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elephant journal | daily blog, videos, e-newsletter & magazine on yoga + organics + green living + non-new agey spirituality + ecofashion + conscious consumerism=it's about the mindful life.

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Heartwarming Tearjerker: Waylon & Jane Elliott turn into Soup Sandwiches. | elephant journal

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Jane Elliott and Waylon Lewis get sentimental and honest with each other as Jane shares her story about what started her down her path as an anti-racism educator.

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Since 2018, we've mobilized millions of young people to demand what is rightfully ours: A future free of gun violence.

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The Undefeated 44 most influential black Americans in history

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Our select #Undefeated44 list has been unwrapped. Check the receipts of why we feel these black Americans shook up the world.

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An evocative photography project by acclaimed Dutch photographer Robin de Puy. This ambitious endeavor sees de Puy journeying across the vast and varied landscapes of the United States, seeking to capture the essence of the nation through the faces and stories of its everyday heroes.

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&#151; -- Jung Hui Lee and her husband emigrated from Korea to the United States in 1972, settling first in Virginia and later in California in pursuit of the "American Dream". They raised a family in Los Angeles and for many years worked multiple low-wage jobs to provide for their children.

During the 1992 L.A. uprising, Lee's 18-year old son, Edward Jae Song Lee entered the fray to help protect his Koreatown neighborhood, which was virtually abandoned by police. On April 30, 1992 Edward was fatally shot by crossfire. Later, it was discovered he was shot by another Korean-American by mistake.

Days after Lee's death, thousands of people assembled in Koreatown to march for peace. In all, over 300 businesses were burned and looted in the district, with damage exceeding $200 million. Many uninsured businesses never re-opened, uprooting the lives of Korean-American families who had labored for years to build their livelihoods from scratch.

In memory of the losses suffered in 1992, Korean-Americans call the unrest "Sa-I-Gu," or 4-2-9 in native pronunciation. It is remembered by many Korean-Americans as an awakening to their minority status, a time they felt abandoned by the government and unfairly portrayed by the media as aggressors despite inadequate law enforcement protection.
"Let It Fall: LA 1982-1992," an ABC News documentary television event, airs April 28 at 9 p.m. (8 p.m. central), marking the 25th anniversary of the L.A. uprising.
Lee spoke to John Ridley in an interview for the documentary "Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982-1992." The following are excerpts.
IMMIGRATION
In Korea, I met my husband. But I did not know that my husband was in the process of filing for immigration; we were dating then. When the passport was issued, he told me about it: that we would go live in the United States. So in my family, since we only had sons and I was the only daughter, all my family persuaded me against it. But in the end, we wound up getting married and came to the United States.

I generally thought the United States was a country that helped realize any young person's dream. There was Disneyland; there was Long Beach. I was full of hopes. More than anything grand, I imagined that I would work in a big office building, where I would go to work early in the morning, and leave by 5pm and have a plenty of leisure time for hobbies, like eating out at a fancy restaurant.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
We arrived in Virginia in April or early May. It rained a lot and houses were made of bricks. In my mind, from the image of our country, brick buildings were prisons. West Gate Prison looked like that. So it scared me, and I did not like the darkness that resembled the prison color. Even now, you know the big trash bins, with several of those placed next to the building; it's a terrifying memory even now.

My husband came as a skilled worker immigrant. He came as a motorcycle mechanic. In Virginia, we couldn't even rent a room because of racial discrimination ... And later we realized that they had never seen Asians before. So with the help of the owner - we got a basement room, where, when you look outside, you could only see people's feet walking by.

The life was... in another word, I felt like we were not treated as human beings. And even on the streets, I could tell that people were not kind. And I was very scared of that unkindness...

I was not able to communicate in English, and I felt looked down on. And as I did not work, I did not have much contact with people. But when I went to a market, I would be met by stares of people looking at me as a stranger.

My husband's income alone was not enough for us to get by... I think he was paid $2 an hour. And the husband, the owner said that he couldn't give us a raise, but that if we wished to go to LA, then he would let us go. He had an older sister here, so we came to LA.
SURVIVING IN L.A.
My husband started working at a gas station, pumping gas. I started working at a sewing factory downtown. When it came to work, because our/his English was limited, there were no available opportunities. But by then I did not have the luxury of dreaming on any longer; all the dreams had dissipated. Getting by was the priority, to establish a living. Getting by was the priority, so we were not choosy over which job to work at. That is how this any-labor-solely-for-money began.

We earned about $300-400 combined. From that, we paid the rent, the electricity bill, and... and I had not realized it then, but life was like a war... Others came for studies, but for us, it was for survival, and we had not brought much money with us....we worked at places like Swap meet, cleaning jobs at night. So in the earlier days of our immigration, we worked three jobs. Looking back, it was a hard life.

There weren't too many Koreans back then-- the immigrants... Since there were few Koreans, if we saw any Asians passing by on the street, we would ask, 'Are you, by any chance, Korean? Would you like to come over to my house for a meal?' Even strangers were made familiar just by hearing that they were also Korean and lead us to open homes... the Korean community was hard to find.
BIRTH OF A SON
After I gave birth to my son, I was very happy...When [Eddie] was first born, I saw other Korean women having baby-sitters, and I didn't think it was appropriate to have others take care of my baby. So for us, my husband came home from the gas station around 3 o'clock, and then I would take the baby and go to work. We even worked night shifts. In the beginning, we brought our son to work. Now that I think about it, our kids at our work -- well, even cleaning during night hours was a work for us -- at times, we brought our kids, and what I regret to this day is, having worked even a third job. Money comes and goes. I think we didn't think far enough. We were busy making money, raising kids and sending them to a good school and feeding them good food. Taking those young kids to work, looking back now, it's like we dragged them to work. That, I still regret it.
RACIAL TENSIONS
I mostly worked downtown or in Koreatown, so I did not have much trouble with Hispanic or black people. Thankfully I lived without conflict until then. Then many Koreans, after I had already immigrated to the United States, came in the 80s. And they made money and started driving nice cars. And in the black neighborhoods... This is something I heard later in the media. Koreans made money in black neighborhoods, lived in white neighborhoods, drove nice cars; even I would have been jealous of this... And with the money they earned there, they should have served the community back, but they didn't. I think this led the blacks to harbor ill feelings. They lived as slaves, if you look at history, and finally in the 1960s, through Martin Luther King, came this far. But from their perspective, Koreans did not seem to have suffered much, yet came to their neighborhood and made easy money and became well off. This must have angered them... Yes, this conflict was initially between the black and white races. But when you put Koreans into the scene, this must have made them think, "Yes, that owner of the liquor store only took money from me, but never gave back."
EDDIE JAE SUNG
Since childhood, Eddie had a sense of justice and was full of energy. He had a strong personality and wanted to become a soldier, a policeman or such... even when he went on to junior high and senior high, he still dreamed on of the same. A policeman, a soldier, he always wanted to become one. So he was very active even in his thoughts and preferred being outside over studying at a desk. Even when he was young, he would go camping or fishing to somewhere far. His way of thinking was more mature than of his peers.
RODNEY KING BEATING
The Rodney King images on television shocked me. Really. Because Rodney King was just one person, but if you saw it on television, several officers beat him with a club and kicked him... I did not imagine that he would survive after such beatings. How could humans do that to another human being? I thought for sure he would die.

When the verdict was read on television we became ill at ease thinking, "The black community will not take this. Something might happen." We sensed it. People talked of a possible riot, rising up, led by blacks....The word spread through calls, so we closed the stores and came home.

During that time, our son was with us, our daughter was with us, the entire family was together. So that's when we were in such terror, thinking, 'What do we make of this? What if something happens?' That was our first encounter with a riot.
LATASHA HARLINS SHOOTING Thirteen days after the Rodney King beating a 15-year-old black girl named Latasha Harlins was shot in the back of the head by a Korean shopkeeper who accused her of shoplifting. A jury found the shopkeeper guilty of involuntary manslaughter, but the judge gave her 5 years probation without jail time. The incident escalated tensions between Korean-American and black residents of Los Angeles.
That had a profound impact on me personally. Because had that incident not occurred, my son might not have died. The woman [who shot Harlins] was named Du Soonja.

Du Soonja shooting at the back of the girl leaving [the store] it's 100 percent the woman's fault.I only knew that Du Soonja was beat up by Harlins and had a black eye. So without knowing the full story, I just thought, "wow, she's badly beaten." But I don't think it was justifiable to kill. Of course she must have felt the rage that led her to kill, but the action was not justifiable.
RIOTS ON TV
On television, they would visually focus on fires and looting... And the broadcasters, though it was not a conflict between Koreans and blacks, they began to add those elements little by little. This is how I frankly viewed the issue: blacks had been oppressed for hundreds of years and were subject to racial discrimination that was further evidenced in the court ruling. But how the broadcasters continued to put Koreatown into focus and made an issue out of it, both puzzled and enraged us. There, we were faced with a discrimination of language. That's what I thought. So we said amongst ourselves that this shouldn't be. But our voice was so faint because the Korean community was very small. And the broadcasters painted it as a conflict between Koreans and blacks and made it big, in my opinion.

That day, I only watched the television and felt ill at ease, but still thought that it would never come to my house. The route that the black rioters took was wide roads like Western and Vermont, and it kept getting closer to our home... my son went out despite my dissuading him from getting involved. My son got sucked into the war.

Because though he was born here, he experienced the difficult times when he was young, when we had brought him to our workplaces in our struggling days. We had brought him to the swap meet, and he helped us, so he knows. So he thought all that we had amassed, although not a lot, was about to disappear. So he was very enraged and convinced that he had to go out and combat. Or if not, help at least.

So the Korean radio back then used to call out on young people to come out to the streets...So he said he needed to go out. And I said, "No, you can't. You need to protect us." And we had an arguments saying, "You can't go out."...

I wanted to go out, too, honestly. I am also the type to get enraged by that kind of thing. But I couldn't say, "I also want to go out with you, son." It's just how I secretly felt. ... When the radio broadcasted that battle story, my son asked about it and I explained. Then he said, "This is it!" "Let's go out, mother, and throw at least one stone and stop this....The radio broadcast seemed to be firmly convinced in stating that the blacks were invading in, that the blacks were targeting Koreans, and that it was a conflict between Koreans and blacks.. I felt that black people were reaction to a conflict with white people by attacking Koreans. And I thought "How could they be so reckless?" "Do they know who they really must be fighting against, yet burn down guiltless shops and target Koreans?"... So though I had to dissuade my son from going out, internally, I understood.

That day, around 10 o'clock, around then, a woman called Radio Korea. I heard this story myself. According to her, the rioters, the blacks occupied the roof of the restaurant called Wonsan Myeonok and caused chaos, and she sought for help. Then Radio Korea without verifying, well there was no such verification process then, they just had to believe incoming reports. It was an emergency situation to learn of the rioters being up there. So they had live broadcast soliciting help for that. But never in my dream, had I ever imagined that my son would go there.

Even before I saw the papers, the radio had announced that there had been a Korean victim. So when I connected the dots, I came to learn of the place, and that the young man on the paper was my son.

My son was shot by someone who had fired from the roof, and it turned out that the people on the roof weren't blacks, but Koreans.
WHY SPEAK NOW
I came to hope that something like this would never happen again. And whether consciously or unconsciously, we all hold biases internally...But I hope that people will come to be more generous and gracious, and that a more prosperous time can be passed on to the second and third generations.

I think that event led Koreans to a different thinking. Before, people used to be more self-absorbed in trying to make it out here, but the thought that it should no longer be so, that Koreans must rather unite, that Koreans should not just be in hiding, was birthed in the mind of all.

Those of us of the first generation, including myself and others, have no particular strength. We are just loud. But the second and third generations are the ones to lead that united Korean community, and I hope for that.

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'Let It Fall': Jung Hui Lee, whose son was killed during the LA uprising, in her own words

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In Let It Fall, a documentary by John Ridley being released in time for the 25th anniversary of the Rodney King trial, Jung Hui Lee discusses life as a Korean American.

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See also:Osage | Traditions, History, Oil, & Facts | Britannica

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The Harrowing True Story of ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ Was Suppressed For Decades

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Martin Scorsese’s film focuses on the brutal murders of the Osage people in the 1920s.

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"Stand Up" - Official Lyric Video - Performed by Cynthia Erivo

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Native Hope is a nonprofit organization that exists to dismantle barriers and inspire hope for Native voices unheard. We work with organizations and Native Americans throughout the United States. We utilize storytelling to bring hope and change and by funding essential programs that are making a real difference.

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https://www.yahoo.com/news/100-old-grandmother-slams-floridas-160003679.html

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100-Year-Old Grandmother Slams Florida’s Book Bans in Powerful Speech

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She only had one minute to speak and she made the most of it.

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he Hopi Tribe has had permanent settlements in their traditional homeland for thousands of years. Their ancient culture is rooted in a deep respect for farming with nature. Hopi farmer, Michael Kotutwa Johnson, has embarked on a life-long journey to gain recognition for traditional techniques by bringing together modern science and Indigenous ways of knowing. As drought continues to worsen in the southwest, Michael is dedicated to educating the public about dry land farming and the resilience of Hopi agriculture.

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Sign up or log in to save your favorite stories and lessons, create custom collections, and share with others.

The Hopi Tribe has had permanent settlements in their traditional homeland for thousands of years. Their ancient culture is rooted in a deep respect for farming with nature. Hopi farmer, Michael Kotutwa Johnson, has embarked on a life-long journey to gain recognition for traditional techniques by bringing together modern science and Indigenous ways of knowing. As drought continues to worsen in the southwest, Michael is dedicated to educating the public about dry land farming and the resilience of Hopi agriculture.

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Sign up or log in to save your favorite stories and lessons, create custom collections, and share with others. The Hopi Tribe has had permanent settlements in their traditional homeland for thousands of years. Their ancient culture is rooted in a deep respect for farming with nature.

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The Blackfeet Nation of Northern Montana is reintroducing the buffalo back to their landscape after 125 years of their absence. Bringing the buffalo back is healing the land, the people, and strengthening the cultural, spiritual, and ecological connections between the buffalo and the Blackfeet people. Along with bringing a locally available healthy meat supply back to the tribe and creating jobs for tribal members, the herd is also proving to be a resilient option for coping with the challenges of cattle ranching brought on by climate change. The reintroduction of buffalo back onto the plains is beginning to heal the people and landscapes that depended on them for millennia.

Sign up or log in to save your favorite stories and lessons, create custom collections, and share with others.

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The Blackfeet Nation of Northern Montana is reintroducing the buffalo back to their landscape after 125 years of their absence. Bringing the buffalo back is healing the land, the people, and strengthening the cultural, spiritual, and ecological connections between the buffalo and the Blackfeet people.

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“The Dawn of Everything”: David Wengrow & the Late David Graeber On a New History of Humanity

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“The Dawn of Everything”: David Wengrow & the Late David Graeber On a New History of Humanity

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“The Dawn of Everything”: David Wengrow & the Late David Graeber On a New History of Humanity

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Ellis and Angels Islands: Gateway to the US

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Ellis and Angels Islands: Gateway to the US

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Tip: check
- History: different treatment based on nationality
- Education: Curriculum Guides

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Down in Flames

In the end, the complaints of the community and public officials regarding the safety of the Immigration Station proved true when the Administration Building burned to the ground in August 1940. All applicants were relocated to a mainland facility by November. In 1943, Congress finally repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act in consideration of its ally in the Pacific Theater, thus ending 61 years of official Exclusion. But there was a twist: while the repeal finally allowed Chinese to become naturalized citizens at last, it continued to limit immigration from China to a mere 105 people a year until 1965.*

Once closed due to fire, the Immigration Station site was used as a World War II prisoner of war processing center by the U.S. military. After the war, the site was abandoned and deteriorated. In 1963, Angel Island was established as a state park and the California Department of Parks and Recreation (State Parks) assumed stewardship of the immigration site.

*For more information about the Immigration and Nationality Act, read this article from the Migration Policy Institute.

Japanese Internment

The story of Angel Island as a center for processing U.S. immigrants did not end when the Administration Building burned down in an electrical fire in 1940. Almost 700 Japanese immigrants were sent from Hawaii to the mainland after Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japan on December 7, 1941. Close to 600 of these people were first detained in the former immigration barracks on Angel Island, with the other 105 being sent to Sharp Park, near Pacifica. In addition, at least 98 mainland Japanese immigrants were arrested and brought to Angel Island. Most of them came from the Bay Area, Central and Salinas Valleys, with some from Colorado and Washington.

For some, Sharp Park was their first site for further screening - those deemed the most "dangerous" were sent to the U.S. Army camp on Angel Island (Fort McDowell) and then to Army and Department of Justice camps, while others were allowed to join their families at the War Relocation Authority camps like Poston, Arizona, Jerome, Arkansas, and Tule Lake, California. They were considered internees under the control of the U.S. government, both the U.S. Army and the Department of Justice.

Why were there wartime internees on Angel Island? . . .

Those arrested included community leaders, journalists, ministers, mostly of the Buddhist and Shinto denominations, people who worked with the Japanese consulates to help the adjustment of Japanese immigrants, shopkeepers, farmers, photographers and others who were members of kendo and other martial arts clubs or contributed to organizations seen by the U.S. government as "pro-Japan."

According to Tetsuden Kashima in Judgment without Trial, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other government agencies had been monitoring their activities for many months before Pearl Harbor. In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had requested the FBI to prepare, in conjunction with the army and navy intelligence units, a list of "potentially dangerous" persons to be detained in case of national conflict. This became known as the Custodial Detention List and was used to arrest specific people just hours after Pearl Harbor had been bombed.

Examining the files that are in the National Archives, some of the ministers were accused of taking orders from Japan (though they were never found to have taken any actions against the U.S. government), kendo club members were accused of associating with pro-Japan organizations because they might have been in a meeting with government officials, etc.

These immigrants were classified as "enemy aliens" although due to the Naturalization Act of 1790 which limited naturalization to "free white persons" (later modified after the Civil War to include those from Africa and in 1924 to include Native Americans), they were unable to become naturalized citizens even if they had wanted to. They were part of 17,477 people of Japanese descent who were interned or placed under the jurisdiction of the Justice Department for all or part of World War II. 13,798 Germans, Italians and a few other foreign nationals were also imprisoned as "enemy aliens." We have found the names of about 81 Germans and Italians who were interned at Angel Island for at least a short time during the war.

Many were arrested immediately after Pearl Harbor was attacked, even before a declaration of war by the U.S on December 8, 1941. As "enemy aliens," they did not have the rights of citizens. Citizenship rights proved insufficient when Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942 called for the incarceration of all people of Japanese descent on the West Coast, including both immigrants and citizens.

In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which acknowledged and apologized for the fundamental injustice of the evacuation, relocation and internment of Japanese American citizens and permanent resident aliens, provided for a public education fund to inform the public about the internment, and made restitution to those who were interned.

Where were the internees housed on Angel Island? . . .

These "enemy aliens" were housed, sometimes alongside prisoners of war, in the former Immigration Station barracks. It appears that most stayed for only a couple of weeks on Angel Island (also known as Fort McDowell), before being sent to more permanent camps. To the best of our knowledge, only men were detained on Angel Island. We have found internment records for a few women who were sent to Sharp Park near Pacifica and then on to internment camps run by the War Relocation Authority, but to the best of our knowledge, they were not sent to Angel Island.

What was life like for the Japanese detainees? . . .

There are few first-hand accounts of life on Angel Island for these Japanese immigrants, especially for those from the mainland. One is an account in Yasutaro Soga's Life Behind Barbed Wire, "Living quarters for all forty-nine of us were two rooms measuring about thirty-six feet by seventy feet on the second floor of an old building that had once been the Immigration Bureau office. Because there were about ninety internees from California already housed there, space was very tight. The beds were tri-level bunks with barely enough walking space in the aisles. There were about ten windows and one ventilator, but with 140 occupants, air circulation was poor. That night I had difficulty breathing and had a headache."

Jukichi Inouye vividly remembered that, "Angel Island was the first place [we went on the mainland]. We were there for about two weeks. We were stripped down naked for physical examinations. Then our clothes were returned to us. It was at that time my watch was missing. Boots were missing...they didn't even investigate that. We were classified as prisoners of war (Nakamura, chapter 9, page 9)."

Patsy Saiki in Ganbare! An Example of Japanese Spirit also describes Angel Island as a brief stop for women from Hawaiˋi on their way to join husbands who had been sent from Hawaiˋi to camps on the mainland. Saiki interviewed many former detainees from Hawaiˋi about their experiences to develop this optimistic composite report about the first ship to arrive at Angel Island on March 1, 1942, the U.S.S. Grant: "The men did not mind being photographed, fingerprinted and examined in the nude for 'infectious diseases.' This took from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. and it was cold, a damp, clinging cold... Angel Island was a continuation of the fairyland that was called San Francisco. Birds welcomed them in the morning, and cherry and acacia trees bloomed in pink and white glory. Such beauty, after ten days in the confining walls of the ship's hold, made them drunk with joy."

Saiki described that the internees decided to do something about the food, volunteering to help in the mess hall and cooking rice the way Japanese liked it. "The men were allowed to walk the grounds around the dorm for half an hour three times a day. They exercised loudly and joyfully." Within five days of arrival, Group 1 was on its way to Camp McCoy in Wisconsin.

Read the profile of the Hoshida family to learn more about one family where the father, mother and children all journeyed through the island. Tamae Hoshida's ship, the S.S. Lurline, also included a number of other women traveling with children and we expect they spent a short time on Angel Island as well.

Submit Your Story
If you would like to add to our index and/or submit stories about those who were interned on the island, we would love to hear from you! Please contact us at info@aiisf.org or contribute to Immigrant Voices.

Resources . . .

Kashima, Tetsuden. Judgment without Trial. Seattle, University of Washington Press, 2003

Nakamura, Kelli. Suspected criminals, spies, and "human secret weapons": the evolution of Japanese-American representations in political and cultural discourse from Hawai'i to Japan, 1880--1950s. Doctoral thesis, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2008. The quote above quotes Mr. Inouye's oral history interview with the University of Hawaii's Japanese Internment and Relocation: The Hawaii Experience study.

Proulx, Larisa. "Angel Island WW II Internment Camp and Prisoner of War Enclosure (1941-1946)," unpublished paper, 2013. Saiki, Patsy. Ganbare! An example of Japanese Spirit. Honolulu, Kisaku, Inc., 1982.

Soga, Yasutaro. Life Behind Barbed Wire. Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 2008.

In time, Angel Island began to recede into memory like fog in the bay. The traumatic experiences that Asian communities and other groups immigrating over the Pacific had faced there were rarely if ever mentioned to future generations. In 1970, shortly before the scheduled destruction of the barracks, a California State Park Ranger, Alexander Weiss, rediscovered the poetry on the walls of the abandoned barracks.

Ranger Weiss contacted Professor George Araki of San Francisco State College and photographer Mak Takahashi; together they photographed the walls of the barracks. Sparked by the discovery, Bay Area Asian Americans, spearheaded by Chris Chow, formed the Angel Island Immigration Station Historical Advisory Committee (AIISHAC). This organization studied how best to preserve the station for historical interpretation.

Restoring the Barracks

In July 1976, their hard work came to fruition as the state legislature appropriated $250,000 to restore and preserve the barracks as a state monument. In 1983, the barracks opened to the public and members of AIISHAC created the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation (AIISF) to continue preservation and educational efforts regarding the site. AIISF is the non-profit partner of California State Parks in the work to restore the historic immigration station at Angel Island. AIISF's mission includes both the preservation of the site and education about the role of Pacific immigration in U.S. history.

In 1997, the Angel Island Immigration Station was declared a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service. In 1999, Save America's Treasures, a project of the National Trust and the White House Millennium Council, adopted Angel Island Immigration Station as one of its Official Projects, providing $500,000 for the preservation of the precious Chinese poems carved into the barracks walls. In March 2000, California voters passed a state bond measure that set aside $15 million specifically for restoration of the Angel Island Immigration Station.

In 2004, the Immigration Station was closed for a major retrofitting and renovation work. Over the next five years, many changes were made to the detention barracks: a new roof was installed, an elevator and wheelchair lift were added, new exhibits were created to highlight the significance of the Chinese poetry carved on the walls, and exhibits such as the interrogation table and other interpretive signs were placed on the grounds of the old administration building.

In February 2009, the immigration station reopened. In 2010 work began to stabilize the immigration station hospital, a two-story, and 10,000 square foot structure, directly across from the detention barracks. The hospital played an important role at the immigration station as the site of inspection, quarantine, and healing of immigrants.

The first phase of the hospital project is the stabilization of the structure, which has suffered significant water damage and structural weakening. By spring 2012, a new roof and gutters had been installed at the hospital, and the interior walls had been strengthened. The final phase of rehabilitation of the hospital began in fall 2013 and lasted until 2020. It reopened in 2022 as the Angel Island Immigration Museum (AIIM). AIIM will tell the stories of the struggles and successes faced today and in the past, and of the powerful legacy of America's immigrants- bringing voice to the West Coast immigration experience. Performance, cultural and community-building events, and symposia -- in addition to the exhibits -- will raise the profile of the West Coast immigration experience and ensure that it becomes a part of our nation's immigration history narrative.

The Angel Island Immigration Station continues to be a part of America's story. The Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation works to bring its history to light and to make its lessons part of our national dialogue about the complicated intersection of race, immigration and the American identity.

Click here to watch Road to Restoration from Felicia Lowe.

California State Parks and the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation wish to thank the following contributors whose generosity made possible the completion of Phase One of the restoration of the U.S. Immigration Station, Angel Island

Major Funders
A Save America's Treasures federal grant, administered by the National Park Service, Department of the Interior; Save America's Treasures at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, including major support from: The Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund, Marin Community Foundation, The J. Paul Getty Trust's Preservation Planning Fund, and Ms. Yeni Wong; The National Trust for Historic Preservation through: American Express Partners in Preservation program, in partnership with the American Express Foundation, The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Fund for Historic Interiors, and The Johanna Favrot Fund for Historic Preservation; California Cultural and Historical Endowment; California Parks Bond Act of 2000, Gee Family Foundation, Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, Walter and Elise Haas Fund, and J.T. Tai & Company Foundation.

Additional Funders
Thomas & Eva Fong Family Foundation, Ken Lee Family Foundation, Lawrence Choy Lowe Memorial Fund, and Look Lowe Family Trust.

With special appreciation to the following
Angel Island Immigration Station Historical Advisory Committee, Architectural Resources Group, California State Parks Foundation, California State Senator John Burton, Donald Bybee, Chris Chow, Paul Chow, Phillip Choy, Ruth Coleman, Charles Egan, Erika Gee, Nicholas Franco, Forrest Gok, Elizabeth Goldstein, Dave Gould, Tod Hara, Daniel Iacofano, Kathy Lim Ko, Kimball Koch, Daphne Kwok, Him Mark Lai, Erika Lee, Newton Liu, Wan Liu, Felicia Lowe, David Matthews, Dale Minami, Ray Murray, Brian O'Neill, National Archives-San Francisco, Francelle Phillips, Daniel Quan Design, Danita Rodriguez, Douglas Tom, Katherine Toy, Kathy Owyang Turner, Xing Chu Wang, Connie Yung Yu, and Judy Yung.

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History of Angel Island Immigration Station | Angel Island Immigration Station - San Francisco

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In the end, the complaints of the community and public officials regarding the safety of the Immigration Station proved true when the Administration Building burned to the ground in August 1940. All applicants were relocated to a mainland facility by November.

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The life of Sally Hemings: Daughter, mother, sister, aunt. Inherited as property. Seamstress. World traveler. Enslaved woman. Concubine. Negotiator. Liberator. Mystery.https://www.monticello.org/sallyhemings/

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The life of Sally Hemings: Daughter, mother, sister, aunt. Inherited as property. Seamstress. World traveler. Enslaved woman. Concubine. Negotiator. Liberator. Mystery.https://www.monticello.org/sallyhemings/

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What was the nature of the connection between Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson?

"Certainly a relationship between a master and his slave is one that's incredibly unbalanced in terms of power. I have no idea what kind of affection or love was involved. But he made a promise that he would free her children when they turned 21. And he did so."

When it comes to the specific dynamic between Jefferson and Hemings, descendants and historians have a range of opinions. Some believe that Hemings had more agency than might be imagined. Others consider any connection of this type a form of assault or rape. And there are many opinions in between. The reality is, we just don't know.

How do we know that Jefferson was the father of Sally Hemings's children?

The historical evidence points to the truth of Madison Hemings's words about "my father, Thomas Jefferson." Although the dominant narrative long denied his paternity, since 1802, oral histories, published recollections, statistical data, and documents have identified Thomas Jefferson as the father of Sally Hemings's children. In 1998, a DNA study genetically linked one of Hemings's male descendants with the male line of the Jefferson family, adding to the wealth of evidence.

Look Closer: Read more about the evidence in Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: A Brief Account

Were people aware of the connection between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings at the time?

Yes. Prior to James Callender's 1802 article, which pointedly identified both Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, newspaper articles, vulgar poems, and local gossip alluded to the matter. Historians assert that Callender confirmed the details he published about Jefferson and Hemings by speaking with Jefferson's Albemarle County neighbors. Similarly, in his 1811 visit to Charlottesville, Elijah Fletcher heard about Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings, and their children from people he met. Decades later, Jefferson's close friend John Hartwell Cocke commented twice about Jefferson and Sally Hemings in his diary.

What did Sally Hemings look like?

We don't know. There are no known images of Sally Hemings from her lifetime, and her appearance was described by only two individuals who knew her:

Although evocative, these descriptions leave out nearly every detail-height, frame, eye color, hair color, and the shape of her face and its features-needed to construct an adequate representation of her looks.

Where did Sally Hemings live at Monticello?

Sally Hemings may have lived in the stone workmen's house (now called the "Textile Workshop") from 1790 to 1793, when she-like her sister Critta-might have moved to one of the new 12' × 14' log dwellings farther down Mulberry Row. After the completion of the South Wing, Hemings lived in one of the "servant's rooms" there.

How do we know Sally Hemings lived in the South Wing?

Evidence that Sally Hemings lived in one of the spaces in the South Wing comes from Jefferson's grandson Thomas J. Randolph through Henry S. Randall, who wrote one of the first major biographies of Thomas Jefferson and was in contact with many members of the Jefferson family. Randolph did not specifically point out the exact room, but the description related through Randall suggests that Sally Hemings and her children occupied one of two rooms in the South Wing.

Was Sally Hemings ever freed?

Sally Hemings was never officially freed. However, after Jefferson's death, she was allowed to live in Charlottesville in unofficial freedom with her two sons, Madison and Eston, who were granted freedom in Jefferson's will.

Did Sally Hemings and her children receive special treatment at Monticello?

No, and yes. Jefferson's written records indicate no special treatment for Sally Hemings or her family. They received the same provisions of food, clothing and housing as other enslaved individuals at Monticello.

But in his recollections, Madison Hemings stated that Jefferson promised Sally Hemings "extraordinary privileges" for returning to Monticello from Paris. Chief among these were freedom for her children who "were free from the dread of having to be slaves all our lives long" and were "always permitted to be with our mother who was well used."

All of their children learned skills that could support them in freedom. Harriet Hemings spun yarn and wove cloth, an occupation that was not solely associated with slavery. Plenty of white women spun and wove. Their male children learned woodworking under the direction of their uncle John Hemmings, a master carpenter and joiner. Woodworking at Monticello likely brought them in regular contact with their father. Madison noted that his father "always had mechanics at work for him, such as carpenters, blacksmiths, shoemakers, coopers, &c. It was his mechanics he seemed mostly to direct, and in their operations he took great interest."

All four surviving children of Jefferson and Hemings were granted their freedom, either being allowed to leave Monticello with Jefferson's knowledge and assistance, or through his will.

What was Sally Hemings's racial identity?

We don't know how Sally Hemings would have identified herself. She was three-quarters-European and one-quarter African. In two separate censuses taken near the end of her life, Hemings's race is recorded as white in one and as mulatto in the other, hinting at shifting notions of her identity. Of her surviving children, who were 7/8 European and 1/8 African, three passed as white and one identified as black.

Race did not cement Beverly, Harriet, Madison, and Eston Hemings's status as slaves; it was the fact that their mother was enslaved. Children, no matter their racial background, inherited slavery from their mothers.

Was Jefferson a racist?

Like many other 18th-century intellectuals in Europe and North America, Jefferson believed blacks were inferior to whites. In his only book, Notes on the State of Virginia (1785), Jefferson expressed racist views of blacks' abilities, though he questioned whether the differences he observed were due to inherent inferiority or to decades of degrading enslavement. He also believed that white Americans and enslaved blacks constituted two "separate nations" who could not live together peacefully in the same country. Of this inevitable rift, he wrote:

"Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained ... will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions, which will probably never end but in the extermination of one or the other race."

Look Closer: Learn more through our additional resources.

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An in-depth look at Sally Hemings, who was enslaved by Thomas Jefferson and bore several of his children, using research, videos, and oral histories, and the recollections of her son Madison Hemings to tell what is known -- and unknown -- about her life and story.

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The Cold War Explained In 15 Minutes | Best Cold War Documentary

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Black history taught in US schools is often watered-down, riddled with inaccuracies and stripped of its context and rich, full-bodied historical figures. Equipped with the real story of Rosa Parks, professor David Ikard highlights how making the realities of race more benign and digestible harms us all -- and emphasizes the power and importance of historical accuracy.

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The real story of Rosa Parks -- and why we need to confront myths about Black history

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Black history taught in US schools is often watered-down, riddled with inaccuracies and stripped of its context and rich, full-bodied historical figures. Equipped with the real story of Rosa Parks, professor David Ikard highlights how making the realities of race more benign and digestible harms us all -- and emphasizes the power and importance of historical accuracy.

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Provides an overview of important events.

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Prohibits the United States and the states from denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States on the basis of sex, in effect recognising the right of women to a vote.

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Based on a true story that gripped the country, When They See Us will chronicle the notorious case of five teenagers of color, labeled the Central Park Five, who were convicted of a rape they did not commit. The four part limited series will focus on the five teenagers from Harlem --

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WHEN THEY SEE US Official Trailer (HD) Ava DuVernay Central Park Five Series

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4 steps of nonviolent communication vs. violent communication

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4 steps of nonviolent communication vs. violent communication

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4 steps of nonviolent communication vs. violent communication

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It wasn't too long ago that a lot of people were talking about a post-racial America. We had elected a Black president for the first time, and then went ahead and re-elected him four years later, and the country was feeling pretty good about itself.

While Barack Obama's presidency was indeed a profound and meaningful mark of true progress, racism, of course, never really went away. The presence of a Black president, hockey star, or movie-franchise superhero, however welcome and exciting, cannot reverse centuries of racial injustice.

In fact, racism is built right into every level of our society in ways that might surprise you.

Racism at Every Level of Society

Racism of this kind, racism that infects the very structure of our society, is called systemic racism. And at first glance, it may be difficult to detect.

Since the election of Donald Trump, hate crimes have been on the rise. White supremacists have been emboldened. Anti-immigrant rhetoric has intensified. We condemn these awful examples of prejudice and bias and hate, but systemic racism is something different. It's less about violence or burning crosses than it is about everyday decisions made by people who may not even think of themselves as racist. As sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva has said, "The main problem nowadays is not the folks with the hoods, but the folks dressed in suits."

Systemic racism persists in our schools, offices, court system, police departments, and elsewhere. Why? Think about it: when white people occupy most positions of decision-making power, people of color have a difficult time getting a fair shake, let alone getting ahead.
We all have to do a better job of calling out systemic racism. Here are seven ways we know that it's real.
WEALTH

According to one study, white families hold 90% of the national wealth, Latino families hold 2.3%, and Black families hold 2.6%. Not only that, the Great Recession hit minority families particularly hard, and the wealth gap has increased. Think about this: for every $100 white families earn in income, Black families earn just $57.30. That's almost unbelievable-and it's a huge racial-justice issue.

EMPLOYMENT

It's next to impossible to build wealth without steady and rewarding employment. But the Black unemployment rate has been consistently twice that of whites over the past 60 years, no matter what has been going on with the economy (whether it's been up or down). Hmm, maybe higher education would help with that? Well, according to the data, Black people with college degrees are twice as likely to be unemployed as all other graduates. That may be because, as one study found, job applicants with white-sounding names get called back about 50% more of the time than applicants with Black-sounding names, even when they have identical resumes. (This seems to be a widespread problem: even guests with distinctively Black names get less positive reviews from property owners on Airbnb.)

EDUCATION

Let's discuss education a little more in depth. If you thought that preschool, at least, was a racism-free zone, well... consider that while Black children constitute 18% of preschoolers nationwide, they make up nearly 50% of suspensions. When all age groups are examined, Black students are three times more likely to be suspended than white students, even when their infractions are similar. Overall, Black students represent 16% of student enrollment and 27% of students referred to law enforcement. And once Black children are in the criminal justice system, they are 18 times more likely than white children to be sentenced as adults.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE

Given this, perhaps it should not come as a surprise that even though, as we said, Black people make up 13% of the population, they represent about 40% of the prison population. Why is that? Perhaps because if a Black person and a white person each commit a crime, the Black person has a better chance of being arrested. It's also true that, once arrested, Black people are convicted more often than white people. And for many years, laws assigned much harsher sentences for using or possessing crack, for example, compared to cocaine. Finally, when Black people are convicted, they are about 20% more likely to be sentenced to jail time, and typically see sentences 20% longer than those for whites who were convicted of similar crimes. And as we know, a felony conviction means, in many states, that you lose your right to vote. Right now in America, more than 7.4% of the adult African American population is disenfranchised (compared to 1.8% of the non-African American population).

HOUSING

When the government sought to make mortgages more affordable back in the 1930s, thereby jumpstarting the epoch of suburban living, the Home Owner's Loan Corporation (and thereafter private banks) ranked neighborhoods all around the country, giving high marks to all-white neighborhoods and marking those with minorities in red as risky investments. Redlining, which essentially barred Black people and other minorities from sharing in the American Dream and building wealth like their white counterparts, was officially outlawed in the '60s, but the practice really never went away. In fact, during the Great Recession, banks routinely and purposely guided Black home buyers toward subprime loans. A recent study demonstrated that people of color are told about and shown fewer homes and apartments than whites. Black ownership is now at an all-time low (42%, compared to 72% for whites).

SURVEILLANCE

If you're white, you don't usually need to worry about being monitored by the police. But the day-to-day reality for African Americans is quite different. More than half of all young Black Americans know someone, including themselves, who has been harassed by the police. Statistics also show that Black drivers are about 30% more likely than whites to be pulled over by the police. (So African Americans can expect to be monitored wherever they go-but did you know that they can't even expect to safely cross the street? Black people are twice as likely to die in pedestrian accidents than whites, perhaps because, according to one study, motorists are less likely to stop for Black people in the crosswalk.) And of course it's well-known that Muslims are under increasing and often illegal surveillance.

HEALTHCARE

African Americans in particular face discrimination in the world of healthcare too. A 2012 study found that a majority of doctors have "unconscious racial biases" when it comes to their Black patients. Black Americans are far more likely than whites to lack access to emergency medical care. The hospitals they go to tend to be less well funded, and staffed by practitioners with less experience. But even Black doctors face discrimination: they are less likely than their similarly credentialed white peers to receive government grants for research projects. And it seems that facing a lifetime of racism leaves African Americans vulnerable to developing stress-related health issues that can lead to chronic issues later in life.

Let's be clear: systemic racism is a corrosive and widespread problem in our society, and we all need to do a better job of confronting it-in our towns, in our neighborhoods, and in ourselves.

Want to be part of the solution? Here's how you can take action:

Watch the totally amazing video below from our friends at Demos about the roots of systemic racism

Start a conversation. Once you know the truth, it's hard to keep it to yourself. So tell a friend, a sibling, a roommate, your kooky uncle...that systemic racism is real, and we all need to be fighting to end it.

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This film, from 2011, tells the story of several black household helps in a town in Mississippi during Segregation. Skeeter, the daughter of one of the wealthy white households returns home and discovers that her black nanny has quit. Or has she?

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Laws explicitly mandating racial segregation came about primarily during the Jim Crow era. The effort to legally eliminate them over the past century has been, for the most part, successful. Racial segregation as a social phenomenon, however, has been a reality of American life since its inception and continues to this day. Enslavement, racial profiling, and other injustices reflect a system of institutional racism that reaches back across the Atlantic to the very origins of the earliest colonial regimes and, very likely, forward into the future for generations to come.

1868: Fourteenth Amendment

The Fourteenth Amendment protects the right of all citizens to equal protection under the law but does not explicitly outlaw racial segregation.

1896: Plessy v. Ferguson

The Supreme Court rules in Plessy v. Ferguson that racial segregation laws do not violate the Fourteenth Amendment as long as they adhere to a "separate but equal" standard. As later rulings would demonstrate, the Court failed to even enforce this meager standard. It would be another six decades before the Supreme Court meaningfully revisited its constitutional responsibility to confront racial segregation in public schools.

1948: Executive Order 9981

President Harry Truman issues Executive Order 9981, outlawing racial segregation in the U.S. Armed Forces.

1954: Brown v. Board of Education

In Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court rules that "separate but equal" is a flawed standard. This was a major turning point in Civil Rights history. Chief Justice Earl Warren writes in the majority opinion:

"We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment."

The emerging segregationist " state's rights" movement immediately reacts to slow the immediate implementation of Brown and limit its effect as much as possible. Their effort to obstruct the ruling was a failure (as the Supreme Court will never again uphold the "separate but equal" doctrine). These efforts were, however, a de facto success-as the United States public school system is still profoundly segregated to this day.

1964: Civil Rights Act

Congress passes the Civil Rights Act, establishing a federal policy that prohibits racially segregated public accommodations and imposes penalties for racial discrimination in the workplace. This law was another significant turning point in Civil Rights history. Although the law has remained in effect for nearly a half-century, it remains highly controversial to this day.

Congress passes the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which includes the Fair Housing Act prohibiting racially-motivated housing segregation. The law has been only partially effective, as many landlords continue to ignore the FHA with impunity.

1972: Oklahoma City Public Schools v. Dowell

In Oklahoma City Public Schools v. Dowell, the Supreme Court rules that public schools may remain racially segregated as a matter of practice in cases where desegregation orders have proven ineffective. The ruling essentially ends federal efforts to integrate the public school system. Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote in the dissent:

"Consistent with the mandate of [Brown v. Board of Education], our cases have imposed on school districts an unconditional duty to eliminate any condition that perpetuates the message of racial inferiority inherent in the policy of state-sponsored segregation. The racial identifiability of a district's schools is such a condition. Whether this 'vestige' of state-sponsored segregation will persist cannot simply be ignored at the point where a district court is contemplating the dissolution of a desegregation decree. In a district with a history of state-sponsored school segregation, racial separation, in my view, remains inherently unequal."

Marshall had been the lead plaintiff's attorney in Brown v. Board of Education. The failure of court desegregation orders-and the increasingly conservative Supreme Court's unwillingness to revisit the issue-must have been frustrating for him.

Today, many decades later, the Supreme Court has come no closer to eliminating de facto racial segregation in the public school system.

1975: Gender-Based Segregation

Facing an end to both public school segregation laws and laws banning interracial marriage, Southern policymakers grow concerned about the possibility of interracial dating in public high schools. To address this threat, Louisiana school districts begin to implement gender-based segregation -a policy that Yale legal historian Serena Mayeri refers to as "Jane Crow."

1982: Mississippi University for Women v. Hogan

In Mississippi University for Women v. Hogan, the Supreme Court rules that all public universities must have a coeducational admissions policy. Some publicly-funded military academies, however, will remain sex-segregated until the Supreme Court's ruling in United States v. Virginia (1996), which forced the Virginia Military Institute to allow the admission of women.

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Major Milestones in Ending Segregation in the United States

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On March 31, 1968, just days before his assassination, in one of his final public appearances, Martin Luther King gave a great speech, and while it is not as famous as others, it is my favorite. It is bathed in the optimism and confidence that has made Dr. King an enduring and universally admired figure. It was a short speech by comparison but deeply personal and inspiring. It is beautiful.

One of the reasons I love this speech is what it teaches us about Dr. King's inspiration. Volumes are written on the libraries of the great men and women of history. We want to read what those we admired read. Perhaps what inspired them will inspire us; what made them great will help make us better.

So what writers and works inspired King? He told us in this 1968 speech and in others at the end of his life. He saw the community of humanity as broad, moral, and extending beyond his own struggle. Excluding The Bible, which he quoted often, his literary references go back nearly four centuries and cover at least four continents. Better than most, Dr. King peppered his addresses and writings with powerful proverbs, quotations, and complex metaphors, some of which he explained and others which would speak for themselves. He used these to inspire us and to summon us to better things, painting the picture of an inexorable march toward truth that bound us all (of any race) together. Here are ten people whom King quoted, some often, and whom he continued to quote until the end.

1) Thomas Carlyle. On more than one occasion, Dr. King said, "We shall overcome, because Carlyle is right, 'No lie can live forever,'" as he did in March of 1968. Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish writer and historian during the Victorian era. After his first great work, Sartor Resartus, in which one man is followed on his own search for truth, Carlyle moved to history and wrote a book entitled The French Revolution. In this, Carlyle saw morality, truth, and justice in the great events in history. Dr. King is quoting this history book.

2) William Cullen Bryant. In combination with his quote of Carlyle, King would add, "William Cullen Bryant is right: 'Truth crushed to earth will rise again.'" Bryant was an American poet and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post. King here referred to his poem "The Battlefield," which compares the lifelong struggle for truth to soldiers at war. The broader context, comparing truth to victory and error to defeat is: "Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again; The eternal years of God are hers; But Error, wounded, writhes in pain, And dies among his worshipers."

3) James Russell Lowell. Along with Carlyle and Bryant, King would add one final quotation to this section of his speech, and he did so here: "We shall overcome because James Russell Lowell is right: 'Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne; Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.'" Both Lowell and Bryant were among the first American poets to rival their British counterparts in popularity. They belonged to a group we now call the Fireside Poets. This quotation is from "The Present Crisis," Lowell's 1845 work about the slavery crisis that inspired Dr. King and also was the inspiration for the NAACP's main publication, The Crisis.

4) John Donne. A few weeks before his March 31 speech, speaking at Grosse Point High School, Dr. King quoted Donne in saying, "'No man is an island.'" Donne was an English poet who wrote around the turn of the 17th century. King explained the context, his inspiration: "The tide that fills every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. And [Donne] goes on toward the end to say, 'any man's death diminishes me because I'm involved in mankind. Therefore, it's not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.' Somehow we must come to see that in this pluralistic, interrelated society we are all tied together in a single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality."

5) Gandhi. Earlier, in a 1962 religious sermon in Los Angeles, King counseled against anger and hate, saying, "There is another way... as modern as Gandhi saying through Thoreau, that 'non‑cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.'" King read the works of Gandhi and quoted him throughout his life. There is a direct line of the teachings of civil disobedience and peaceful demonstration from Dr. King through Gandhi and to numbers 6 and 7 on this list.

6) Henry David Thoreau. The above quote is actually referencing Thoreau's Civil Disobedience, an essay by the Transcendentalist author, who wrote Walden but also wrote this text on the obligation of the people to non-violently disobey laws they believe are unlawful. "No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau," King wrote in his autobiography.

7) Leo Tolstoy. In his own writings, Dr. King pointed to the Russian writer as a primary source of his inspiration. King read Tolstoy and his religious texts, as well as War and Peace, as did Gandhi before him.

8) Washington Irving. On March 31, the same day as his other speech, Dr. King also addressed an audience at the National Cathedral in Washington, saying: "The most striking thing about the story of Rip Van Winkle is not merely that Rip slept twenty years, but that he slept through a revolution." "Rip Van Winkle" is the famous story by the 19th century storyteller, Washington Irving, about a man who goes to sleep while King George III rules the colonies and wakes up in a new world where George Washington is President. King continued in this speech, "All too many people find themselves living amid a great period of social change, and yet they fail to develop the new attitudes, the new mental responses, that the new situation demands. They end up sleeping through a revolution."

9) Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The Carnegie Council describes an address that King gave a few months before his death to the staff of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He said, "May it not be that the new man the world needs is the non-violent man? Longfellow said: 'In this world a man must either be an anvil or the hammer.' We must be hammers shaping a new society rather than anvils molded by the old." Longfellow was also one of the Fireside Poets.

10) Ralph Waldo Emerson. Also shortly before his death, in October of 1967, Dr. King spoke to students at Barratt Junior High School in Philadelphia. He said, "Ralph Waldo Emerson, the great essayist, said in a lecture in 1871, 'If a man can write a better book or preach a better sermon or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, even if he builds his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.' This hasn't always been true - but it will become increasingly true, and so I would urge you to study hard, to burn the midnight oil." Emerson, like Thoreau, was a Transcendentalist author who was among the intellectual leaders of the movement. They opposed slavery and spoke out against it before the Civil War.

I have omitted from this list Jesus and The Bible. These warrant special mention because Christian religious texts are Dr. King's strongest source of inspiration and appear in nearly every major address he gave. As an example, on March 31, he said, "We shall overcome because the Bible is right, 'You shall reap what you sow.'" This is a paraphrase of Galatins 6, verses 7-9: "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not."

For those who want more on this subject, I recommend "Martin Luther King's Sermonic Proverbial Rhetoric," by Wolfgang Mieder.

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What writers and works inspired Dr. King? He told us in his own words. He saw the community of humanity as broad, moral, and extending beyond his own struggle. His literary references go back nearly 4 centuries and cover at least 4 continents.

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Mike Brown should be alive today. He should be home from his first year at college, visiting friends and enjoying summer as he prepares to return to campus.

The movement began one year ago as Brown's body lay in the street of Canfield Drive here in Ferguson, Missouri, for four and a half hours. It began as the people of St Louis came out of their homes to mourn and to question, as the people were greeted by armed and aggressive officers. And the movement was sustained by a spirit of resistance that refused to be silent, that refused to cower, that refused to bow to continued hostility from the state.

We did not know each other's names last August, but we knew each other's hearts.

I will always remember that the call to action initiating the movement was organic - that there was no organizing committee, no charismatic leader, no church group or school club that led us to the streets. It is powerful to remember that the movement began as everyday people came out of their homes and refused to be scared into silence by the police. It is powerful, too, to remember the many people who came to stand with us in Ferguson, the many people who were radicalized in the streets of St Louis and then took that deep spirit of resistance to their own cities and towns, leading to sustained unrest across the United States.

In those early days, we were united by #Ferguson on Twitter - it was both our digital rallying cry and our communication hub. Back then, we were on the cusp of learning how to use Twitter as an organizing tool in protest. And once the protests began to spread, we became aware of something compelling and concise, something that provided common language to describe the protests: the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter.

As marginalized people, we have always faced erasure: either our story is never told, or it is told by everyone but us.

If not for Twitter and Instagram, Missouri officials would have convinced you, one year ago, that we simply did not exist. Or that we were the aggressors, rather than the victims. That we, and not they, were the violent ones.

But social media was our weapon against erasure. It is how many of us first became aware of the protests and how we learned where to go, or what to do when teargassed, or who to trust. We were able to both counter the narrative being spun by officials while connecting with each other in unprecedented ways. Many of us became friends digitally, first. And then we, the protestors, met in person.

Social media allowed us to become our own storytellers. With it, we seized the power of our truth.

Ferguson, August 2014. Photograph via @deray/Instagram

There is nothing romantic about teargas. Or smoke bombs, or rubber bullets, or sound cannons.

I will never forget the first time I was teargassed, or the night I hid under my steering wheel as the Swat vehicle drove down a residential street. I will never forget that it was illegal - in St Louis, in the fall of 2014 - to stand still.

I remember these moments because they happened. Not because I enjoyed them, or because I want to re-live them. I remember the way the teargas made my face sting - I remember the time that officer shot pepper spray into my left eye as I was leaving a protest - because these things happened. They happened in 2014, during a period in America when many were seduced into believing that the police were infallible or that these things would never happen in America.

These moments continue to happen to us in 2015.

I am often asked what it is like to be on the "front line". But I do not use the term "front line" to describe us, the protestors. Because everywhere in America, wherever we are, our blackness puts us in close proximity to police violence. Some of us have chosen a more immediate proximity, as we use our bodies to confront and disrupt corrupt state practices. But every black person is in closer proximity to police violence than we sometimes choose to acknowledge: in many ways, we are all on the "front line" - whether we want to be or not.

We did not discover injustice, nor did we invent resistance last August. Being black in America means that we exist in a legacy and tradition of protest, a legacy and tradition as old as this America. And, in many ways, August is the month of our discontent.

This August, we remember Mike Brown. But we also remember the Watts Rebellion, and the trauma of Katrina - three distinct periods of resistance prompted or exacerbated by police violence.

Resistance, for so many of us, is duty, not choice.

Canfield Road, 2014. Canfield Road, 2015. Photograph: Adrees Latif/Reuters

In a year, the truth about police violence has been exposed. And the truth alone has been so damning that it has radicalized people all across the world. It is now commonplace for people and even the mainstream media to question police narratives.

In the past year, the movement has focused primarily on police violence that can be seen and its impact, centered on broken bodies and death. But the police are violent in ways that cannot always be seen - the violence against the hearts, minds and souls of black folk. We must begin to address the sexual and emotional violence inflicted upon us by the police, too. We must begin to address the assaults on our self-worth and potential, too.

Naming this violence means one thing: the police and the state must change. It is not our job to shift the skin and identities into which we were born. It is up to systems of law enforcement, and the systems and structures that sustain its presence, to change.

The work in protest for the past year largely focused on exposing and convincing - in peeling back the layers of police and state violence and helping people understand. In that sense, the movement did well. As we move forward, there is an acknowledgment that strategies and tactics will change - that the strategies and tactics we used to expose and convince may not be those used to solve the problem.

We have exposed the terror of police violence. But the terror continues. The police have killed 700 people in 2015 so far. In the next phase of the movement, we will build common language around solutions - around how to end police violence, around how to win.

As much as this fight is about systems and structures, it is also a fight about hearts and minds. We will work hard to teach people that the safety of communities is not predicated on the presence of police - that safety is a more expansive notion than policing. Safety is strong schools, access to jobs, workforce development and access to healthcare, among many other things.

The solution-work will likely fall into two separate but critically related areas: removing barriers, and building and rebuilding.

There is much to be done to tear down systems and structures that oppress people, like mandatory minimum sentencing, broken-windows policing and police contracts that provide officers with protections that ensure they will never be held accountable for the crimes they commit.

And just as a path through a mountain is made passable not just by removing the stone but by supporting the mountain from crumbling back in on itself, we know that no barrier will ever truly be removed until a corresponding structure, system or policy has positively taken its place. In the place of mandatory minimums and broken windows must be a sensible approach to policing, particularly drug enforcement and proactive community building strategies. Contracts must be rewritten and police policies adjusted so that police and citizens alike receive the same set of protections and presumption of innocence under the law.

There is no one solution that will end police violence. Our work in the coming phase will be to help people understand a set of complex solutions, simply.

In this moment, as we reflect on where we are, how we got here and where we are going, I am reminded of the difference between accountability and justice - and of our commitment to both. Accountability is the consent decree between the US justice department and the Ferguson and Cleveland police departments, and the reparations for the victims of the torture of the Chicago police department. Accountability is important, but accountability is not our ultimate goal. Accountability is not justice.

We seek justice - not an abstract justice, but a living, breathing, tangible justice. Justice is a living Mike Brown. Justice is a playing Tamir Rice. Justice is Sandra Bland at her new job. Justice is Rekia Boyd with her family. Justice is Mya Hall with her friends. Justice is no more death.

We did not start this. We have never started any of it. They kill(ed) us. They creat(ed) systems to harm us. We did not start this. We are fighting to end it.

We are, and have always been, more than our pain. We will win.

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Ferguson and beyond: how a new civil rights movement began - and won't end | DeRay Mckesson

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Mike Brown should be alive today. He should be home from his first year at college, visiting friends and enjoying summer as he prepares to return to campus. The movement began one year ago as Brown's body lay in the street of Canfield Drive here in Ferguson, Missouri, for four and a half hours.

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https://www.unilad.co.uk/news/57-of-americans-disapprove-of-bidens-stance-on-gun-violence/

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What Columbus really thought about Native Americans

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What Columbus really thought about Native Americans

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In 1937, Franklin Delano Roosevelt officially designated "Columbus Day" as a federal holiday. It commemorates the 1492 arrival of Italian explorer, Christopher Columbus, in the Americas. The colonial and imperialist elements of Columbus' voyage, however, have made the holiday perennially controversial.

Columbus and the Europeans who followed him brought diseases that ravaged the existing population, they violently confiscated vast swaths of land, and exploited Native American and African labor to enrich themselves and their European nations. Along with exploitative commerce, plagues of illness, and bloody wars, Columbus and his fellow Europeans also imported their ideas of racial superiority into relationships with Native Americans.

Columbus' Journal Entries

Columbus kept a journal of his travels and his impressions of the "New World." An entry from October, 1492, just after his arrival in the Americas, reveals his racist and paternalistic views of Native Americans.

It appeared to me to be a race of people very poor in everything. They go as naked as when their mothers bore them, and so do the women, although I did not see more than one young girl. All I saw were youths, none more than thirty years of age. They are very well made, with very handsome bodies, and very good countenances. Their hair is short and coarse, almost like the hairs of a horse's tail. They wear the hairs brought down to the eyebrows, except a few locks behind, which they wear long and never cut. They paint themselves black, and they are the color of the Canarians, neither black nor white.

While describing the physical appearance of a group does not necessarily indicate racism, Columbus' description reveals a superficial understanding of a sophisticated people. He thought that their lack of clothing meant they were poor. Earlier in the entry he remarked at how easily he traded trinkets such as glass beads "and many other things of little value, which gave them great pleasure, and made them so much our friends that it was a marvel to see." Columbus thought that the Native Americans he encountered were unintelligent and easily amused. These notions led to a sense of paternalism and the idea that the original inhabitants of the land somehow needed Europeans to improve their lives.

Columbus continued...

"They should be good servants and intelligent, for I observed that they quickly took in what was said to them, and I believe that they would easily be made Christians, as it appeared to me that they had no religion"

From the earliest days of European contact in the Americas, race and religion were intertwined. Columbus believed that Native Americans would make good servants because they seemed to grasp new information quickly. Apparently, it did not occur to him that Native Americans could do far more than serve Europeans nor that they might not have any interest in doing so. Furthermore, Columbus insulted Native Americans by presuming that because they did not practice Christianity, they had no religion whatsoever. He ignored the sophisticated cosmology of the people he encountered and assumed they were ignorant of religion altogether.

Finally Columbus wrote...

These people are very simple as regards the u.se of arms, as your Highnesses will .sec [sic] from the seven that I caused to be taken, to bring home and learn our language and return; unless your Highnesses should order them all to be brought to Castile, or to be kept as captives on the same island; for with fifty men they can all be subjugated and made to do what is required of them...

As Columbus encountered the original inhabitants of the Americas, he evaluated them primarily based on their usefulness to Europeans. Since they utilized simple weapons, Columbus presumed that they could be easily subdued through violence. He intended to bring seven Native Americans back with him to Italy in order to learn the language of Europeans. Unless, of course, the king would simply rather hold them as captives and so they could be "subjugated and made to do what is required of them." In other words, Columbus left the door open for his Italian patron to decree that Native Americans be made slaves and forced to work for their European enslavers.

Honoring America's First Inhabitants

Columbus' journal entries regarding Native Americans reveal the racism and paternalism that accompanied European contact with the Americas. Many Europeans looked at darker-skinned people as inferior in all kinds of ways-militarily, culturally, and religiously. They arrived in the Americas with the objective of extracting resources to enrich their home countries. They looked at the original inhabitants of the land through this prism as well. Columbus evaluated the people for their potential as laborers and considered them empty vessels to receive the language, culture, and Christianity of nations in Europe.

Thus, Columbus Day remains a source of controversy. Should present-day Americans honor a man who harbored such harmful ideas about other human beings? How much should citizens praise a man whose arrival meant the theft of land from Native American tribes, land that still has not been restored to the original owners? How much do Americans living now owe Native Americans for the atrocities that followed along with Columbus' arrival in 1492?

As some states have already done, Columbus Day should be recast as an opportunity to recognize the indigenous inhabitants of the land the became known as America. The culture, language, traditions, and resilience of Native Americans should gain a place of prominence in the nation's annual commemorations. No one can do anything about the harmful ideas Columbus expressed about Native Americans in 1492, but it is entirely possible to celebrate and honor the nation's original inhabitants today.

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What Columbus Really Thought about Native Americans | The Witness

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In 1937, Franklin Delano Roosevelt officially designated "Columbus Day" as a federal holiday. It commemorates the 1492 arrival of Italian explorer, Christopher Columbus, in the Americas. The colonial and imperialist elements of Columbus' voyage, however, have made the holiday perennially controversial.

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In this lesson, students examine one quote from Palmer’s essay “Five Habits to Heal the Heart of Democracy”: “Without a community, it is nearly impossible to achieve voice; it takes a village to raise a Rosa Parks.” Through various learning activities, students consider the value of courage in their own lives and communities, throughout literature, and in the lives of leaders and visionaries who have helped to shape democracy, including Rosa Parks, John Lewis, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg. I love the following question from this lesson: What does it mean to make decisions from your heart?
https://www.globalonenessproject.org/lessons/power-courage-civic-participation-everyday-life

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Sign up or log in to save your favorite stories and lessons, create custom collections, and share with others.

What does it mean to have courage?

How do you see courage reflected in the stories you read? How do the characters in these stories embrace courage?

How does your family and community help to develop your heart and mind?

In this lesson, students will explore the power of courage. By examining a quote from Parker Palmer's essay "Five Habits to Heal the Heart of Democracy," students will engage in learning activities that examine the value and origins of courage in their own lives and communities, throughout literature, and in the lives of leaders and visionaries who have helped to shape democracy.

By finding ways to embrace courage, students can develop tools for civic participation and actively engage in their own lives and in the communities in which they live.

Students will:

Understand the meaning of courage.

Identify leaders and visionaries who model moral and civic leadership.

Identify habits and behaviors that contribute to a healthy democracy.

Putting the Essay in Context

Intended for the educator, this section provides information about the essay as well as an overview of the American political system and democractic ideals.
The Continental Congress adopted the United States Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. This document has since been an important piece of the nation's history and continues to be a renowned statement documenting the rights of U.S. citizens. One often-cited quotation is most revered: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." The democratic ideals of freedom and equality expressed through the Declaration of Independence have inspired a number of political and social movements, ranging from the French Revolution in the 18th century to the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s. Despite the impact that these democratic ideals have made on key historical events, many have questioned the practical power of these ideals, often pointing to the abhorrent institution of slavery as a historical example.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

U.S. Declaration of Independence

Parker Palmer's essay, " Five Habits to Heal the Heart of Democracy," explores attitudes and practices he believes are essential within both individuals and communities to strengthen American democracy and the ideals upon which it was founded. His ideas, which he articulates in his book, Healing the Heart of Democracy: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit, are applicable to current challenges and issues to creating a healthier democracy. Palmer suggests examining "five habits of the heart." These habits express that together, we must value our differences, draw inspiration and greater understanding from contradictions, honor the voice and will of the individual, and celebrate the power of community building to restore our democratic society.

The phrase "habits of the heart" was originally coined by a young French political scientist and historian Alexis de Tocqueville. After he visited America in the 1830s, he returned home to write Democracy in America; he proposed that the habits of mind and heart of people would play a significant role in the protection of freedom. Palmer, in his essay, "Five Habits to Heal the Heart of Democracy," states that democracy's future would depend on "habits of the heart" as well as the local venues that support community, including families, neighborhoods, classrooms, and congregations. These would, in turn, shape an "invisible infrastructure of American democracy on which the quality of our political life depends."

Setting the Stage: Lesson Introduction

Explore this exercise with students before introducing the quote from Parker Palmer.
Ask students to consider what it means to be a citizen in their community with the following:

1. Read aloud the following quote from Congressman John Lewis to students.

2. Share with students that Lewis was a civil rights activist and leader who served in the United States House of Representatives. He believed in protecting human rights through nonviolence. ( Note: Introduce students to John Lewis further by using this resource.)

3. Ask students: What are some reasons for speaking up? How does speaking up help others? If you could name this trait (of speaking up), what word would you use?

When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up. You have to say something; you have to do something.

Engaging with the Story

Before sharing the quote, introduce students to educator and activist Parker Palmer and explore the meaning of the word courage.

1. Tell students they will learn about the work of Parker Palmer, an author, educator, and activist who focuses on issues in education, leadership, and social change. The quote from Palmer mentions Rosa Parks.

2. Introduce students to Rosa Parks by using this resource from National Geographic Kids. Explain that Parks is considered a hero who stood up for her rights by refusing to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955. Explain that her action was one that helped spark the civil rights movement.

3. Ask students to define the word courage in their own words by writing down their definitions. (Note: collect all of these definitions and document them in one place, so they can be used later in the lesson.)

4. Share with students that one definition of the word courage is to make good choices when facing an obstacle or fear. What are some other words that are similar to the word courage? (Possible answers include bravery, boldness, and daring.)

5. Share with students that characters in many stories (in books, films, etc.) show or embrace courage. Some characters need courage when facing obstacles.

6. Ask students to think about their favorite stories whose characters embrace courage. What obstacles did the characters have to face? How did courage help them to overcome the obstacle?

Delving Deeper: Discussion Questions

Encourage students to examine the themes raised in the quote from Parker Palmer.

1. Share the following quote with students:

Without a community, it is nearly impossible to achieve voice: it takes a village to raise a Rosa Parks.

Use the following questions to help students unpack the quote:

Ask students: What does community mean to you? Who are all the groups of people in your community (family members, neighbors, students, teachers, community members, etc.) who are important to your lives and to the place you live?

How does your family help you to develop your ideas, attitudes, values, and habits?

Share with students that Palmer writes about the power of community and working together. Palmer says that there are places where the heart gets "formed." These "places" include families, neighborhoods, classrooms, and congregations. How do you think these places help to "form" your heart?

Ask students: If all of the members of a community work together, what might happen?

Ask students: What does the word voice mean to you? What might it mean for one person to have a voice? A community?

2. Explore the meaning of courage by using the following questions:

Explain to students that cor is the Latin root from which we get the word courage. Cor means "heart." Other words from the Latin root include: core (a central part of something), cordial (cheerful or with heart), and encouraged (given hope or courage).

Ask students to revisit their definitions of the word courage by displaying them on the board or virtually (through Padlet, Google Docs or Google Slides, etc.) Would they make any additions to this list?

In what ways did Rosa Parks have courage? Students can select words and phrases from the list.

Ask students: Have you experienced courage? What does courage feel like? Do you think courage is important? Why?

Ask students: What does it mean to make decisions from your heart?

Reflecting and Projecting

Challenge students to consider the quote's broader implications and to integrate their knowledge and ideas from various points of view.

1. Ruth Bader Ginsberg was a Supreme Court Justice who dedicated a lifetime to justice and equality. Ginsberg said, "Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you." What does this quote mean to you?

2. Ask students if they can think of a leader who has stood up to fight for what he/she believes in and cares about. The leader could be someone students know personally (parent, teacher, community member) or someone they know about (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., for example). Ask students to write down and describe the ways in which this leader has brought people together through their actions. Ask students to share their responses in a whole class discussion.

What's Happening Now

Provide students with follow-up activities and resources to explore current events and updates to the story.

1. Congressman John Lewis said, "The vote is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have to make all the change that is necessary. Change requires patient, persistent action."

2. As Lewis said, voting is one of the fundamental rights that represents the people. However, amid the current challenges we face in our democracy, voting rights are threatened. Explore this resource with students from Learning for Justice: My Voice, My Voter's Guide.

These texts are recommended by teachers who are currently using "Five Habits to Heal the Heart of Democracy" in their classrooms.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: The Case of R.B.G. vs. Inequality by Jonah Winter

I Dissent by Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Every Voice Counts: Make Yourself Heard by Dr. Seuss

What Can a Citizen Do? by Dave Eggars and Shawn Harris

Maybe Something Beautiful: How Art Transformed a Neighborhood by F. Isabel Campoy

Say Something by Peter Reynolds

Palmer, Parker, Healing the Heart of Democracy: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit (California: Jossey-Bass, 2011).

U.S. Declaration of Independence, 1776.

"The Concepts and Fundamental Principles of Democracy," in Elements of Democracy (Center for Civic Education, 2007), 11-13.

Hollister, Matthew. "Millennials Don't Vote But They Do Care." (Infographic) The Atlantic, 2015.

"Election Central." PBS Learning Media.

"Center for Courage & Renewal." (Organization founded by Parker Palmer)

Pringle, Zorana Ivcevic. "Why Creativity Takes Courage." Psychology Today, August 12, 2020.

"My Voice, My Voter's Guide" Student Task. Learning for Justice.

"John Lewis." Britannica Kids.

Connections to National Curriculum Standards and Frameworks

Self awareness. The ability to accurately recognize one's own emotions, thoughts, and values and how they influence behavior.

Social awareness. The ability to take the perspective of and empathize with others, including those from diverse backgrounds and cultures, to understand social and ethical norms for behavior.

Relationship skills. The ability to establish and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships with diverse individuals and groups.

D2.Civ.6.3-5. Describe ways in which people benefit from and are challenged by working together, including through government, workplaces, voluntary organizations, and families

D2.His.3.3-5. Generate questions about individuals and groups who have shaped significant historical changes and continuities.

NCSS National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies

Theme 4: Individual Development and Identity. Questions related to identity and development, which are important in psychology, sociology, and anthropology, are central to the understanding of who we are.

Theme 10: Civic Ideals and Practices. What is civic participation? How do citizens become involved? What is the role of the citizen in the community and the nation, and as a member of the world community?

CCSS.ELA-W.3.4. With guidance and support from adults, produce writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task and purpose.

CCSS.ELA-SL.3.1-5.1. Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on [grades 3-5] topics and texts, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly.

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The Power of Courage: Civic Participation in Everyday Life

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Sign up or log in to save your favorite stories and lessons, create custom collections, and share with others. What does it mean to have courage? How do you see courage reflected in the stories you read? How do the characters in these stories embrace courage?

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BLM movement in music: The Bigger Picture by Lil Baby

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BLM movement in music: The Bigger Picture by Lil Baby

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Lil Baby - The Bigger Picture (Official Music Video)

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Article: example of a change agent: ‘Nothing that we do that is worthwhile is done alone’ by Ariel Parrella-Aureli

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Article: example of a change agent: ‘Nothing that we do that is worthwhile is done alone’ by Ariel Parrella-Aureli

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Mariame Kaba doesn't like to think about the past. She's always looking forward, working to give birth to projects and grassroots organizations meant to serve the moment. "I'm not a reflective person and that's important for me," Kaba says. "I like to talk about my ideas for the future. That's who I am."

The longtime organizer, activist, author, and abolitionist is a household name in the Chicago liberation movement and helped launch a plethora of projects and collectives focused on transformative justice, ending violence, and dismantling the prison industrial complex (PIC) that have since developed into a world of their own. With a slow and clear cadence grounded in admirable confidence, she says that's exactly how she wants it to be.

"Organizations are dynamic and that means they should die," she tells me. "They come and go, and you come and go. You are part of them for as long as they serve the moment and the time and the work, but you don't hold onto them just because they exist."

This lifestyle of always looking forward isn't meant to be dramatic or radical. It's a grounding practice rooted in Kaba's identity and is why her passion for collaboration and growth flows so easily from one cup to the next. And yet, her newest book looks backward to the abolitionist's decades-long fight for justice to meet the present moment.

We Do This 'Til We Free Us ( Haymarket Books), which releases February 23, is a collection of talks, interviews, and past work that can serve as an initial primer on the PIC abolition and community building rooted in transformative justice. Although Kaba says she resisted publishing the book for some time, the summer uprisings of 2020 were a timely push.

"I spent most of my life as a young [activist] building what I see as containers for collective action," she says. "I hope that this book helps young folks and others who are building those containers find language for what they are doing and also gives them some fuel and inspiration because it's hard work."

Kaba knows how to give fuel and inspiration to her colleagues, too. Since 2018, she's been in partnership with Andrea J. Ritchie, an attorney, author, and activist focusing on policing and criminalization of women and LGBTQ+ people of color. Together, the duo created an initiative called Interrupting Criminalization: Research in Action during their time as researchers in residence at the Social Justice Institute of the Barnard Center for Research on Women. Cofounded with researcher Woods Ervin, the project aims to interrupt the growing criminalization and incarceration of women and LGBTQ+ people of color for acts related to public order, poverty, child welfare, drug use, survival, and self-defense, including criminalization and incarceration of survivors of violence.

Ritchie has known Kaba for more than ten years and says she's blessed to cofound the project with her and work with someone she calls a visionary leader. The amount of energy she puts into her work is rooted in Kaba's vision of a liberated future-where safety is real, where survivors of violence can move past their trauma, and where there is less violence, her colleague says.

"[Kaba] is one of the most brilliant, incisive visionary leaders of my generation, of this moment, and also one of the funniest, most practical and kind, even though she likes to hide it," Ritchie says with a laugh. "Her love of Black people, survivors, migrants, working people, disabled people-her entire body of work is about what love looks like in action."

After more than 20 years of organizing in Chicago, Kaba moved back to her native New York City in 2016, but she leaves her mark on the city of big shoulders. If you haven't heard her name, you likely know the organizations she helped birth. She is the founder and director of Project NIA, a grassroots organization with a vision to end youth incarceration. She cofounded the Chicago Freedom School, the Chicago Taskforce on Violence Against Girls and Young Women, the Chicago Alliance to Free Marissa Alexander, and the Rogers Park Young Women's Action Team. She runs the popular blog Prison Culture, which looks at the PIC structures around the country and its effects on society.

Kaba was also behind We Charge Genocide, an intergenerational effort that documented police brutality and violence in Chicago and sent youth organizers to Geneva, Switzerland, to present their report to the United Nations Committee Against Torture. She's an advisory board member of Chicago Torture Justice Memorials, a group that worked to get the city council to pass a reparations law providing restitution to the victims of Jon Burge, the police commander who, along with officers he trained, tortured more than 100 suspects, most of them Black men, from the 1970s through the early 1990s.

She is also a founding advisory board member of the C hicago Community Bond Fund, which provides bonds for people charged with crimes in Cook County who cannot afford to pay bonds themselves. But in January, local abolitionists and organizers celebrated a victory years in the making: The Illinois General Assembly passed the Pretrial Fairness Act, a key component of the Illinois Legislative Black caucus' criminal justice omnibus bill, which ends the state's use of money bond and plans to transform the state's pretrial justice system. It seems like Kaba works 20 full-time jobs, but that's how she likes it. She says she's learned how to live fully in the world by doing things she cares about, such as knitting and going out to dinner with friends pre-pandemic. But her work is a large part of that, too. These achievements in local liberation and restorative justice movements over the years make Kaba a memorable figure-but she takes credit for none of it on her own. Kaba's motto, known by her friends, colleagues, and anyone familiar with her work, speaks to her values: "Nothing that we do that is worthwhile is done alone."

"The idea that we need other people in order to be able to win the things we want to win and to put your talent and ideas together-that is something that was reinforced for me working in Chicago," she says. "You will meet people beyond your specific interests and that's incredibly powerful and generative because you are forced to look beyond your very narrow spoke."

Kaba, who began her organizing career in the late 1980s in NYC before moving to Rogers Park as an early 20-something, says Chicago's nature as an organizing city and the collaborative spirit from people she worked with here greatly shaped her into the activist she is today. "I came as someone who was struggling to understand myself in the world and where my place would be, and I left Chicago understanding myself much better as an organizer and as a Black woman."

The diversity of the Chicago organizing community, part of the city's identity, was a positive change compared to the siloed organizing scenes of NYC, she says. If you attend any rally, protest, or justice movement in Chicago, you'll meet organizers standing up for labor issues, climate change, housing issues, religious institutions, LGBTQ+ rights, and more-this I saw to be particularly true over the summer while out reporting on the various social justice movements that were largely led by young folks. That overlap, which includes the use of creativity and art to assist political movements, makes Chicago stand out compared to other cities, she says.

Tony Alvarado-Rivera sees that intersectionality as critical to Chicago's movements. Alvarado-Rivera is the executive director of the Chicago Freedom School, which was founded in 2007 and teaches youth how to use their unique experiences and power to create an equitable world through leadership, activism, and movement building. He says Kaba's spirit still lives on at CFS and its youth learn about her work through its programs, staff, and personal visits from Kaba.

The recent youth uprising makes Kaba's newest book expedient and captures the school's values-such as abolishing prison systems and the police, and creating mutual aid and community safety networks-that have been in practice for over a decade, Alvarado-Rivera says. "It's beautiful to be able to be free about these ideas and see people wanting to learn more about abolition and organizing with young people in ways that are empowering and recognizing that youth have been at the forefront of these movements."

Alvarado-Rivera is forever grateful to Kaba for helping plant the seed that has grown to be CFS and her support that has "allowed people to be connected and believe the vision will live on."

Kaba says what makes her happiest is seeing the youth, like those at CFS, take over and expand on work that's meaningful to them, especially policies that directly impact them. The collectivity she formed while carving out a place for herself to grow and constantly be curious she learned from other organizers before her in the movement. It's cyclical, she says, as is the influence she's had on-and felt from-others.

"To me it feels lucky and blessed that people feel that what I have done in terms of work is useful to them," she says. "That's not false humility. It's because I'm grounded in understanding history."

One example she gives is the youth behind the #NoCopAcademy movement from 2017, many of whom she worked closely with. Even though the city council approved the massive, $95 million new facility set for West Garfield Park, activists called the experience a win and a lesson in Chicago civics. Kaba looks to those youth with admiration.

"It's that that I feel most proud of-just how they have taken things they have learned and made it their own thing," she says. "It makes me so happy to see that work because that's what it's all about: what gets generated that's new from what it is we seed."

Asha Edwards, a 20-year-old youth activist and abolitionist with Assata's Daughters and We Are Dissenters, was an active member of the #NoCopAcademy campaign. The south-side native, who currently studies sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, looks to Kaba as an inspiration and mentor. She is incredibly thankful to the veteran organizer for providing her with the necessary resources, language, and materials to end the PIC and the importance of organizing by way of her books, lectures, and social media.

"She made me believe in abolition," Edwards says, who remembers learning about Kaba in high school. "With her knowledge and how she created a successful platform to understanding abolition, I started to think about, 'How do I address conflict in my own relationships?' or 'How can I get to the root causes of what leads to violence?' And believing that prisons don't do that."

The young activist remembers meeting Kaba at an awards ceremony shortly after the #NoCopAcademy campaign and getting a big hug from her, as well as useful quotes and lessons on how to undo oppressive systems during a 2020 abolitionist training. Having these direct experiences with Kaba gives Edwards a sense of hope for the future. Addressing harm is the hardest aspect for her when thinking about abolition, but Kaba's tools makes the task seem possible, she says.

Others who have been touched by Kaba's work and her newest book say her values of collaborative action and mutual aid have positively driven social change, and are lessons that will be passed down to the next generation. Notable Chicago writer, scholar, professor, and cultural organizer Eve L. Ewing, who met Kaba through mutual connections and her work around prison abolition, calls her an amazing writer who knows how to invoke the wisdom of people before her through her writing. We Do This 'Til We Free Us is a needed resource for those looking to be more politically and civically engaged-and who want to be changemakers, she says.

"I imagine my kids or grandkids being in the back of a classroom and getting a tattered copy of this book that they got from the library or stole from somewhere," Ewing says. "That's the kind of book it's going to be: an insurgent book that people will be calling on and speaking to for a very long time."

Ewing is currently writing a new book and isn't taking any interviews, but she made an exception to talk to me about Kaba's impact, a testament to the true power of her influence. Ewing says the abolitionist has inspired her to think about working together and drawing on people's strengths to create the best possible outcome. Activism should be representative of the collective responsibility we all want to lead.

"If we dream of a society where everyone is collectively responsible for one another but our 'activism' is driven by wanting to jump out front and be the hero, I think that's sad and not a great path to be on," she says. "Mariame really shows and embodies what it looks like and to truly work collectively in humble partnership with other people."

Kaba's humility in her work, and her organic ability to practice nonattachment to the movements she creates, feels like a life lesson we can all carry. It's a reminder to live passionately and presently in a world that can feel increasingly stressful and traumatic at times. As she told me, it's not going away. It helps to pump love and constant curiosity into your days, whether that's through watching Hallmark Channel movies, reading, making art, or fighting for liberation, if you're Mariame Kaba.

"You have to figure out a way to live in the world, that's life," she says. "I don't have to carve out my hobby time. I just have to live-live fully." v

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social justice institute of the barnard center for research on women

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chicago taskforce on violence against girls and young women

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chicago alliance to free marissa alexander

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'Nothing that we do that is worthwhile is done alone'

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Mariame Kaba doesn't like to think about the past. She's always looking forward, working to give birth to projects and grassroots organizations meant to serve the moment. "I'm not a reflective person and that's important for me," Kaba says. "I like to talk about my ideas for the future.

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The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee Author David Treuer on Why We Need to Change the Way Indian Stories Are Told

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The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee Author David Treuer on Why We Need to Change the Way Indian Stories Are Told

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'The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee' Author David Treuer on Why We Need to Change the Way Indian Stories Are Told

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The Ojibwe writer discusses his new book, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee, and why it's important to change the way we tell Indian stories.

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Article: Whose History Matters? Students Can Name Columbus, But Most Have Never Heard of the Taíno People

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Article: Whose History Matters? Students Can Name Columbus, But Most Have Never Heard of the Taíno People

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Early in my high school U.S. history classes, I would ask students about "that guy some people say discovered America." All my students knew that the correct answer was Christopher Columbus, and every time I asked this question, some student would break into the sing-song rhyme, "In Fourteen Hundred and Ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue" - and others would join in.

"Right. So who did he supposedly discover?" I asked.

In almost 30 years of teaching, the best anyone could come up with was: "Indians."

I brushed that answer away: "Yes, but be specific. What were their names? Which nationality?" I never had a student say, "The Taínos."

"So what does this tell us?" I asked. "What does it say that we all know Columbus's name, but none of us knows the nationality of the people who were here first? And there were millions of them."

This erasure of huge swaths of humanity is a fundamental feature of the school curriculum, but also of the broader mainstream political discourse. We usually think about the curriculum as what is taught in school. But as important - perhaps more important - is what is nottaught, which includes the lives rendered invisible. Young people, and the rest of us, become inured to the way in which certain people's lives don't count, the way in which the world is cleaved in two: between the worthy and the unworthy, those who matter and those who don't. The "don't matter" people are the ones the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano called los nadies, the nobodies - "Who speak no languages, only dialects. Who have no religions, only superstitions. Who have no arts, only crafts."

My students and I read and talked about this erasure - these horrific attacks on Taínos who might dare "to think of themselves as human beings." Because Columbus's policies of enslavement, terrorism, and ultimately, mass murder are so egregious, it's tempting to focus only on Taíno deaths.

For the Taíno people of the Caribbean, their erasure began almost immediately, with Columbus's arrival. It was not curricular, it was flesh and blood. "With 50 men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want," Columbus wrote in his journal on his third day in the Americas. In 1494, Columbus launched the transatlantic slave trade, sending at least two dozen enslaved Taínos to Spain, "men and women, boys and girls," as he wrote. The next year, 1495, Columbus launched massive slave raids, rounding up 1,600 Taínos, from which the "best" 500, perhaps 550, were selected to be shipped to Spain. Of the hundreds of captives left over, "whoever wanted them could take as many as he pleased," one eyewitness, a Spanish colonist, Michele de Cuneo, wrote, "and this was done."

The Spanish priest Bartolomé de las Casas described what he called the "terror" launched by Columbus in his quest for gold and to suppress Taíno resistance:

It was a general rule among Spaniards to be cruel; not just cruel, but extraordinarily cruel so that harsh and bitter treatment would prevent Indians as daring to think of themselves as human beings or having a minute to think at all. So they would cut an Indian's hands and leave them dangling by a shred of skin and they would send him on saying, "Go now, spread the news to your chiefs." They would test their swords and their manly strength on captured Indians and place bets on the slicing off of heads or the cutting of bodies in half with one blow. They burned or hanged captured chiefs.

My students and I read and talked about this erasure - these horrific attacks on Taínos who might dare "to think of themselves as human beings." Because Columbus's policies of enslavement, terrorism, and ultimately, mass murder are so egregious, it's tempting to focus only on Taíno deaths. But those deaths can seem abstract and distant, unless we learn something about Taíno lives.

It has always struck me that Columbus himself expressed much more curiosity about the Taínos than one finds in corporate-produced textbooks - although in recent years, no doubt because of Indigenous activism, textbook publishers have discovered the Taínos, if only briefly and superficially. The Taínos were not literate, in the conventional sense, and so wrote nothing about themselves, but Columbus's journal offers intriguing, if limited, details. In the journal of his first voyage, Columbus wrote about the Taíno people's homes: "Inside, they were well swept and clean, and their furnishing very well arranged; all were made of very beautiful palm branches." He said there were "wild birds, tamed, in their houses; there were wonderful outfits of nets and hooks and fishing-tackle." Columbus writes that it was a "delight" to see Taino canoas (canoes) that were "very beautiful and carved... it was a pleasure to see its workmanship and beauty." After a little more than three months traveling from island to island, Columbus concluded that the Taíno people are "the best people in the world, and beyond all the mildest... a people so full of love and without greed... They love their neighbors as themselves, and they have the softest and gentlest voices in the world, and they are always smiling."

Of course, Columbus's curiosity was grounded in his single-minded quest for gold, and how he might exploit the Taínos to further that mission. As Columbus later wrote King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella: "Gold is a wonderful thing! Whoever owns it is lord of all he wants. With gold it is even possible for souls to open the way to paradise."

After a little more than three months traveling from island to island, Columbus concluded that the Taíno people are "the best people in the world, and beyond all the mildest... a people so full of love and without greed... They love their neighbors as themselves, and they have the softest and gentlest voices in the world, and they are always smiling."

Columbus's portrait of the mild, soft, and gentle Taíno may conceal that they also tenaciously resisted the Columbus regime, once its exploitative and deadly nature became clear. This resistance has been called the first anti-colonial guerrilla war in the Americas. It began as early as Columbus's first trip back to Spain, when he left 39 Spaniards at his La Navidad settlement, confident that the powerful Spaniards could handle the supposedly timid Taínos. In response to the Spaniards' rapacity, the Taínos killed all 39 Spaniards, and burned their fort.

If Columbus's first trip, with three vessels and maybe 100 men, was an exploratory probe, the second trip, with 17 ships and between 1,200 and 1,500 men, was a full-scale invasion. When slavery turned out not to be profitable on la Española (the island that today is Haiti and the Dominican Republic), Columbus instituted a tribute system for the Taínos, demanding quotas of gold and cotton, with sadistic punishments for those who failed to comply. This system was "impossible and intolerable," wrote Bartolomé de las Casas.

The Taínos fought back, raiding Spanish forts and killing defenders. Taíno caciques, leaders, worked to build alliances throughout the island. The Taínos continuously resisted the heavily armed Spaniards for almost a year, from May 1495 to March 1496, but uprisings and resistance continued through 1503. According to Spanish accounts, Taínos also went on strike and turned to sabotage. One Spanish eyewitness wrote that the Taínos "thought they might expel [the Spaniards] by creating a scarcity of food. They therefore decided not only to plant no more crops, but also to destroy and tear up all the various kinds of cereals used for bread which had already been sown." Las Casas adds that the Taínos "would hide in the mountains," but when they "fled the Christians, there went with them disease, death, and misery, and an infinite number of fathers and mothers and children died in anguish."

Ironically, in their quest for a happy ending to this grim first chapter in European colonialism in the Americas, textbook writers also focus on food - but not on resistance. For example, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's middle school text United States History Early Years concludes its section on Columbus:

The Columbian Exchange benefited people all over the world. Potatoes from the Americas became an important food for most Europeans. Corn became an important crop in Africa. Sweet potatoes were grown as far away as China. Today, tomatoes, peanuts, and American beans and peppers are grown in many lands.

The sole "review" question asks: "How did the Columbian Exchange change the diet of Europeans?"

This is how the textbook story ends: wondering about the eating habits of Europeans. Let's remember that enslaving Africans and shipping them to the Americas was also a part of the so-called Columbian Exchange. Africa was not only a receptacle for American corn. Columbus was granted the first royal permit to bring enslaved Africans to the Americas in 1501, less than a decade after his arrival.

Despite textbook attempts to conclude the story with a smiley-face, there is no happy ending. But there is a hopeful one - found in the remarkable resilience of the Taíno people. Contrary to some scholarship, the Taínos were not all killed off by Columbus and subsequent occupiers, and today members of the Taíno diaspora along with people in the Caribbean who claim Taíno ancestry are reviving and celebrating their culture. According to Christina M. González, writing in the fall 2018 issue of American Indian, the Taíno revival began around the quincentenary of Columbus's arrival. The renaissance focuses on language, art, religion, pharmacology, agriculture, fishing, cooking, and, of course, rethinking Taíno history. González writes, "Many in the movement call upon embodied memories of traditions and values disseminated across generations, often by family matriarchs, which espoused mindful relations in a world where all things have life, from plants, stones, rivers, forests, caves, sun and moon, to deceased relatives and disincarnate beings inhabiting their islands."

In recent years, genetic research has confirmed the ongoing Taíno presence in the Caribbean. According to José Barreiro, a scholar and a member of the Taíno Nation of the Antilles, genetic research in Cuba has found that almost 35 percent of Cubans have Native American mitochondrial DNA, with some regions as high as 59 percent. A University of Puerto Rico study of 800 randomly selected Puerto Ricans found 61.1 percent of individuals surveyed had mitochondrial DNA of Indigenous origin. But as a friend recently reminded me, people with Taíno cultural DNA had no need for scientific confirmation that they are still here - "hidden in plain sight," as José Barreiro subtitled his National Museum of the American Indian article on "Indigenous Cuba."

Columbus's treatment of the Taíno people meets the UN definition of genocide. But there has also been a curricular genocide - erasing the memory of the Taíno from our nation's classrooms. How else can we explain students' universal recognition of Columbus and almost total ignorance of the name Taíno? As we work to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day in our communities and schools, let's work to remember the people who were here first. Their lives mattered 500 years ago, and they matter today.

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Opinion | Whose History Matters? Students Can Name Columbus, But Most Have Never Heard of the Taíno People

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Early in my high school U.S. history classes, I would ask students about "that guy some people say discovered America."

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Article: Artist Designs Stamp To Put Harriet Tubman’s Face Over Jackson’s On $20 Bills To Protest Trump Delay

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Article: Artist Designs Stamp To Put Harriet Tubman’s Face Over Jackson’s On $20 Bills To Protest Trump Delay

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NEWS

Example of Change Agent

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A New York artist is fighting back against Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's announcement this week that Harriet Tubman's image will not make it on to $20 bills until 2028.

Minutes after Mnuchin's announcement on Wednesday, 33-year-old Dano Wall tweeted: "We'll see about that."

Wall has created a 3-D stamp that can be used to superimpose a portrait of the iconic abolitionist hero over Andrew Jackson's on $20 bills, reports The Washington Post.

Wall said he has sold out of the stamps and is hurrying to produce more.

Now that's more like it #tubmanstamp #harriettubman #tubmantwenty https://t.co/SxxVeQWrWz pic.twitter.com/4nvfE5P5Jw

- tubmanstamp (@tubmanstamp) April 18, 2019

"My goal is to get 5,000 stamps out there," he told the Post. "If there are 5,000 people consistently stamping currency, we could get a significant percent of circulating $20 bills [with the Tubman] stamp, at which point it would be impossible to ignore."

Wall told the newspaper that "disrupting the pattern of white men" on U.S. currency would be a bold step for progress on racial issues in America.

"Putting Harriet Tubman on the front of the $20 bill would have constituted a monumental symbolic change, disrupting the pattern of white men who appear on our bills," Wall told the Post.

Time to break the pattern #tubmantwenty #harriettubman #tubmanstamp #RepresentationMatters https://t.co/SxxVeQWrWz pic.twitter.com/KdlQoTX0dT

- tubmanstamp (@tubmanstamp) April 3, 2019

"By putting her on the most popular note currently in circulation, indicates exactly what kind of a life we choose to celebrate; what values we, as a country, most hope to emulate. Harriet Tubman's unparalleled grit, intelligence, and bravery over the course of her long life certainly make her worthy of such an honor," he added.

The Hill notes: "Civil rights advocates have fought for years for Tubman's image to replace that of President Andrew Jackson, a slaveowner, on the $20 bill. On Wednesday, Mnuchin announced that plans first announced in 2016 to update the bill with Tubman's image officially had been pushed back several years. Wall first designed the stamp in 2017, but has seen a resurgence of interest since Mnuchin's announcement."

"The primary reason we've looked at redesigning the currency is for counterfeiting issues," Mnuchin said Wednesday. "Based upon this, the $20 bill will now not come out until 2028. The $10 and the $50 will come out with new features beforehand."

President Trump recently expressed skepticism about removing Jackson from the $20 bill.

"Andrew Jackson had a great history, and I think it's very rough when you take somebody off the bill," the president said in 2016.

"I would love to see another denomination. ... I think it would be more appropriate," he added of Tubman, who he called "fantastic."

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Artist Designs Stamp To Put Harriet Tubman's Face Over Jackson's On $20 Bills To Protest Trump Delay

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A New York artist is fighting back against Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's announcement this week that Harriet Tubman's image will not make it on to $20 bills until 2028. Minutes after Mnuchin's announcement on Wednesday, 33-year-old Dano Wall tweeted: "We'll see about that." Wall has created a 3-D stamp that can be used to superimpose ...

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Royalty "Letter To Your Flag" | 2018 Youth Speaks Teen Poetry Slam

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Royalty "Letter To Your Flag" | 2018 Youth Speaks Teen Poetry Slam

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Royalty "Letter To Your Flag" | 2018 Youth Speaks Teen Poetry Slam

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Article (Dutch): DodencelDodencel: de verhalen van mensen die onschuldig ter dood werden veroordeeld

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Article (Dutch): DodencelDodencel: de verhalen van mensen die onschuldig ter dood werden veroordeeld

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Foto van Martin Schoeller

Dit artikel verscheen in de derde editie van National Geographic Magazine 2021.
Albert Burrell
Union Parish, Louisiana 13 jaar in een dodencel; vrijgesproken in 2001
Burrell, nu 66, was zeventien dagen verwijderd van zijn executie toen zijn advocaten in 1996 uitstel voor hem kregen. De veroordeling voor een dubbele moord werd nietig verklaard. Een rechter oordeelde dat de aanklagers de jury hadden misleid en ontlastend bewijs hadden achtergehouden. Er volgde een nieuw proces. De staat concludeerde dat er geen geloofwaardig bewijs was dat Burrell linkte aan de moorden; hij werd vrijgelaten.

27 jaar vast, waarvan 2 in dodencel; vrijgesproken in 2014

Foto van Martin Schoeller

"Kwame Ajamu, een man van 63, woont op loopafstand van mijn huis in een buitenwijk van Cleveland (Ohio). Ajamu werd in 1975 ter dood veroordeeld voor de moord op Harold Franks, een vertegenwoordiger in postwissels. Ajamu was zeventien toen een rechter hem de doodstraf oplegde. "

De veroordeling van Ajamu - vóór zijn tijd in de gevangenis heette hij Ronnie Bridgeman - stoelde grotendeels op de verklaring van een dertienjarige ooggetuige. Deze beweerde dat Bridgeman en een andere jongeman de vertegenwoordiger op straat hadden aangevallen. Er was geen fysiek of forensisch bewijs dat Bridgeman linkte aan deze moord. De verdachte had een blanco strafblad, en een andere getuige verklaarde dat Bridgeman niet in de buurt was toen Franks werd vermoord. Toch werd Bridgeman, een middelbare scholier nog, enkele maanden na zijn arrestatie ter dood veroordeeld.

39 jaar later werd officieel bekendgemaakt dat de jeugdige ooggetuige zijn verklaring meteen weer had ingetrokken. Maar rechercheurs van de afdeling Moordzaken dreigden zijn ouders op te pakken en te veroordelen wegens meineed als hij zijn verhaal zou wijzigen, zo verklaarde de ooggetuige later onder ede. Ajamu werd in 2003, na 27 jaar gevangenschap, voorwaardelijk vrijgelaten. Het zou nog eens bijna twaalf jaar duren voor de staat Ohio hem officieel vrijpleitte. Dit gebeurde nadat de valse verklaring van de jongen en de misstap van de politie in een aanverwante rechtszaak aan het licht waren gekomen. Ik sprak met Ajamu en andere terdoodveroordeelden. Het zijn mensen uit diverse geledingen van de bevolking, die allen hetzelfde, vreselijke lot trof: ze werden ter dood veroordeeld voor misdaden die ze niet hadden begaan.

Ze gaan nog altijd zwaar gebukt onder hun verblijf in de dodencel en de voortdurende verwarring, angst en stress die ze daar moesten verduren. De posttraumatische stress waarmee mensen kampen die ten onrechte zijn veroordeeld en in de cel op executie moeten wachten, verdwijnt niet spontaan wanneer de staat hen vrijlaat en verontschuldigingen aanbiedt (en heel soms financiële genoegdoening).

Eén ding is wel duidelijk: iemand die onschuldig ter dood is veroordeeld, is de beste pleitbezorger voor afschaffing van een straf die velen als immoreel en barbaars beschouwen.

2 jaar gevangenis, beide in een dodencel; vrijgesproken in 1976.

Ron Keine (73, midden), hier omringd door zijn vrouw, kinderen en kleinkinderen, werd ten onrechte ter dood veroordeeld wegens het ontvoeren, verkrachten en vermoorden van een student. The Detroit News ontdekte dat een belangrijke getuige haar verklaring had gedaan onder druk van de aanklagers. Keine werd vrijgelaten toen het moordwapen werd gelinkt aan een dakloze, die de moord bekende. Een aanklager werd uit zijn ambt gezet en drie agenten werden beboet.

Foto van Martin Schoeller

In een land dat meer burgers executeert dan de meeste andere landen die de doodstraf hanteren, is de noodzaak tot verandering extra prangend. In de VS zijn beklaagden en slachtoffers vanwege hun afkomst, lage inkomen of om andere redenen niet altijd opgewassen tegen overijverige politieagenten of openbare aanklagers. Zij lopen meer risico slachtoffer te worden van een justitiële dwaling of zelfs een doodvonnis. Vooral de factor 'ras' speelt hierbij vaak een rol: sinds april 2020 is ruim veertig procent van de gevangenen in de dodencellen zwart, terwijl die bevolkingsgroep in Amerika slechts 13,4 procent van het totaal uitmaakt.

Groepen als het Innocence Project stellen al decennialang de zwakke plekken in het Amerikaanse justitiële systeem aan de kaak, vooral waar het de doodstraf betreft. Mede dankzij DNA-onderzoek en een verbeterde controle op de handelwijze van politie, aanklagers en toegewezen advocaten konden sinds 1972 182 executies worden voorkomen. Tussen 1989 en december 2020 werden in totaal nog eens 2700 andere veroordeelden vrijgesproken.

De voormalige terdoodveroordeelden die ik sprak, zijn allen aangesloten bij de non-profitorganisatie Witness to Innocence (WTI), die sinds 2005 is gevestigd in Philadelphia. WTI wordt geleid door vrijgesproken terdoodveroordeelden en streeft naar afschaffing van de doodstraf in de VS door de samenleving ervan te overtuigen dat deze vorm van straf onethisch is. WTI droeg de afgelopen vijftien jaar bij tot afschaffing van de doodstraf in diverse staten door te lobbyen bij leden van het Congres, staatsjuristen, beleidsadviseurs en onderzoekers. Momenteel kan de doodstraf nog worden opgelegd door 28 staten en de federale overheid, en binnen het leger. In 2020 zijn er in de VS zeventien executies uitgevoerd, waarvan tien door de federale overheid. Voor het eerst werden meer gevangenen geëxecuteerd door de federale overheid dan door alle staten bij elkaar. 'Ik ben als zeventienjarige door de staat Ohio ontvoerd,' begint Ajamu zijn verhaal.

ontvoerd,' begint Ajamu zijn verhaal. 'Ik was nog maar een kind toen ik in de dodencel werd gezet,' vertelt Ajamu, de huidige voorzitter van WTI. 'Ik begreep niet wat me overkwam en snapte niet dat dit zomaar mocht. Eerst smeekte ik God om genade, maar ik begreep al snel dat ik reddeloos verloren was.' Op de dag dat Ajamu aankwam in de Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, een zwaarbeveiligde gevangenis op het platteland van Ohio, werd hij naar het cellenblok gebracht waar de terdoodveroordeelden zaten. In een vertrek aan het eind van de rij dodencellen bevond zich de elektrische stoel van de staat Ohio. Voor ze hem opsloten, brachten de bewakers Ajamu daarnaartoe. 'Een bewaker wilde me per se de stoel laten zien,' zegt Ajamu. 'Ik zal nooit vergeten wat hij toen zei: 'Dit wordt jouw hete afspraakje.''

Van Ajamu's doodvonnis tot 2005 - toen het Amerikaanse hooggerechtshof oordeelde dat het executeren van minderjarigen strijdig was met het grondwettelijke verbod op 'wrede en ongebruikelijke straffen' - werden volgens het Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) in de VS 22 mensen geëxecuteerd die vóór hun achttiende waren veroordeeld.

Het hooggerechtshof riep zo een halt toe aan het executeren van minderjarigen, een praktijk die stamde uit de tijd voor de Onafhankelijkheidsverklaring. Het oudst bekende geval in de Britse kolonies dateert van 1642, toen in de Plymouth Colony de zeventienjarige Thomas Granger werd opgehangen, omdat hij seksuele handelingen met vee zou hebben gepleegd.

In de eerste jaren na de Amerikaanse onafhankelijkheid werden zelfs nóg jongere kinderen aan de allerzwaarste straffen onderworpen: Hannah Ocuish (12), een Native American, kreeg in 1786 in Connecticut de strop wegens moord.

Hierna werd leeftijd ruwweg nog twee eeuwen lang niet meegenomen bij het bepalen van de strafmaat. Bij de behandeling, veroordeling en executie van minderjarigen en volwassenen werd puur gelet op de misdaden; leeftijd speelde geen rol. Tot 1900 werd de leeftijd van terdoodveroordeelden in justitiële archieven niet standaard vermeld. Toen het Amerikaanse hooggerechtshof in 1987 voor het eerst onderzocht of de doodstraf voor minderjarigen strijdig was met de grondwet, waren er 287 gevallen van geëxecuteerde minderjarigen bekend.

Het hooggerechtshof oordeelde dat jaar nog dat de wet waarin de doodstraf in Ohio was vastgelegd strijdig was met het achtste amendement (dat wrede en ongebruikelijke straffen verbiedt), en het veertiende amendement ('iedereen is voor de wet gelijk'), waarop Ajamu's doodvonnis werd omgezet in levenslang. Hij zat nog een kwarteeuw in de cel voor hij voorwaardelijk vrijkwam. Dit gebeurde in 2014, toen een gedreven journalist uit Cleveland en het Ohio Innocence Project de leugen aan het licht brachten waardoor Ajamu in de dodencel was beland.

5 jaar in een dodencel; vrijgesproken in 1997

Foto van Martin Schoeller

'Er zijn allerlei typen fouten die kunnen leiden tot een onterechte veroordeling en zelfs tot de doodstraf,' zegt Michael Radelet, expert op het gebied van de doodstraf en socioloog aan de University of Colorado Boulder. 'Op het politiebureau leggen verdachten onder dwang of om andere redenen valse bekentenissen af. Aanklagers houden soms ontlastend bewijs achter.

Ooggetuigen met goede bedoelingen kunnen soms valse verklaringen afgeven. De meeste justitiële dwalingen zijn het gevolg van meineed door getuigen van de openbaar aanklager.' Weinig tegenstanders van de doodstraf hebben zo'n scherpe tong als de non Helen Prejean, die ook medeoprichter is van WTI en auteur van de bestseller Dead Man Walking. Prejean beschrijft hoe haar afkeer tegen de doodstraf een persoonlijk element kreeg toen ze zich herinnerde hoe bang ze een paar jaar eerder was geweest voor een tandartsbehandeling.

'Ik zou op maandagochtend een wortelkanaalbehandeling ondergaan,' vertelt ze me. 'Voor het zover was, had ik er al een hele week nare dromen over. Ik werd steeds zenuwachtiger naarmate de afspraak naderde.'

Ze vervolgt: 'Denk je eens in hoe het is om te moeten leven met een executie in het vooruitzicht. De zes veroordeelden in de dodencel die ik heb begeleid hadden dezelfde nachtmerrie: ze droomden dat ze schreeuwend en tegenstribbelend door bewakers uit hun cel werden gesleurd. Bij het ontwaken beseften ze dat het maar een droom was. Maar ze zaten in hun cel in de wetenschap dat het op een dag echt ging gebeuren. Dat is pure marteling. Het is hoog tijd dat het hooggerechtshof inziet dat deze marteling strijdig is met het grondwettelijk verbod op wrede of ongebruikelijke straffen.'

in ruim zeventig procent van de landen officieel of in de praktijk afgeschaft. Van de landen waar Amnesty International recentelijk executies registreerde, behoorden de VS - het land met het hoogste aantal gevangenen ter wereld - tot een groep van slechts dertien landen die de afgelopen vijf jaar elk jaar een executie uitvoerde. Het deel van de Amerikaanse bevolking dat achter de doodstraf staat, is de laatste jaren sterk gekrompen. Volgens het Pew Research Center vond in 1996 nog 78 procent van de Amerikanen dat veroordeelde moordenaars de doodstraf verdienden; in 2018 was dit nog maar 54 procent.

Het leven dat Ray Krone leidde voor hij ter dood werd veroordeeld, leek in niets op dat van Ajamu. Krone groeide op in Dover in Pennsylvania. Hij was de oudste van drie kinderen en had een typisch Amerikaanse jeugd in een luthers gezin. Hij zong in het kerkkoor, was bij de padvinders en stond als tiener bekend als een slimme jongen die wel van een geintje hield.

Hij zat nog in de schoolbanken toen hij zich aanmeldde bij de Amerikaanse luchtmacht, waar hij na zijn eindexamen zes jaar diende.

Hij werd eervol ontslagen, bleef in Arizona wonen en kreeg een baan bij de posterijen, waar hij tot zijn pensioen wilde blijven werken.

Aan zijn loopbaan, en al zijn andere plannen, kwam in december 1991 abrupt een einde met de dood van barvrouw Kim Ancona (36), die werd doodgestoken in het herentoilet van een lounge in Phoenix waar Krone weleens kwam. De politie kreeg Krone in het vizier toen deze ontdekte dat hij Ancona, die hij vaag kende, een paar dagen voor de moord een lift had gegeven naar een kerstfeestje. De dag nadat haar lijk was gevonden, moest Krone monsters inleveren van zijn haar, bloed en speeksel. Een tandarts maakte een afdruk van zijn gebit. De volgende dag werd hij gearresteerd en aangeklaagd voor de gewelddadige moord.

Volgens onderzoekers strookte het scheve gebit van Krone met de beten op het lichaam van het slachtoffer. Maar net als bij Ajamu was er geen forensisch bewijs dat Krone met deze misdaad in verband bracht. DNA-onderzoek stond nog in de kinderschoenen en geen van de speeksel- en bloedmonsters van de plaats delict werd op DNA getest. De voorloper van deze techniek leidde niet tot eenduidige antwoorden. De politie negeerde ontlastend bewijs, zoals het feit dat de voetsporen rond het lijk niet overeenkwamen met Krones schoenmaat, noch met alle schoenen die hij bezat.

8 jaar vast, waarvan 2 in een dodencel; vrijgesproken in 1993

In 1993 werd Bloodsworth, nu 60, de eerste terdoodveroordeelde die dankzij DNAonderzoek werd vrijgesproken. Hij was veroordeeld voor het verkrachten en doden van een meisje van negen. Vijf getuigen zeiden hem in de buurt van de plaats delict te hebben gezien. Hij kreeg de doodstraf, zonder dat er harde bewijzen tegen hem waren. Negen jaar later werd zijn onschuld bewezen dankzij DNA dat werd aangetroffen op gearchiveerde bewijsstukken.

Foto van Martin Schoeller

Krone werd door de jury schuldig bevonden op grond van weinig meer dan de verklaring van een tandtechnicus die stelde dat de beten op het lichaam van het slachtoffer overeenkwamen met het gebit van Krone. Hij kreeg de doodstraf.

'Het is naar om te beseffen dat alles waarin je gelooft en waarvoor je staat wordt afgepakt, en dan ook nog eens onterecht,' vertelt Krone. 'Het was misschien naïef, maar ik had nooit gedacht dat mij zoiets kon overkomen. Ik had mijn land gediend in de luchtmacht, ik had bij de posterijen gewerkt. Ik zeg niet dat ik een modelburger was, maar ik had nog nooit eerder problemen gehad. En toch belandde ik in de dodencel. Ik besefte toen dat dit iedereen kan overkomen.' De juridische afdeling van Maricopa County gaf ruim vijftigduizend dollar uit aan de aanklacht, die zwaar leunde op de tandafdrukken. Voor de gebitsexpert die Krone had kunnen vrijpleiten werd slechts 1500 dollar belastinggeld uitgetrokken. Dat de openbaar aanklager en de verdediging bij zware delicten niet over evenveel budget beschikken, is in de VS al lange tijd een probleem. Verdachten, die vaak zijn aangewezen op onderbemande afdelingen met minder ervaren advocaten, delven hierdoor onevenredig vaak het onderspit.

Krones zaak kwam in 1995 opnieuw voor, toen in hoger beroep bleek dat de openbare aanklager videobeelden van het 'bijtbewijs' bewust tot de dag voor de rechtszaak had achtergehouden. Krone werd opnieuw schuldig bevonden. De aanklager beriep zich op dezelfde gebitsdeskundigen die Krone de eerste keer ook achter de tralies hadden gekregen. Dit keer hoorde de verdachte echter 'levenslang' tegen zich eisen in plaats van de doodstraf.

De moeder en stiefvader van Krone hebben nooit getwijfeld aan de onschuld van hun zoon. Ze namen een hypotheek op hun huis, en de familie nam een advocaat in de arm om de bewijsstukken van het moordonderzoek te onderzoeken. De rechter negeerde het gemor van de aanklager en gaf gehoor aan het verzoek van de advocaat van de familie om de DNA-stalen - te weten speeksel- en bloedmonsters van de plaats delict - in een onafhankelijk lab te laten onderzoeken.

In april 2002 toonden deze DNA-monsters Krones onschuld aan. Het DNA van Kenneth Phillips, een man die op nog geen kilometer van de bar woonde waar Ancona werd vermoord, werd aangetroffen op de kleding die het slachtoffer droeg. De dader was snel gevonden: hij zat een gevangenisstraf uit wegens het aanranden en wurgen van een zevenjarig meisje. Vier dagen na bekendmaking van de uitslag van het DNA-onderzoek werd Krone vrijgelaten. Sindsdien geniet hij bekendheid als de honderdste man die sinds 1973 in een Amerikaanse dodencel belandde, maar later onschuldig bleek en werd vrijgelaten.

Gary Drinkard was geen lieverdje. Hij was al vaker in aanraking geweest met de politie toen Dalton Pace, een drugsdealer, in augustus 1993 slachtoffer werd van een roofmoord in Alabama. De politie arresteerde Drinkard (destijds 37) twee weken later, nadat zijn halfzus Beverly Robinson en haar partner Rex Segars het met de politie op een akkoordje hadden gegooid. Zij verklaarden dat Drinkard tegen hen had gezegd dat hij Pace had vermoord. In ruil voor die verklaring zag de politie af van strafvervolging jegens hen wegens een beroving (waar Drinkard mogelijk ook bij was betrokken).

Ik ontmoet Drinkard, die is gekleed in een overall en de ene sigaret na de andere wegpaft. Hij praat langzaam met een sterk zuidelijk accent en weegt zijn woorden zorgvuldig. 'Ik dacht echt dat ik eraan zou gaan,' zegt hij. En dat was ook zeker het plan. De aanklagers dwongen een 'bekentenis' bij hem af door hem onder druk te zetten met getuigenverklaringen (van zijn halfzus en haar vriend). Ook zetten ze de jury op het verkeerde been door te verwijzen naar zijn vermeende betrokkenheid bij eerdere diefstallen. De advocaten die Drinkard bijstonden waren onervaren en hadden nog nooit een zaak bij de hand gehad waarin de doodstraf werd geëist. Ze trokken hun mond nauwelijks open en deden maar weinig moeite om ontlastend bewijs aan te voeren. In 1995 werd Drinkard schuldig bevonden en ter dood veroordeeld. Hij zou bijna zes jaar in een dodencel zitten.

In 2000 liet het hooggerechtshof van Alabama de zaak heropenen omdat de aanklager Drinkards criminele verleden erbij had gehaald. 'Bewijs van eerder begane misdaden door de beklaagde is doorgaans niet toelaatbaar omdat dit bij de jury tot vooroordelen leidt. Als de verdachte al iets heeft uitgehaald, acht de jury de kans groter dat hij ook de misdaad heeft begaan waarvoor hij terechtstaat,' schreef het hof in zijn motivatie voor heropening van de zaak.

6 jaar in een dodencel; vrijgesproken in 2001

Foto van Martin Schoeller

Drinkards zaak trok de aandacht van het Southern Center for Human Rights, dat doodvonnissen aanvecht. Toen Drinkards zaak in 2001 opnieuw voorkwam, toonden zijn advocaten aan dat hun cliënt ten tijde van de moord kampte met ernstige rugklachten. Ze verklaarden dat hij ten tijde van de moord op Pace thuiszat met een uitkering van zijn ziektekostenverzekering en de moord dus nooit had kunnen plegen. Een lokale jury sprak Drinkard binnen een uur vrij, waarna hij werd vrijgelaten. 'Ik was nooit tegen de doodstraf, maar dat veranderde toen de overheid mij wilde omleggen,' zegt Drinkard.

Volgens de National Registry of Exonerations is in de hele Verenigde Staten sinds 1989, het jaar waarin DNA werd toelaten als geldig bewijs in strafzaken, in meer dan 2700 gevallen vrijspraak geëist.

In 1993 was Kirk Bloodsworth de eerste die dankzij een DNA-test aan zijn doodvonnis ontsnapte. Bloodsworth was in 1984 gearresteerd op beschuldiging van het verkrachten en vermoorden van de negenjarige Dawn Hamilton in Maryland. De politie kreeg Bloodsworth, die pas net in de buurt was komen wonen, in het vizier toen een anonieme tipgever na het zien van een compositietekening op tv diens naam noemde. Bloodsworth leek nauwelijks op de afgebeelde verdachte. Er was geen bewijs dat hem met de misdaad in verband bracht. Hij had geen strafblad. En toch werd hij ter dood veroordeeld. De aanklacht was voornamelijk gestoeld op de verklaringen van vijf getuigen, onder wie twee kinderen, die hem in de buurt van de plaats delict zouden hebben gezien. Volgens het DPIC spelen valse ooggetuigenverklaringen een rol in veel onterechte veroordelingen.

Bloodsworth herinnert zich de nare teksten die na het vonnis in de rechtszaal werden gescandeerd ('Give him the gas and kill his ass'). Hij heeft nooit begrepen hoe hij ter dood kon worden veroordeeld wegens een gruwelijke misdaad die hij niet had gepleegd.

Twee jaar later kwam zijn zaak opnieuw voor de rechter, toen in hoger beroep bleek dat de aanklager mogelijk ontlastend bewijs voor de verdediging verborgen had gehouden. De politie had nog een verdachte op het oog, maar had verzuimd die lijn in het onderzoek verder uit te werken. Bloodsworth werd opnieuw schuldig bevonden, maar een andere rechter zette Bloodsworths straf om in tweemaal levenslang. 'Soms wilde ik de hoop opgeven,' vertelt Bloodsworth. 'Ik dacht dat ik tot het einde van mijn leven in die cel zou zitten. Tot ik het boek van Joseph Wambaugh onder ogen kreeg.'

Dit boek, The Blooding, verscheen in 1989. Het ging over een nieuwe techniek op basis van DNA, die in rechtszaken werd gebruikt om een verdachte vrij te pleiten en een moord- en verkrachtingszaak op te lossen.

Bloodsworth vroeg zich af of deze techniek hem kon helpen zijn naam te zuiveren. Hij informeerde of de bewijsstukken in zijn zaak op DNA konden worden onderzocht om aan te tonen dat hij niet op de plaats delict was geweest, maar kreeg te horen dat het bewijs abusievelijk was vernietigd. Het bewijs, inclusief het ondergoed van het meisje, werd echter in het gerechtsgebouw aangetroffen. De aanklagers, die dachten dat hun zaak toch wel overeind zou blijven, stonden het bewijsmateriaal af.

Op de bewijsstukken werd bruikbaar DNA aangetroffen - en geen van de sporen matchte met dat van Bloodsworth. Hij kwam vrij en zes maanden later, in december 1993, verleende de gouverneur van Maryland hem gratie. Het zou nog bijna tien jaar duren voor de daadwerkelijke moordenaar werd veroordeeld: Kimberley Shay Ruffner, een man die twee weken voorafgaand aan de moord was vrijgekomen. Een tijdlang zat Ruffner, die kort na Bloodsworths arrestatie een celstraf van 45 jaar werd opgelegd voor poging tot verkrachting en poging tot moord, in dezelfde gevangenis. Ruffner bekende schuld aan de moord op Hamilton en kreeg levenslang. Als directeur van WTI strijdt Bloodsworth nu onvermoeibaar voor afschaffing van de doodstraf. De Innocence Protection Act, een wet die in 2004 werd bekrachtigd door president George W. Bush, leidde tot het Kirk Bloodsworth Post-Conviction DNA Testing Grant Program, dat veroordeelden bijstaat door een deel van de kosten van DNA-onderzoek op zich te nemen.

'Ik was arm en woonde nog maar een maand in de omgeving van Baltimore toen ik werd gearresteerd,' zegt Bloodsworth. 'Als ik mensen vertel wat mij is overkomen, en ze zien hoe makkelijk het is om te worden veroordeeld voor iets wat je niet hebt gedaan, plaatsen ze vaak vraagtekens bij de werking van ons strafrechtsysteem. Dan is het niet moeilijk om aan te nemen dat er ook onschuldige mensen zijn geëxecuteerd.'

5 jaar vast, de helft in een dodencel; vrijgesproken in 1995

Bij haar proces in 1990 werd Sabrina Smith (50), meisjesnaam Butler, veroordeeld wegens de moord op haar zoontje Walter. Haar advocaten verzuimden getuigen op te roepen die konden verklaren dat de verwondingen van het kind strookten met de hartmassage die ze had geprobeerd toe te passen. Butler mocht niet voor de rechtbank verklaren dat ze onschuldig was. Het hooggerechtshof van Mississippi gelastte een nieuw proces wegens nalatigheid door de aanklagers. Butler werd vrijgesproken. Ze is een van de twee vrouwen in Amerikaanse dodencellen die vrijspraak kregen; Debra Milke zat 25 jaar onterecht vast.

Foto van Martin Schoeller

op 11 april 1989 ontdekte Sabrina Butler kort na middernacht dat haar negen maanden oude zoontje Walter niet meer ademde. Butler, een alleenstaande moeder van achttien, paste hartmassage toe. Toen hij na een paar minuten nog altijd niet reageerde, haastte ze zich met hem naar een ziekenhuis in Columbus (Mississippi), waar hij bij aankomst werd doodverklaard. Ze werd binnen 24 uur aangeklaagd voor moord.

Walter had op het moment van overlijden ernstig inwendig letsel. Butler verklaarde tegenover de politie dat dit letsel moest zijn ontstaan bij haar pogingen hem te reanimeren. De politie geloofde haar niet en na een urenlang verhoor - waarbij ze niet werd bijgestaan door een advocaat - tekende ze een verklaring dat ze haar baby in de maag had gestompt omdat hij maar bleef huilen. Elf maanden later werd Butler veroordeeld wegens moord. Ze kreeg de doodstraf.

Een medisch expert had wellicht kunnen verklaren dat Walters letsel strookte met dat van de onhandige reanimatiepogingen van een doodongeruste moeder. Een buur - die getuigde in een volgend proces - had kunnen verklaren dat Butler haar uiterste best had gedaan om het leven van haar zoontje te redden. Maar de advocaten die haar waren toegewezen (van wie er een was gespecialiseerd in echtscheidingen) riepen geen getuigen op. Butler werd zelfs niet naar voren geroepen om haar verhaal te doen.

Daar stond ik dan: een jong zwart meisje in een zaal vol blanke volwassenen,' vertelt Butler, nu Smith geheten. 'Ik had geen idee hoe zo'n proces in zijn werk gaat. Mijn advocaten hadden alleen gezegd dat ik stil moest zitten en naar de jury moest kijken. Toen tot me doordrong dat mijn advocaten geen enkele getuige zouden oproepen die mijn onschuld kon aantonen, wist ik dat de zaak niet goed zou aflopen.'

Haar veroordeling en de strafmaat werden in augustus 1992 verworpen. Het hooggerechtshof van Mississippi oordeelde dat de aanklager een procedurele fout had gemaakt door haar in de rechtszaal niet te horen. Het proces moest over. Het tweede proces, met betere pro-Deoadvocaten en verklaringen van een buur en een medisch expert, resulteerde in vrijspraak. Er werd nieuw bewijs aangevoerd: Walter leed aan een nieraandoening die waarschijnlijk had bijgedragen aan zijn plotselinge dood. Butler kwam na vijf jaar vrij. Ze had de helft van die tijd doorgebracht in de dodencel. Zo'n twee jaar na haar vrijspraak kreeg Butler een oproep om in een jury plaats te nemen. 'Dat was een hele schok,' vertelt ze me. 'Ik legde een medewerker van het gerechtshof uit dat de staat Mississippi mij had willen doden en dat ik daarom niet kon plaatsnemen in de jury.' Ze werd vrijgesteld van de juryplicht.

vrijgesproken gevangenen, maar ook burgers, vragen zich af of mensen na een onterechte veroordeling recht hebben op schadevergoeding, vooral in die gevallen waarin de doodstraf was geëist. In de praktijk luidt dat antwoord 'nee'. In een enkel geval zijn er aan vrijgesproken terdoodveroordeelden miljoenen dollars uitgekeerd, afhankelijk van de wetten van de staat die het vonnis velde. De meerderheid kreeg niets of slechts een schamel bedrag.

Ron Keine, een van de vrijgekomen terdoodveroordeelden die ik interviewde, volgt de ontwikkelingen rond smartengeld op de voet. Hij woont in Michigan en zet zich onvermoeibaar in voor mensen die ten onrechte veroordeeld zijn, ook omdat zij er bij hun terugkeer in de samenleving vaak niet al te best voor staan.

In 1974 werd Keine samen met vier anderen in Oklahoma gearresteerd en uitgeleverd aan New Mexico. Ze werden beschuldigd van het verminken en vermoorden van een 26-jarige student, William Velten jr., uit Albuquerque. De schoonmaakster van een motel verklaarde dat de mannen haar hadden verkracht en daarna in hetzelfde motel de student hadden vermoord.

Maar de vrienden waren niet in Albuquerque toen de student de dood vond. Ze waren in Los Angeles en konden dat aantonen ook: ze hadden een verkeersboete met de juiste datum erop. De schoonmaakster trok later haar verhaal in. In september 1975 bekende de dakloze Kerry Rodney Lee de moord op de student, mogelijk uit schuldgevoel; er zaten vier mannen in de dodencel voor een moord die híj had gepleegd. Lee werd in mei 1978 veroordeeld. Keine heeft bij diverse deelstaatparlementen gepleit voor aanpassing van de wetgeving rondom de doodstraf. Het district dat hem tot de dodencel veroordeelde keerde hem slechts 1800 euro smartengeld uit. Nu strijdt hij voor een billijkere vergoeding voor anderen tegen wie onterecht de doodstraf werd geëist. 'Je voelt je verschrikkelijk als je uit zo'n dodencel komt,' zegt hij. 'Je trots is gekrenkt, je hebt vaak amper geld. Die mensen probeer ik een duwtje in de rug te geven en ze op weg te helpen door te zorgen voor de eerste basisbehoeften.'

Phillip Morris schreef in 2020 over het neerhalen van standbeelden in de openbare ruimte. Martin Schoeller is gespecialiseerd in portretfotografie en werkt momenteel aan een reeks over vrijgesproken terdoodveroordeelden en overlevenden van de Holocaust.
Dit artikel verscheen in de derde editie van National Geographic Magazine 2021.

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Dodencel: de verhalen van mensen die onschuldig ter dood werden veroordeeld

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Foto van Martin Schoeller Dit artikel verscheen in de derde editie van National Geographic Magazine 2021. Union Parish, Louisiana 13 jaar in een dodencel; vrijgesproken in 2001 Burrell, nu 66, was zeventien dagen verwijderd van zijn executie toen zijn advocaten in 1996 uitstel voor hem kregen.

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Alice Walker interview (African-American History Month: February)

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Alice Walker interview (African-American History Month: February)

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On Activism and The Color Purple.

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AMY GOODMAN: This is an excerpt of my on-stage interview with Alice Walker.

And then later, after we were released, you know, they take your shoes, so he was - I was there trying to put my shoes back on, and he came over and he got down on his knees, and he said, "Let me help you." And I said, "Sure." And I put my foot out, and he helped me with my shoes, and we started talking about his children. Well, first of all, he told me about his wife. He said, "You know, when I told my wife that I had arrested you, she was not thrilled." And so, then I asked him about his family, and he told me about his children, and I told him I write children's books. And so he said, "Oh, you do? Because, you know, there's nothing to read. The children are all watching television." I said, "That's true." So it ended up with me sending books to them and feeling that this is a very good way to be with the police.

And can I just extrapolate a little bit on the police and us? Because I realized fairly recently - I went to Houston to the Astrodome to take books and other things to the people, and the police, a lot of them also African Americans, but, you know, many other kinds of people, as well, they came over. And it was very clear that they, like the people who had lost their homes, really wanted some books. But they felt like they, as one of them said to me, "I really would like a book, but I'm not the people. I'm the police." And I said to him, and then some of the people said that, too, they said, "You know, these people are the police, they're not the people."

However, I said to the people and to the police that the police are the people, and we have to remember that the police are the people as well as the people. And so, you know, there they were, these big guys who probably had not had anybody offer them a book to read in years, if ever. They had gone into the army and into the police force because they did not have an education. That's part of why they're police. And so, I really feel very strongly that as we go into this activity, more of it, which we will undoubtedly have to do, that we remember even when the police are acting really, as we used to say down South, ugly, that we remember that they are also the people and that this is - you know, that we understand how they got to be the way that they are, and to try to hold that place of seeing them as the people, no matter what is happening.

I was reading Evelyn White's biography of you, called Alice Walker: A Life, and she goes back to 1967, and you had just come to New York, and you were submitting an essay to American Scholar. It was 1967, so you were about, what, 23 years old. And it was entitled "The Civil Rights Movement: What Good Was It?" And you include it in your book In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens. You wrote it in one sitting. You won first prize. It was published. "The Civil Rights Movement: What Good Was It?" Can you talk about the Civil Rights Movement to the antiwar movement? The antiwar movement, what good is it?

AMY GOODMAN: Alice Walker speaking in Oakland, California. We'll continue with the interview in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: We return to our interview with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker.

So with Rosa Parks one day in Mississippi, we happened to be at the same event. I think she was being honored for, you know, everything that she had given us, and we were at the same table, and I think that I may have offered to escort her to the restroom, and I was in there with her. And she - while she was getting herself together to go back out into the reception or whatever the thing was that we were doing, she suddenly took down her hair, and Rosa Parks had hair that came all the way down to her - you know, the lower back, and she quickly ran her fingers through it. And I was just stunned. I had no idea. She then twisted it up again, and she put it the way you've seen her, you know, always with the little bun, very neat, and I said to her, "My goodness, what's all this, Miss Rosa?" And she looked at me, and she said, "Well, you know, I'm part Choctaw, and my hair was something that my husband dearly, dearly loved about me. He loved my hair." And she said, "And so, when he died, I put it up, and I never wear it down in public." Now there's a Rosa.

So, I then, as, you know, writers are just - you know, we live by stealth, and so I immediately had this completely different image of this woman, the little, quiet seamstress, you know, sitting on the bus, even the activist who was so demure and so correct. And I thought, this woman, hallelujah, was with a man who loved her and loved her with her hair hanging down, and she loved him so much that when he died, she took that hair that he loved, and she put it up on her head, and she never let anyone else see it. Isn't that amazing?

So, to answer your question, for me to be active in the cause of the people and of the earth and just to be - is to be alive. There is no compartmentalization. It's all one thing. It's not like I just exist to go into a little room and write. People have that image of writers, that that's how we live, but it's not really accurate, not the kind of writing that I do. I know that what I write has a purpose, even if it's just for me, if I'm just trying to lead myself out of a kind of darkness. So it broadens everything, being active in the world. You see the world. It's like, you know, I'm learning to paint now, and what I realize, learning to paint, is that I'm learning to see. And activism is like that. When you are active, and you must know this so well, that the more you are active, the more you see, the more you go to see. You know, you are curious. One thing leads to another thing, and it gets deeper and deeper, too. And there's no end to it.

I don't know how many of you know the work of Jean Toomer. He's just a wonderful writer. But he talks about how in every generation, there is one person - or he puts it, the metaphor is there is one plum left on the tree, and all of the other plums are gone with the wind and so forth, and there is this one plum, and that plum with one seed, that's all you need, really, to start it all over again, and that's another reason for us to be more hopeful about life. So I really had that feeling of being this one plum with this one seed, because from what I could see, there wasn't anybody else who had the same kind of love for these particular people that I had or the capacity to be faithful to the vision of them that I held. So I felt very blessed and very chosen, in a way, you know, like my ancestors were really present with me the entire time I was writing. They never went away. They were just really there, and I have felt their caring, and I still feel it. And it means that I never feel alone. It's impossible.

So, I feel that when you read The Color Purple, no matter what is happening in your life or how difficult the whole huge miasma of sorrow that seems to be growing, there's a way that you can see through the life of Celie, that if you can continue and if you can stay connected to nature and also to your highest sense of behavior toward yourself and toward other people, if you can really keep that struggle going - you may not always win it. You remember how Celie said to Harpo at some point that he should beat Sofia, that he should beat his wife, well, that was a low point, but she was still struggling to be someone who would outgrow that kind of thinking. And so, what you learn is that life can be really hard. People can abuse you, people can, you know, take advantage of you in terrible ways, but there is something in the human spirit that's actually equal to that and can actually overcome that, and that is the teaching of The Color Purple.

AMY GOODMAN: Alice Walker, speaking in Oakland last month, poet, author, activist. We'll come back to this conversation in a minute.

[break]

We return to our conversation with author, poet, activist, Alice Walker. I asked her to talk about the making of The Color Purple, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize, into a movie.

And so, the risk that I took was in a way to offer to my mother and people like my mother something that they could identify with, something that they could, you know, have some real connection to. I mean, my mother never met Tom Mix and Lash LaRue. These were all these characters that were, you know, always shooting and killing. So I thought about, you know, the segregated theater. You know, when I was growing up, we had to be up there in the balcony, and the white people were down here and, of course, the seat were better down here. So I wanted to change that to the degree that I could do so. And so that's why - that's part of the reason I wanted to make a film.

And I think - you know, I had never heard of Steven Spielberg when he appeared. I think that, for many people, that's amazing, given how famous he was, but I had no idea who he was. And that's the other thing, when you are working on your work - and I think it's really important that I talk to you about this a little bit as an elder - when you are working on your work, you really don't have to be concerned about what other people are doing. And when - you know, there's an expression, everything that rises must converge. At some point, if your work is as true as you can make it, it has its own luminosity and it inevitably brings to you and your work all the people that you need. So enter Steven Spielberg to make the film, which turned out to be a very good thing. People thought it was a terrible choice, but what I looked for in him and in other people is the willingness to listen and the willingness to grow, to learn, and he had all of that.

And I understood later that that's an Aquarian thing, that we can take almost anything, but don't misunderstand us, because we feel deeply wounded by that. And I felt that anybody reading The Color Purple or seeing the film, actually, that they could read it and see the film and still think that I hated, actually, anybody, but hated my father, my grandfather, my brothers, my, you know, uncles, just because they were black men, and, you know, this would mean that I hated Langston Hughes or Jean Toomer or Richard Wright or, you know, Ralph Ellison or - it felt so incredibly mean. It felt very mean, it felt very small, and it was very painful.

So there was this marvelous feeling, you know, that I had already been through a kind of crucifixion by critics. And that - and I understood so many things. For instance, you know, in the Gnostic gospels, they say that when Jesus was crucified, he was not really crucified, that he - in the body, that what happened was he understood that it was all rather laughable. And not to compare myself with Jesus, but I really got it. I got it that there is a point at which a certain kind of crucifixion leads to a certain kind of freedom, because you cannot be contained by other people's opinions of you. You will always, I think, after you go through this kind of thing, feel somewhat removed, as I do. You know, I basically stopped reading reviews. And it's fine. I have realized I don't need them. I really feel that if more people could pay less attention to other people's opinions of them, they would be so much happier.

The very first meeting was at June's apartment because it was the larger of - I had moved out of my marriage house into basically two small rooms. And so June had this beautiful apartment with lots of space, and the women gathered there, and I remember on the very first gathering, at the very first gathering, I had bought this huge red pot that became the gumbo pot, and I made my first gumbo and took it to this gathering of women, all so different and all so spicy and flavorful like gumbo. And we have this photo. There is a wonderful photograph that someone took of us gathered around a large photograph of Bessie Smith, because Bessie Smith best expressed our feeling of being women who were free and women who intended to stay that way.

Well, I thought that her writing was beautiful. I had read The Bluest Eye and, in fact, was passing it out to people. And I was very upset that it didn't get much of a long life. I think - I don't know if it went out of print, but it certainly was sort of below the surface. And then I read Sula, which I just fell in love with. And I remember that there was a review of it in the New York Times by Sarah Blackman [sic], I think, anyway, someone who basically said that in order for Toni Morrison ever to, you know, be anything in the literary world, she had to get out of this notion of writing about black women, and she had to broaden her horizons and that way, she would, you know, maybe connect. And I was just completely annoyed. And I wrote a letter to the Times, reminding her and them that we will never have to be other than who we are in order to be successful.

Be nobody's darling;
Be an outcast.
Take the contradictions
Of your life
And wrap around
You like a shawl,
To parry stones
To keep you warm.

Watch the people succumb
To madness
With ample cheer;
Let them look askance at you
And you askance reply.

Be an outcast;
Be pleased to walk alone
(Uncool)
Or line the crowded
River beds
With other impetuous
Fools.

Make a merry gathering
On the bank
Where thousands perished
For brave hurt words
They said.

But be nobody's darling;
Be an outcast.
Qualified to live
Among your dead.

AMY GOODMAN: Alice Walker speaking last month in Oakland, California.

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"I am a Renegade, an Outlaw, a Pagan": Author, Poet and Activist Alice Walker in Her Own Words

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February is African-American History Month. To honor it, we bring you a conversation with the renowned author, poet and activist Alice Walker. She is perhaps best known for her book "The Color Purple" for which she won the Pulitzer Prize in 1983, becoming the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer for fiction.

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Love Liberates - Maya Angelou, iconic woman and poet

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Love Liberates - Maya Angelou, iconic woman and poet

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Martin Luther King, Jr.—facts and information

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A civil rights legend, Dr. King fought for justice through peaceful protest—and delivered some of the 20th century’s most iconic speeches.

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You can watch the full documentary on Netflix.

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'This Crisis Has Gone Undiscussed and Unaddressed For Years'

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13 children have died in shootings since April, according to the St. Louis Police Department, out of 138 homicides in the city in total

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Article: Black or African American: Which Term You Should Be Using

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Article: Black or African American: Which Term You Should Be Using

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The answer may be less important than the question itself.

Throughout history, Black people have been called many things. It began with Negro ("black" in Spanish and Portuguese), then colored, and eventually Black (and those are just the "polite" ones). Then in 1989, Jesse Jackson, the civil rights activist, promoted the term "African American" as a way to contextually dignify the origin of Black people in the Americas. But Jackson wasn't the first to coin the phrase; the first known use of "African American" was found in a sermon published in Philadelphia in 1782 that was written " by an African American." (The manuscript was discovered in 2016 by a law librarian at Yale University.) Given that there have been so many different terms used throughout the years, it's not surprising that there's so much confusion surrounding the issue.

Who is asking the question?

Before we get to Black vs. African American, let me say that I do not speak for all Black people; I speak for myself. I can say that my Black friends and I seldom deliberate on whether or not we wish to be called one or the other. Yet, the nuances of this question have impacted the way I converse with Black identifying individuals. This is usually a discourse on the country of origin or historical roots. For example, as a Somali-American, my background does not lend to sharing the experience of slavery in American history. That is a point I am often quick to make in my diversity work. Why? Well, because the roots of Blackness are deep and wide. They stretch all over the globe and I believe in honoring and acknowledging the reality of each one. And so, who is asking the question of Black vs. African American and what is the overall purpose behind it is an important consideration. If it is a White centrist phenomenon that is only trying to keep up with the appearances or tending to the "I am not racist rhetoric because I use the 'right' term," then we are missing the point. It should be coming from a place of inquiry that aims to understand the systemic implications attached to each of these terms.

Even the government is struggling with the issue. The 2020 Census, which had previously included the category "Black or African American" in 2000 and 2010, now asks responders of all races not only to check off a box but also to write in their origins, for example, Jamaican, Haitian, Nigerian, etc. I proudly wrote in Somali after checking off the Black/African American category. This demonstrates the historical complexities of identifying Black people in this country. It begs the question, what is African American? The historical context of the civil rights movement in the United States and the increase of the African diaspora have now made the term a source of contention. These 15 essential books about understanding race in America help give the full perspective.

Showing up Black

While there is confusion and misunderstanding about the phrase "African American," there is nothing subtle about Blackness. The transparency that comes with occupying Black skin is the very thing that makes us vulnerable. Yet, in my personal experience, I have met countless White people who do not feel comfortable addressing my skin color even in the most obvious situations. Something as simple as describing my physical appearance can turn into an uncomfortable interaction. (One example, when my 10 a.m. meeting shows up to the office and a colleague describes every one of my physical attributes besides the color of my skin to this individual, it is not helpful. Especially, if I happen to be the only Black person there. I am not just a skinny woman with curly hair. I am a Black woman with curly hair.) My Blackness does not need to be left out because a White person is afraid to see color. Leaving out the color of my skin is what perpetuates senseless crimes against Black people and is a dangerous oversight. It is important to see my Blackness because it will reveal the truth about how we weaponize Black bodies while ignoring their human value. When a Black person leaves their home, they carry their Blackness with them. This writer agrees that you should stop saying "I don't see color."

Granted there is a lot of beauty that comes with that Blackness, including a variety of rich and complex history. We also carry our customs and heritage; we carry the words of our ancestors and grandparents that detail our roots, and we carry accomplishments as nuanced as they come. Those ancestors and grandparents come from all different corners of the world and the specificity of this garners introspection and pride. To quote "Still I Rise," Maya Angelou's timeless poem, "Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave."

Beyond the semantics, we can meet

The most appropriate term to use is Black. Not because it is the correct term but because it speaks to the collective experience of people with darker skin without negating the individual or historical background. Not everyone identifies with the term African American, as Blacks can be from all over the world, not to mention that Africa is a continent, not a country. It is an ever-changing and evolving term mainly due to the migration of the various African diaspora over time. For me, I identify as Somali-American. I was born in Somalia and that is the language and heritage I carry. Still, I show up as Black everywhere I go. There is this subtle distinction embedded in the transparency of this reality.

Even more important, however, is that we allow Black people to use whatever term they feel best describes them. Perhaps the better question should be, how do we as a society allow for Black people to stand in their truth, whatever that may look like? Rather than policing language in a way that categorizes and groups people together, we must strive to break down any language that limits someone from owning their identity. Historically, this civility was not extended to enslaved people and so we must be willing to address the roots of these terms before we push Black people to check off a box to appease a general non-Black consensus.

Next, read on to find out what BIPOC stands for.
For more on this important issue, see our guide to the Fight Against Racism. Editor's note: The opinions here belong to the author. To submit your own idea for an essay, email .

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Black or African American: Which Term You Should Be Using

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The answer may be less important than the question itself. Throughout history, Black people have been called many things. It began with Negro ("black" in Spanish and Portuguese), then colored, and eventually Black (and those are just the "polite" ones).

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Obama on what it means to be man (and a good human)

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Obama on what it means to be man (and a good human)

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President Obama On What It Means to 'Be a Man' | NowThis

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Article: Eric Foner: White Nationalists, Neo-Confederates, and Donald Trump

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Article: Eric Foner: White Nationalists, Neo-Confederates, and Donald Trump

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Eric Foner is an award-winning historian of the Civil War and Reconstruction, author most recently of Battles for Freedom: The Use and Abuse of American History, a collection of essays from The Nation magazine. He teaches history at Columbia University and is also a member of the Editorial Board of The Nation. The interview has been edited and condensed.

Jon Wiener: The Confederate statue that was ostensibly the focus of the events in Charlottesville was of Robert E. Lee, who surrendered at Appomattox in 1865. What can you tell us about this statue?

Eric Foner: The key thing to remember about this statue, and most of these statues, is that they have very little to do with the Civil War. This statute was erected in 1924, almost 70 years after the end of the Civil War. It was erected at height of Jim Crow, the height of the era of segregation, disenfranchisement, and lynching. By the way, after the Civil War Robert E. Lee refused to criticize those who lynched black people or used violence of other kinds against them. He opposed black suffrage. He thought of himself as a gentleman, which he probably was, but he certainly didn't think black people should have any rights.

Like all these statues, this one was erected as a statement about who's in charge, about the power structure in society. My feeling is that it is not necessary to take down all these statues. Instead, I would like to see them erect other statues. Instead of taking down Lee, let's put up a statue right near him-of, let us say, John M. Langston, a black member of Congress from Virginia in the 1880s, right after the end of Reconstruction. You don't see very many statues to black leaders of the Reconstruction or post-Reconstruction South in Virginia or anywhere else. So if we're going to talk about statues, I say let's have the statuary be fully representative of Southern history.

JW: A lot of these demonstrators in Charlottesville called themselves neo-Confederates. What exactly is the neo-Confederate movement today? And what's its connection to the president of the United States?

EF : The neo-Confederate movement has been around for a good while. Ostensibly their aim is to commemorate and glorify the history of the Southern Confederacy. But what they really are about is white supremacy, or what is sometimes called white nationalism. They use the Confederacy as a symbol of white supremacy, which they are trying to bolster in this country. It's about who should be ruling America right now. Is Donald Trump a neo-Confederate? To call him that suggests he has coherent ideas-which clearly he does not. I don't think he knows anything about the Confederacy or the Civil War, but he does know that these kinds of people are part of his political base-as he made clear on Tuesday in his defense of the white nationalist demonstrators in Charlottesville.

JW: His father was arrested after a Klan riot in Queens, New York, in 1927.

Current Issue

: Racism is part of the DNA of Trump. He and his father were sued by the Justice Department in 1973 for not letting black people rent the apartment buildings they managed. Trump first came to prominence on political questions when he took a full-page ad in The New York Times demanding the death penalty for four black young men who were accused and convicted-and later exonerated-of assaulting a woman jogger in Central Park. Trump became the spokesman of the so-called birther movement that denied that Barack Obama was a citizen of the United States. He certainly has played the racial card, as they say, very strongly both in his political and in his family's commercial life. But Trump says, "I've got a lot black friends." "I knew Muhammad Ali." He once said, "I was Muhammad Ali's best friend." Which is probably an exaggeration.

JW: Probably. But it seems to me there nothing really new about neo-Confederates' and segregationists' hooking up with a Republican President. I'm sure that the demonstrators in Charlottesville noticed that Obama was not a white Southerner. You could go all the way back to Nixon's "Southern strategy" in '68 and '72, and before that to Goldwater in '64, who voted against the Civil Rights Act.

EF : Trump is an exaggerated form of what has happened to the Republican Party in the last half-century. We forget that before 1964, and even after that for a while, there were many Republicans who were strong civil-rights advocates. People like Jacob Javits, senator from New York State, and Robert Taft, the famous conservative Republican in the '40s were strong supporters of black rights. The Civil Rights Act of '64 would never have passed if Everett Dirksen had been not gotten some Republican votes for it in the Senate. This is the party of Lincoln-or at least it was.

What is different about Trump is how open he is about it all. Normally, the appeals to white racism are done through code words, like "law and order." Trump campaigned saying all black people are living in hellholes and asking them, "What do you have to lose?" by voting for Trump. It's become pretty clear what they have to lose: They can lose the right to vote. They can lose affirmative action. They can lose the notion the federal government sees racism as a serious problem in the United States.

JW: I saw a provocative question quoted in The New York Times: How are protesters tearing down Civil War statues any different from ISIS and the Taliban destroying historic monuments and museums?

EF : I don't think anybody has identified the statue of Robert E. Lee as a world cultural-heritage site like those giant Buddhas that were destroyed by the Taliban. The main point is that tearing down statues is often a sign of regime change. What was the first thing that American troops did when they marched into Baghdad in 2003 in the Iraq War? They tore down the statue of Saddam Hussein. I don't remember a lot of people saying, "We shouldn't do that. This is destroying history. Saddam Hussein is part of the history. You may not like him, but nonetheless this is history." No. We said, "Great, let's tear it down." Or in '91 with the fall of the Soviet Union, crowds marched to the KGB headquarters and tore down the statue of the founder of the KGB. Nobody said, "Oh, they're interfering with history." When regimes change, the public presentation of history also changes. But the large number of Confederate statues all over the South makes you wonder how much regime change there actually has been in this country since the Civil War.

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Eric Foner: White Nationalists, Neo-Confederates, and Donald Trump

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Eric Foner is an award-winning historian of the Civil War and Reconstruction, author most recently of Battles for Freedom: The Use and Abuse of American History, a collection of essays from The Nation magazine. He teaches history at Columbia University and is also a member of the Editorial Board of The Nation.

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An what about Belgium? Reference to George Floyd.

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An what about Belgium? Reference to George Floyd.

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Article De Standaard

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Toen Lamine Bangoura in 2018 uit huis werd gezet, stierf hij na een politie-interventie. Zijn familie blijft vastberaden om de betrokken agenten voor het gerecht te krijgen. 'Was Lamine een blanke jongen geweest, dan had hij nog geleefd.'

donderdag 4 februari 2021 om 3.25 uur

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'Lamine had alleen schulden en kreeg daarvoor de doodstraf'

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Toen Lamine Bangoura in 2018 uit huis werd gezet, stierf hij na een politie-interventie. Zijn familie blijft vastberaden om de betrokken agenten voor het gerecht te krijgen. 'Was Lamine een blanke jongen geweest, dan had hij nog geleefd.' donderdag 4 februari 2021 om 3.25 uur

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Jeugdliteratuur door de lens van etnisch-culturele diversiteit. 

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Jeugdliteratuur door de lens van etnisch-culturele diversiteit. 

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This is just one clip of the channel. Tip to explore when preparing your peer teaching.

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The Black Legend, Native Americans, and Spaniards: Crash Course US History #1

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To help pupils remember the Bill of Rights

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To help pupils remember the Bill of Rights

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Article: A Photographer Challenges Myths About Class and Poverty in America

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Article: A Photographer Challenges Myths About Class and Poverty in America

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Brenda Ann Kenneally isn't quite sure how to describe what she does as a photographer - an "outsider journalist," a "digital folk artist," an "undercover human being."

That's partly because her latest project is personal, documenting 14 years in the lives of several interconnected families in the upstate New York city of Troy, capturing the way financial stress and family trauma can disrupt and define their path. Kenneally was born in Albany and lived in Troy as a child, and she relates to some of the challenges now depicted in her new photo collection, Upstate Girls: Unraveling Collar City.

In between births and birthday parties, her photos capture everyday life under the poverty line in Troy - tearful embraces between couples and intimate moments between family members, curled up together in one bed, limbs overlapping. There are stories of people falling into the same patterns as their parents, while also trying to create better opportunities for the next generation. Kenneally sees her role as both "subject and author," adding complexity and context to a broader story about poverty in the United States.

"If you have the ability to be that bridge, it is absolutely your human responsibility to do so," she says. "They're not victims. They're human beings, living life, trying to make meaning the same way we all are."

Among the several people Kenneally followed was a boy named Tony. She photographed him from the moment of his birth in 2004 through several jubilant birthday celebrations and a tumultuous struggle with emotional and behavioral issues that forced him out of school and into a pediatric crisis unit and special treatment program.

Kenneally chronicles the enduring mother-daughter relationship between Billie Jean and Nanny Rose, who shared a home, childcare responsibilities and battles with depression. Billie Jean took care of her mother as she died in 2015, stayed with her while her body was cremated and graduated months later from the same GED program her mother had completed when Billie Jean was a child.

Kenneally also documents three pregnancies of Dana Schubart, photographing her in 2005 as an 18-year-old expectant mother and later as a hospital patient, just before giving her first daughter to the newborn's adoptive parents. "I don't even know how I'm gonna provide Pampers each week for my baby, but I'm still trying to make it work," Dana wrote during that pregnancy in a letter to her baby's father, Elliott Wells, who was serving time in jail for a parole violation. "I'm still doing the best that I can. And now that you're not here, I've gotta struggle twice as much."

After Upstate Girls had gone to press, Wells was charged by the Rensselaer County District Attorney with several counts of sexual abuse, rape, predatory sexual assault against a child, sexual conduct with a child, and endangering the welfare of a child. He was indicted on Oct. 12 and has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Upstate Girls unfolds like a scrapbook, containing handwritten letters and drawings, dating profiles and Facebook posts, custody orders and diplomas - all telling a story about the challenge of breaking out of endemic poverty.

"You never get out," Kenneally says. "Where you're from is always with you."

But while her photos focus on Troy, the history of the city and its families, Kenneally says they tell a broader story about the country as well. "Those photos can be recreated, I would say, everywhere in the United States, absolutely everywhere, and yet we don't talk about it," she says. "We don't even have a language to talk about class because the myth of America is that we are all one class."

There were 39.7 million people living in poverty in the U.S. in 2017, according to U.S. Census data. While the poverty rate across the country has declined since 2014, reaching 12.3% in 2017, conditions have worsened in some regions. In most major cities in upstate New York, including Troy, the child poverty rate was as high as 73% for black children and 40% for white children in 2015.

The United Nations released a startling report in May highlighting the stark contrast between wealth and poverty in the United States - which is home to 25% of the world's billionaires as well as 40 million people living in poverty, including about 18.5 million in extreme poverty and 5.3 million in what the report describes as "Third World conditions of absolute poverty."

"It has the highest youth poverty rate in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the highest infant mortality rates among comparable OECD States," the U.N. report said of the United States. "Its citizens live shorter and sicker lives compared to those living in all other rich democracies, eradicable tropical diseases are increasingly prevalent, and it has the world's highest incarceration rate."

The people who Kenneally photographed are affected by many of those systemic problems, as they struggle with incarceration, illness, eviction and mental health issues related to the trauma and stress of poverty. Children living in poverty are more likely to experience behavioral and emotional problems, according to the American Psychological Association. And the chronic stress associated with poverty can have adverse effects on children's education, impacting their memory, ability to learn and likelihood of dropping out of school.

Just 62% of persistently poor children complete high school by age 20 and only 16% go on to escape poverty by their late 20s with a consistent connection to work or school, according to a 2017 report by the U.S. Partnership on Mobility from Poverty. People living below the poverty line are also at greater risk of dying early than their wealthier counterparts - a problem especially pronounced for African-Americans.

"It's absolutely insidious. It is a physical condition, it's in our DNA. Poverty goes hand in hand with trauma," Kenneally says. "It's even more urgent than ever to address this. It's already a national health crisis."

As a teenager, Kenneally hitchhiked out of Troy in search of "a different road to adulthood," looking to avoid a job at the meatpacking plant across from her mother's house. She says older friends had trained her to question the "absurdity" of a system that punished them for being born into circumstances beyond their control.

Kenneally made it from Troy to Miami, where she earned her GED and went on to college and ultimately graduate school after meeting a woman who "taught me to honor my desire to explore, even if others thought I was headed nowhere."

That lesson is evident in A Little Creative Class, Inc., the nonprofit she founded with the mission of providing disadvantaged youth with opportunities for creative expression, "empowering them to find inclusion socially, educationally and economically" and breaking down some of the barriers that perpetuate class inequity.

Upstate Girls is also an extension of that mission, serving as a link to a community that is often misunderstood and neglected.

"I want readers to love the folks in this book as I do," Kenneally says. "Love takes away fear, and it takes understanding the particulars of others' lives to love them."
Brenda Ann Kenneally is an award winning photographer based in New York City and the author of Upstate Girls: Unraveling Collar City.

Write to Katie Reilly at Katie.Reilly@time.com.

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A Photographer Challenges Myths About Class and Poverty in America

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Brenda Ann Kenneally isn't quite sure how to describe what she does as a photographer - an "outsider journalist," a "digital folk artist," an "undercover human being." That's partly because her latest project is personal, documenting 14 years in the lives of several interconnected families in the upstate New York city of Troy, capturing the way financial stress and family trauma can disrupt and define their path.

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Would you consider discussing this in classes, why (not)? If so, how?

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Combining archival footage with testimony from activists and scholars, director Ava DuVernay's examination of the U.S. prison system looks at how the country's history of racial inequality drives the high rate of incarceration in America.

This piercing, Oscar-nominated film won Best Documentary at the Emmys, the BAFTAs and the NAACP Image Awards.

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More than peach project: crayons to raise diversity awareness 

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More than peach project: crayons to raise diversity awareness 

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'More than Peach': Using crayons to raise diversity awareness

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Blog: The Real origin of the African birth song : multiple perspectives 

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Blog: The Real origin of the African birth song : multiple perspectives 

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As many of you know, I spend a lot of time browsing Tumblr. Though it has a ton of problems (like refusing to shut down blogs being used to harass women, trans folks, and people of color), I've had an account since 2008 and it has accompanied me on my journey through college, years in the working world, and now-graduate school while I juggle staying in my field with expanding my horizons. I've found brilliant things on there, and while some posts only garner a tiny modicum of attention even if they're wonderful, other posts can spread like WILDFIRE and go hugely viral. One such post is this one, about an "African birth song," which almost has 150K notes:

[T]here is a tribe in Africa where the birth date of a child is counted not from when they were born, nor from when they are conceived but from the day that the child was a thought in its mother's mind. And when a woman decides that she will have a child, she goes off and sits under a tree, by herself, and she listens until she can hear the song of the child that wants to come. And after she's heard the song of this child, she comes back to the man who will be the child's father, and teaches it to him. And then, when they make love to physically conceive the child, some of that time they sing the song of the child, as a way to invite it. And then, when the mother is pregnant, the mother teaches that child's song to the midwives and the old women of the village, so that when the child is born, the old women and the people around her sing the child's song to welcome it. And then, as the child grows up, the other villagers are taught the child's song. If the child falls, or hurts its knee, someone picks it up and sings its song to it. Or perhaps the child does something wonderful, or goes through the rites of puberty, then as a way of honoring this person, the people of the village sing his or her song.

In the African tribe there is one other occasion upon which the villagers sing to the child. If at any time during his or her life, the person commits a crime or aberrant social act, the individual is called to the center of the village and the people in the community form a circle around them. Then they sing their song to them.

The tribe recognizes that the correction for antisocial behavior is not punishment; it is love and the remembrance of identity. When you recognize your own song, you have no desire or need to do anything that would hurt another.

And it goes this way through their life. In marriage, the songs are sung, together. And finally, when this child is lying in bed, ready to die, all the villagers know his or her song, and they sing-for the last time-the song to that person.

You may not have grown up in an African tribe that sings your song to you at crucial life transitions, but life is always reminding you when you are in tune with yourself and when you are not. When you feel good, what you are doing matches your song, and when you feel awful, it doesn't. In the end, we shall all recognize our song and sing it well. You may feel a little warbly at the moment, but so have all the great singers. Just keep singing and you'll find your way home.

Heartwarming. Much inspiration. Wow. So beautiful we could all cry a thousand tiny tears.

So what's the problem, in a nutshell?

The "African birth song" is a half-baked invention of a White man that essentializes the "African experience" and does not event attempt to give any real details because it relies on collective ignorance about Africa that centers the world on a White axis. The text above does not provide any sources or even NAME this African tribe (though other versions do, but I'll get into that later). The story uses exotification, the Noble Savage Myth, and people's ignorance to make others feel warm n' fuzzy and perpetuate incorrect narratives in the name of New Agey birth BS. This Tumblr post specifically, as many others have when they get reblogged, also uses the image/body of a RANDOM, unnamed indigenous woman from the Himba tribe. The list of problems goes on, because in the eyes of many non-African people, Africa is apparently just one huge jungle where everyone looks and acts the same, and all women run around topless feeling super connected to Mother Earth or something, giving birth in The Most Spiritual Ways We Should All Be Inspired By.

Though this post focuses on Black and Indigenous folks, the same rule applies when discussing all other communities of color: we are not here to be your nameless, faceless inspirational memes. We want to be seen for who we are, and we want our own voices uplifted, not those of White folks who cannibalize our histories and profit off inaccuracies and tall tales.

Origins Of "THE AFRICAN BIRTH SONG" And Its Variations

While the story sounded cool and all at face-value, I knew there was more digging to be done because this smelled pretty fishy. What's the real root of this "African Birth Song"? Beyond Tumblr and Facebook, I found some other birth/parenting websites linking to this story, and that it has even been translated into Spanish and into Portuguese. It has been called "Your Song," "The Song of Men," "Remember Your Song," "The Song of the Soul," and more. The Birth Psychology website sources this book ("Welcoming Spirit Home: Ancient African Teachings to Celebrate Children and Community" by Sobonfu Somé) as the origin of the text but, SURPRISE, I looked at it and the book doesn't actually make mention of this story-though it does describe other ritual birth practices in certain African tribes.

Some don't even try to source it to a person, and say this tradition comes from Namibia as a whole. Others say it's rooted in the Himba people (the picture above, and the "featured image" for this post by J. Gerrits, are Himba women), even though the location of that tribe is apparently in an arid area, so there wouldn't be a "jungle" to go to as the story say. Meanwhile, other Internetters say the source is the " Ubuntu tribe " even though there is, uh, no such thing-Ubuntu is a philosophy. Again, we see a trend: folks ascribing things to peoples they do not know or understand because they sound "appropriate" or "distant enough" to be credible (and again, such credibility relies on assuming the audience is NOT from Africa or any of these communities).

Those that try to credit an individual (aside from Sobonfu Somé) cite "Tolba Phanem (African poet), 2007" and use another image of a Himba woman to accompany the post. Some websites say that Tolba Phanem is a great women's rights activist, and show off her "picture." Except a reverse image-search on Google shows me that the picture they are using is actually of Aminata Traorè, the Ex-Minister of Culture from Mali.

It actually looks like Tolba Phanem doesn't actually exist, and the person who truly originated this story is a dude named Alan Cohen*, who published it in Issue #33 of Pathways to Family Wellness-"a quarterly print and digital magazine whose non-profit mission is to support you and your family's quest for wellness." (If someone does find that Phanem is a real person, do let me know. I found nothing on her that was accurate/unrelated to this "poem/story." And even the websites that cite very specific sources for this story don't seem to return any hits or information-AND they also show incorrect facts that I *can* verify easily which makes them less credible from the get-go.)

[*EDIT 4/19/16: Commenters have been kind enough to keep digging and sourcing further. There seems to be another thread to this story linked to a White, Jewish man named Jack Kornfield which you can read about in this comment thread. I reached out to him but never received a response. Seems like HE may have been the originator of this story before Alan Cohen, but there is still no information about legitimate connections to actual tribal practices.]

So there we go. This story is a load of crap being adorned with "exotic" origin stories in efforts to legitimize it. Thankfully, I wasn't the only person who was skeptical, but not everyone's skepticism drew them to my same eyebrow-raising and frustration. For example, this person was also skeptical, but much to my facepalming, this was their conclusion:

I'm an artist. A spontaneous, story-singing artist.
I work in the abstract and unproven, the ethereal and profound.
I make up stories and songs all of the time.
And they're true.
They are invented and (sometimes) nonsensical, and maybe they never happened, but at the heart and at the center, they are true.
Because when we hear them (or tell them), we can imagine and believe that they really happened.
Or wish that they had.
This is a true story.

On some level, I get it. I used to do a lot of art, and I am surrounded by artists, writers, and storytellers. I know not everything that gets written down has to be non-fiction, and that we can spin stories out of grains of truth and blah blah blah. I get it. But to use THAT as an excuse for writing racially busted stories, and especially those that go viral on social media? No. Your art is not an excuse. Your art does not exist in a vacuum. Your art is not separate from the systems of racism and oppression in which we live, and to be an artist is not to be exempt from cultural critique and social responsibility. If you want to tell a story about healing, restorative justice, song-singing, and birth, then make it stand on its own merits and power instead of being lazy and using some nameless, faceless "tribe" to help make it sound more legitimate.

Connections To Reality & Healing/Justice

So is this "African birth song" remotely related to actual tribal birth practices in Africa? Or indigenous work around healing? Sort of. Does the idea of being "in tune with our song" sound deep, and like it would be amazing to find ways of achieving justice that don't just rely on punitive measures, but instead look beyond that and aim for reintegration and accountability? Heck yes. But none of that erases the racist mess I describe above. However, let's leave that behind for a bit so we can look at what connection this actually has to reality.

Because I don't know much about birthing practices in Africa, and I doubt I could do ANY sort of justice to an entire CONTINENT in a single blog-post, I'll focus on the healing/justice portions.

Indigenous/ABORIGINAL/FIRST NATIONS healing circleS

Here's a quick explanation of what healing circles are all about and where they come from. Though there are not a ton of studies about them as far as "evidence-based research" goes, there are some folks working on this kind of thing (example!), and I was honored to meet a group of them at the 2014 National Sexual Assault Conference.

Restorative justice, transformative justice, and community accountability

The line "The [group] recognizes that the correction for antisocial behavior is not punishment; it is love and the remembrance of identity" encapsulates a big part of the RJ, TJ, and CA models. While different organizations may have different definitions of these concepts and how they relate to each other, at its core, the ideas behind these models and principles are that a) communities as a whole must be involved in eradicating violence, b) perpetrators of violence should not just be "passively responsible" for their actions, and c) healing must be directed by survivors and those impacted by the violence. Finally, a tenet of TJ (though not always RJ) is the idea that we must transform-not merely slightly modify-our societal structures that currently enable violence and set up punishments for it.

Here's a great resource that explains both TJ and CA with text, graphics, and a list of resources. It also gives credit where credit is due (read: to groups like Incite! Women of Color Against Violence and Generation Five for their work theorizing, writing, and operationalizing these concepts). This other resource also gives more historical background on it because our current police state wasn't always what it is now, and this one discusses how the RJ model has been co-opted by the criminal justice system in certain ways (and thus how TJ can be an alternative to that).

Another slew of resources aggregated by Critical Resistance on addressing harm, accountability, and healing. It lists books, toolkits, zines, websites, articles, and more. While CR focuses on the prison industrial complex (PIC), this list of tools is about multiple forms of violence, including sexual assault, DV, state violence, and so on.

Here's the Creative Interventions Toolkit, which "embracing the values of social justice and liberation, is a space to re/envision solutions to domestic or intimate partner, sexual, family and other forms of interpersonal violence."

The Revolution Starts at Home is a fabulous book, and here's an excerpt on these kind of strategies from a grassroots lens.

Here's another CA wheel that focuses on domestic violence and explains what kind of actions should be taken by men, media, educational systems, the justice system, clergy, etc. (though it's heteronormative and presents men as the only batterers).

SO IS THIS STORY WORTH IT OR NAH?

I think the ideas about healing and community-building in this story are awesome, but Mr. Cohen is not the originator of the concepts AND he's using a racist, colonialist, tired ol' lens to share his regurgitated opinion. Thus, I think that while this story has some good nuggets in it, there are WAY better resources and texts out there to illustrate these concepts in ways that are historically accurate, relevant, and non-oppressive. We ALL deserve better than this story.

[Added 2:15 pm EST] While this may seem small to some of you, this is part of a larger trend-this is a pattern, not a story in isolation. If you're an educator, activist, teacher, parent, speaker, power-wielder of some sort, imagine incorporating this into a lesson about media literacy in a classroom, so students can find appropriate sources of information for projects. Imagine incorporating this into a workshop about birthing practices if you work with expecting parents. Imagine bringing this into a discussion about POC solidarity, or a lecture about art and social responsibility, or a class about international feminism.

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The REAL Origin of the African Birth Song

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As many of you know, I spend a lot of time browsing Tumblr. Though it has a ton of problems (like refusing to shut down blogs being used to harass women, trans folks, and people of color), I've had an account since 2008 and it has accompanied me on my journey through college, years in the working world, and now-graduate school while I juggle staying in my field with expanding my horizons.