Ben Jealous from the NAACP wrote today:
Ed,
Tomorrow, we pay homage to one of America’s most righteous defenders and promoters of civil and human rights: the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Dr. King was an incredible man who changed the course of American history. He inspired millions to stand up in peaceful protest against discriminatory laws and fought for the greater good of all humanity.
Dr. King’s spirit lives on. After his assassination, millions of people picked up the torch and continued to fight for a better future, carrying our shared movement for social justice into the present day.
Did you take part in marches, rallies, and activist work in the 1950s and 1960s? Tell us about it. Have you heard stories about friends or family members who marched with or met Dr. King? We want to hear them.
And if, like me, you weren’t yet born in the 1960s, we want to hear from you, too. Tell us how Dr. King’s work and message has inspired you to fight for civil and human rights today.
Together, we can build a portrait of the impact Dr. King has had on NAACP supporters and America at large. I hope you’ll help us by sharing your story today:
http://action.naacp.org/Impact-of-MLK
Thank you,
Benjamin Todd Jealous
President and CEO
NAACP
Crowd-sourcing history. Great idea. I hope they get a great product. Why don’t you contribute?
More:
Rosa Parks with Dr. Martin Luther King jr. (ca. 1955) Mrs. Rosa Parks altered the negro progress in Montgomery, Alabama, 1955, by the bus boycott she unwillingly began. Photo from the U.S. National Archives record ID: 306-PSD-65-1882 (Box 93). Source: Ebony Magazine, via Wikipedia
1 Comment | Capturing history, Civil Rights, History, Human Rights, Martin Luther King | Tagged: Capturing history, Civil Rights, History, Human Rights, Martin Luther King, NAACP, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Rev. Phil Snider, Brentwood Christian Church, Missouri – Jonathan Turley image
We’ve heard it all before. Truly, “there is nothing new under the Sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1.9)
Debates on policy, in and before legislative bodies, would run much better if the people involved truly had a sense of history, of what had been said before, by whom, and what the outcomes of those speeches were. When we hear a speech, is it the flowery oratory of Cicero, or the exhortatory commands of Demosthenes? (You recall Plutarch’s comparison of the famous Roman orator, and the famous Greek orator, of course.)
Just a word of caution: Before your bile rises, before you find the comments box, be sure you listen all the way to the end of this short speech.
According to Advocate.com:
When the Springfield, Mo., City Council was considering an LGBT rights ordinance this summer, the Reverend Phil Snider of the Brentwood Christian Church delivered a surprising message to council members.
That was August 2012. The ordinance was tabled for “further study.” Rev. Snider blogs, as it turns out; you may want to read more of his thinking there. One of my correspondents wanted a transcript; I haven’t found that, but it turns out the speech in the video was based on a two-part sermon series he did earlier, “What does the Bible say about homosexuality?” You can see both sermons on his Facebook site, Part I, and Part II. Much of the quoted historical material appears in Part II.
The text of the proposed ordinance (amendments to the city’s human rights resolution) found here.
What sort of evidence would one use to contradict the long view of history? Please discuss in comments.
More:
1 Comment | Civil Rights, History, Human Rights, Politics, Religion | Tagged: Brentwood Christian Church, Civil Rights, History, Homosexuality, Human Rights, Politics, Religion, Rev. Phil Snider, Springfield Missouri | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Pat Bagley cartoon from the Salt Lake Tribune, May 2, 2012:
Pat Bagley cartoon, Salt Lake Tribune, May 2, 2012
Wow.
More:
3 Comments | Cartoons, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Political cartoons, Politics | Tagged: Cartoons, Civil Rights, Human Rights, LBGT Rights, Pat Bagley, Political cartoons, Politics, Salt Lake Tribune | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
What event critical to western history and the development of the democratic republic in the U.S. happened here in 1215?
A teacher might use some of these photos explaining the steps to the Constitution, in English law and the heritage of U.S. laws. Other than the Magna Carta, all the events of Runnymede get overlooked in American studies of history. Antony McCallum, working under the name Wyrdlight, took these stunning shots of this historic meadow. (He photographs stuff for studies of history, it appears.)
Maybe it’s a geography story.
View of Runnymede Meadow from Engham Village -- Wyrdlight photo through Wikimedia
Several monuments to different events of the past millennium populate the site. The American Bar Association dedicated a memorial to the Magna Carta there — a small thing open to the air, but with a beautiful ceiling that is probably worth the trip to see it once you get to England.
Wikipedia explains briefly, with a note that the ABA plans to meet there again in 2015, the 800th anniversary of the Great Charter:
Magna Carta Memorial
The Magna Carta Memorial & view towards the ‘medes’
Engraved stone recalling the 1985 ABA visitSituated in a grassed enclosure on the lower slopes of Cooper’s Hill, this memorial is of a domed classical style, containing a pillar of English granite on which is inscribed “To commemorate Magna Carta, symbol of Freedom Under Law”. The memorial was created by the American Bar Association to a design by Sir Edward Maufe R.A., and was unveiled on 18 July 1957 at a ceremony attended by American and English lawyers.[5]
Since 1957 representatives of the ABA have visited and rededicated the Memorial renewing pledges to the Great Charter. In 1971 and 1985 commemorative stones were placed on the Memorial plinth. In July 2000 the ABA came:
to celebrate Magna Carta, foundation of the rule of law for ages past and for the new millennium.
In 2007 on its 50th anniversary the ABA again visited Runnymede and during the convention installed as President Charles Rhyne who devised Law Day which seeks in the USA an annual reaffirmation of faith in the forces of law for peace.
The ABA will be meeting at Runnymede in 2015 on the 800th anniversary of the sealing of the original charter.
The Magna Carta Memorial is administered by the Magna Carta Trust, which is chaired by the Master of the Rolls.[10]
In 2008, flood lights were installed to light the memorial at night, but due to vandalism they now lie smashed.
I’ll wager the lights get fixed before 2015.
Detail of ceiling of the Magna Carta Memorial detailing play of light, and star pattern, Runnymede - Wikimedia image
More, resources:
8 Comments | 1215, Civil Rights, Democracy, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, Heritage of Law, History, History of Law, Human Rights, photography, Travel, U.S. Constitution, World history | Tagged: 1215, Civil Rights, Democracy, geography, Heritage of Law, History, Human Rights, Law, Magna Carta, photography, Runnymede, Travel, U.S. Constitution | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Mrs. Parks being fingerprinted in Montgomery, Alabama; photo from New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection, Library of Congress
Rosa Parks: “Why do you push us around?”
Officer: “I don’t know but the law is the law and you’re under arrest.”
From Rosa Parks with Gregory J. Reed, Quiet Strength
(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Pub. House, 1994), page 23.Photo: Mrs. Parks being fingerprinted in Montgomery, Alabama; photo from New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection, Library of Congress
Today in History at the Library of Congress provides the simple facts:
On the evening of December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, an African American, was arrested for disobeying an Alabama law requiring black passengers to relinquish seats to white passengers when the bus was full. Blacks were also required to sit at the back of the bus. Her arrest sparked a 381-day boycott of the Montgomery bus system and led to a 1956 Supreme Court decision banning segregation on public transportation.
Rosa Parks made a nearly perfect subject for a protest on racism. College-educated, trained in peaceful protest at the famous Highlander Folk School, Parks was known as a peaceful and respected person. The sight of such a proper woman being arrested and jailed would provide a schocking image to most Americans. Americans jolted awake.
Often lost in the retelling of the story are the threads that tie together the events of the civil rights movement through the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. As noted, Parks was a trained civil rights activist. Such training in peaceful and nonviolent protest provided a moral power to the movement probably unattainable any other way. Parks’ arrest was not planned, however. Parks wrote that as she sat on the bus, she was thinking of the tragedy of Emmet Till, the young African American man from Chicago, brutally murdered in Mississippi early in 1955. She was thinking that someone had to take a stand for civil rights, at about the time the bus driver told her to move to allow a white man to take her seat. To take a stand, she kept her seat. [More below the fold] Read the rest of this entry »
6 Comments | Civil Rights, Famous quotes, History, Human Rights, Lessons of history, Martin Luther King, Quotes | Tagged: Civil Rights, Famous quotes, History, Human Rights, Martin Luther King Jr., Montgomery Bus Boycott, Politics, Quotes, Rosa Parks | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
When my bestest friend and I first moved into our new one-story home in Friendswood, TX, the fellow next door, who owned a nice three-story house, came over and said how happy he was to have a nice couple such as ourselves now living next door as neighbors.
The couple before us, he said, were “f**king faggots!” and used to host poolside orgies in their backyard. It disgusted him. That, he informed us, was the reason for the extra-high security fence separating his back property from ours.
I met him again while getting the mail shortly after Hurricane Ike. He asked me if I had gotten my $500 check from the government. They were handing out checks to those in need with property damage.
Hurricane Ike had missed us. There WAS no property damage. But his kind, they know how! His grandfather had developed the neighborhood and, as a result, the fellow next door was living the good life. He spent the majority of his time at his beach house on the Gulf.
Shortly afterward I read a story in the Houston Chronicle telling of how the poor were finding it almost impossible to collect that much-needed check.
A few months later, I met him for a third time walking out to get the mail. He told me: “That sure is a purty little gal you got there.”
Only a fat f**k (and I’m speaking of his head, though, his body was a monument to the god of saturated-fats) could make such a remark sound perverted as all-get-out. It made my skin crawl just to type the phrase and hear his voice again inside my brain.
Extra-tall security fence or not, he obviously had been peeping out of his third-floor window when she was sunbathing by the pool–oftentimes topless, thinking she had the privacy to do so, unaware a pervert was watching, gleefully. He may very well have been doing something else, gleefully, while watching. I picture him snacking on pork rinds.
She never felt comfortable poolside again.
We sold the home a couple of years later to a NASA project manager for a future manned-flight to Mars.
I had left a couple of things behind in the confusion and commotion of moving and one afternoon I returned to retrieve them. I knocked on the door and the new owner answered.
His male companion stood close beside him, wearing tight-fitting speedos! Not that there is anything wrong with tight-fitting speedos, as they would say on Will and Grace, but he might as well have been wearing assless chaps. They were obviously lovers.
I went off to Austin, then Provo, then Nashville, and many parts in between, and when my bested friend bought a home close by to NASA, I flew back to Texas, and I’m walking down the street one day, stop at a “Don’t Walk” sign, and a fat fellow behind the wheel of a somewhat familiar-looking SUV, waiting to make a right turn, waves me over through the darkened windshield.
I thought I must still have that look of homelessness and the fellow wanted to give me a quarter or so to help himself get into heaven when the time came to fill out the application. (List any or all good deeds: “Gave 37 cents to a homeless person once.”)
It turned out to be our former fat-f**k of a next-door neighbor in Friendswood. He rolled down his window and said, “Y’know, I think that couple you sold your home to are goddamn queers.”
It made my day. “Oh, yeaaaaah!”
And pickled pink, I went on my way, picturing him in my mind peeking out of his third-story window, cursing under his breath, while two fellas playfully in the pool next door below splashed water at each other–him, the fat-f**K, crunching on a pork rind and thinking to himself, “I sure do miss that purty little gal.”
2 Comments | Civil Rights, Dan Valentine, Human Rights | Tagged: Bigotry, Civil Rights, Dan Valentine, Discrimination, Human Rights | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
English colonists, and then citizens of the new United States of America, regarded Native Americans as foreign groups, people of other lands. It’s part of a history of bad relations and bad faith between peoples on this continent that we gloss over with the good relations and good faith.
The whole story is important. It’s been told, and told well, at the Library of Congress:
On June 2, 1924, Congress enacted the Indian Citizenship Act, which granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the U.S. The right to vote, however, was governed by state law; until 1957, some states barred Native Americans from voting. In a WPA interview from the 1930s, Henry Mitchell describes the attitude toward Native Americans in Maine, one of the last states to comply with the Indian Citizenship Act:
One of the Indians went over to Old Town once to see some official in the city hall about voting. I don’t know just what position that official had over there, but he said to the Indian, ‘We don’t want you people over here. You have your own elections over on the island, and if you want to vote, go over there.
‘”The Life of Henry Mitchell,”
Old Town, Maine,
Robert Grady, interviewer,
circa 1938-1939.
American Life Histories, 1936-1940Native Americans During Mathematics Class at Indian School, Carlisle, Pennsylvania
Native Americans During Mathematics Class, (detail)
Indian School, Carlisle, Pennsylvania,
Frances Benjamin Johnston, photographer, 1903.
Prints and Photographs DivisionPreviously, the Dawes Severalty Act (1887) had shaped U.S. policy towards Native Americans. In accordance with its terms, and hoping to turn Indians into farmers, the federal government redistributed tribal lands to heads of families in 160-acre allotments. Unclaimed or “surplus” land was sold, and the proceeds used to establish Indian schools where Native-American children learned reading, writing, and the domestic and social systems of white America. By 1932, the sale of both unclaimed land and allotted acreage resulted in the loss of two-thirds of the 138 million acres that Native Americans had held prior to the Dawes Act.
In addition to the extension of voting rights to Native Americans, the Secretary of the Interior commission created the Meriam Commission to assess the impact of the Dawes Act. Completed in 1928, the Meriam Report described how government policy oppressed Native Americans and destroyed their culture and society.
The poverty and exploitation resulting from the paternalistic Dawes Act spurred passage of the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act. This legislation promoted Native-American autonomy by prohibiting allotment of tribal lands, returning some surplus land, and urging tribes to engage in active self-government. Rather than imposing the legislation on Native Americans, individual tribes were allowed to accept or reject the Indian Reorganization Act. From 1934 to 1953, the U.S. government invested in the development of infrastructure, health care, and education, and the quality of life on Indian lands improved. With the aid of federal courts and the government, over two million acres of land were returned to various tribes.
American Indians of the Pacific Northwest
Salish Man Named Paul Challae and Small Child,
Montana,
date unknown.Salish Man and Woman Sitting on Rocks, Montana (?) (date unknown.)
Salish Man and Woman Sitting on Rocks,
Montana [?],
date unknown.Salish Woman and Children
Salish Woman and Children,
St. Ignatius Mission, Montana.
1924.American Indians of the Pacific Northwest integrates over 2,300 photographs and 7,700 pages of text relating to Native Americans of two cultural areas of the Pacific Northwest. Many aspects of life and work — including housing, clothing, crafts, transportation, education, and employment, are illustrated in this collection drawn from the extensive holdings of the University of Washington Libraries, the Cheney Cowles Museum/Eastern Washington State Historical Society, and the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle.
- Listen to Native American music. Omaha Indian Music features traditional Omaha music from the 1890s and 1980s. The multiformat ethnographic field collection contains 44 wax cylinder recordings collected by Francis La Flesche and Alice Cunningham Fletcher between 1895 and 1897, 323 songs and speeches from the 1983 Omaha harvest celebration pow-wow, and 25 songs and speeches from the 1985 Hethu’shka Society concert at the Library of Congress. Search by keyword or browse the list of recorded music.
- View photographs documenting Native American life in the 1930s and 1940s. Search the collection, America from the Great Depression to World War II: Photographs from the FSA and OWI, ca. 1935-1945 on reservation or Indian.
- George Washington Papers, 1741-1799 includes many references to Indian treaties and rights; to explore this aspect of Washington’s correspondence, search the collection on Indian rights and Indian treaties.
- Words and Deeds in American History contains three features highlighting aspects of Native American history in the Northern and Central U.S.
- Search the Today in History archive on Native American to read additional features including pages on Jim Thorpe, the Cherokee chief John Ross, the Paiute writer and translator Sarah Winnemucca, and the Wounded Knee Massacre.
- Photographs from the Chicago Daily News includes images of Native Americans.
- Edward S. Curtis’s The North American Indian: Photographic Images collection portrays the traditional customs and lifeways of eighty Indian tribes.
- The History of the American West, 1860-1920: Photographs from the Collection of the Denver Public Library includes images of Native Americans from more than forty tribes living west of the Mississippi River.
And doesn’t that just frost the tar out of the birthers? Herbert Hoover just five years later chose Charles Curtis to be his vice presidential candidate, and Curtis served for four years. Curtis, born in the Kansas Territory before it was a state, came from Native American ancestry.
3 Comments | American Indians, Citizenship, Civil Rights, History, History images, Human Rights, Native Americans | Tagged: 1924, American Indians, Calvin Coolidge, Citizenship, Civil Rights, History, Human Rights, Library of Congress, Native Americans, U.S. history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
James Madison joined the world on March 16, 1751. Tuesday is the 259th anniversary of his birth.
James Madison University, appropriately, made hoopla during the whole week in 2009. What about this year?
David Edwin (1776–1841). James Madison, President of the United States. Engraving after painting by Thomas Sully. Philadelphia: W.H. Morgan, ca.1809–1817. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (107.01.00)
James Madison’s Orange County home offers free admission all day Tuesday in honor of the fourth president’s 259th birthday.
Born 1751 at Port Conway in King George while on a visit to his grandmother, Madison was raised at Montpelier, the oldest of 12 children. He is buried on the grounds of his lifelong home in the family cemetery, site of a special ceremony in honor of his birthday March 16 at 1:30 p.m.
Former Deputy Secretary of Education Eugene Hickock will deliver remarks at the cemetery along with Quantico Marine Corps Base Chief of Staff Col. Thompson Gerke, who will lay a wreath on the fourth president’s grave on behalf of President Barack Obama. Numerous other groups will also honor Madison by placing wreaths on his grave Tuesday.
The U.S. Marine Corps has a long-standing tradition of attending the annual birthday ceremony because of Madison’s connection to the naval force’s founding. As Secretary of State under Thomas Jefferson, Madison recommended sending a squadron of naval ships to fight pirates off the coast of Africa, ultimately leading to their demise by 1805.
As president, Madison again called on the Marines to lead the nation during the War of 1812.
Nice of the Marines to show. Nice of President Obama to send a wreath. Maybe we can understand why Republicans wish to avoid any celebration of Madison.
Resources:
1 Comment | Bill of Rights, First Amendment, Heroes, History, Human Rights, Icons of history, James Madison, Presidents, Religious Freedom, U.S. Constitution | Tagged: Bill of Rights, Father of the Constitution, First Amendment, founders, History, James Madison, James Madison's Birthday, March 16, Religious Freedom, U.S. Constitution | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Today is the 50th anniversary of the Greensboro sit-in. Be sure to read Howell Raines’ criticism of news media coverage of civil rights issues in today’s New York Times: “What I am suggesting is that the one thing the South should have learned in the past 50 years is that if we are going to hell in a handbasket, we should at least be together in a basket of common purpose.”
Four young men turned a page of history on February 1, 1960, at a lunch counter in a Woolworth’s store in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Ezell A. Blair, Jr. (now Jibreel Khazan), Franklin E. McCain, Joseph A. McNeil, and David L. Richmond, sat down at the counter to order lunch. Because they were African Americans, they were refused service. Patiently, they stayed in their seats, awaiting justice.
On July 25, nearly six months later, Woolworth’s agreed to desegregate the lunch counter.
Ezell A. Blair, Jr. (now Jibreel Khazan), Franklin E. McCain, Joseph A. McNeil, and David L. Richmond leave the Woolworth store after the first sit-in on February 1, 1960. (Courtesy of Greensboro News and Record) (Smithsonian Institution)
News of the “sit-in” demonstration spread. Others joined in the non-violent protests from time to time, 28 students the second day, 300 the third day, and some days up to 1,000. The protests spread geographically, too, to 15 cities in 9 states.
Smithsonian caption: "On the second day of the Greensboro sit-in, Joseph A. McNeil and Franklin E. McCain are joined by William Smith and Clarence Henderson at the Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. (Courtesy of Greensboro News and Record)"
Part of the old lunch counter was salvaged, and today is on display at the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of American History. The museum display was the site of celebratory parties during the week of the inauguration as president of Barack Obama.
Part of the lunchcounter from the Woolworth's store in Greensboro, North Carolina, is now displayed at the Smithsonian's Museum of American History, in Washington, D.C.
Notes and resources:
7 Comments | Citizenship, Civil Rights, Dissent, History, Human Rights, Nonviolent protest, Politics, U.S. Constitution | Tagged: Civil Rights, Constitution, Greensboro North Carolina, History, Human Rights, Lunch Counter, Nonviolent protest, Sit-in | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
You are currently browsing the archives for the Human Rights category.
Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 