Wednesday, July 7, 2010

President Reagan's Remarks at a National Black Republican Council Dinner - 9/15/82 TEXT VIDEO

President Reagan's remarks at a National Black Republican Council Dinner on September 15, 1982.

Thank you very much. Mrs. Daniels, I thank you very much for those most generous words. Mr. Toastmaster, reverend clergy, the distinguished honorees and the ladies and gentlemen here at the head table, and you ladies and gentlemen:

It's a pleasure for Nancy and me to be here with you tonight. We know that you're in the forefront of one of the most important political battles of this election season, and we're with you heart and soul.

Now, I know that there are those who have accused the Republican Party of writing off the black vote. Well, I'm here to tell you that we're not writing off anyone. And, Mr. Claiborne, [Clay J. Claiborne, founder and national director of the National Black Silent Majority Committee of the USA] Maria Montessori once said that if she were trying to climb a ladder and a dog was snapping at her heels -- [laughter] -- she could stop and kick the dog or climb the ladder. And you have encouraged Nancy and myself to keep on climbing the ladder.


I'm sensitive to the unique and sometimes difficult position in which you often find yourselves as black Republicans. What you're doing takes great vision and true courage. Under the superb leadership of individuals like your chairperson, Legree Daniels, black Republicans have been performing above and beyond the call of duty. The rest of us in the GOP are grateful for your commitment and deeply impressed by your tenacity.

For too long now, black Americans seem to have been written off by one party and taken for granted by the other. And for the vast majority of black Americans, that's been a strictly no-win situation. Changing it will require a commitment from all of us. So, tonight I want you to know that the Republican Party stands ready and willing to reach out to black Americans.

This conference is part of that outreach effort, as are the regional conferences and our support for black congressional candidates. And this is only the beginning of the outreach efforts. Perhaps if we failed at anything in the past as Republicans, it's been a failure to let black America know us -- to know our hearts and our sincere dedication to improving the well-being, expanding the opportunity, and protecting the rights of every American. And while there's been a certain lack of communication on our part over the years, the other party seems to have capitalized on the rhetoric of compassion. They don't accomplish much, but they sure do talk about it. [Laughter]

It's time to set the record straight. When I first ran for Governor of California, I ran against an incumbent with impeccable liberal credentials. And then I was elected and discovered that in 8 years, he had made only a handful, a tiny handful of minority appointments, all to relatively minor positions in State government. I figured it was time to play catch-up. I appointed more blacks and other minorities to executive and policymaking positions in State government than all the previous 32 Governors of California put together. And my continued commitment at the national level is no 11th hour conversion.

So far, we have placed blacks in over 130 top executive policymaking positions. But more important, these appointments are not on the basis of color. They have been made because of ability and skill, and they cover a wide range of responsibilities.

When it comes to improving the economic well-being and protecting the rights of all our citizens, our party doesn't play second-fiddle to anyone. When I entered office less than 20 months ago, we were in the midst of an economic catastrophe from which we're just now beginning to recover. All of us were suffering, especially the poor, the elderly, and the disadvantaged. Some of our political leaders were even saying that nothing could be done and that we had to accept a lower standard of living and that America's best days were behind us. Well, to those on the bottom end of the economic ladder, that kind of talk is disaster. It robs them of hope and condemns them to a life of dependency and deprivation.

Our economic hardship is not some kind of mysterious malaise suffered by people who have suddenly lost their vitality. The problem is that the liberal economic policies that dominated America for too long just didn't work. It was not that those in power lacked good intentions; in fact, most of the compassionate rhetoric I mentioned a moment ago was not about accomplishments -- it was about the wonderful intentions of the costly liberal programs. Well, too often the programs didn't do what they were supposed to and in many cases, they made things worse.

You know, they reminded me -- those programs -- and I've told this before, if you'll forgive me, and life not only begins at 40 but so does lumbago and telling the same story -- [laughter] -- --

But they reminded me of that old story about the fellow riding the motorcycle on a chilled, cold, winter day. The wind coming through the buttonholes in the front of the jacket was chilling him. So finally he stopped, turned the jacket around, and put it on backward. Well, that protected him from the wind, but it kind of hindered his arm motion. And he hit a patch of ice and skidded into a tree. When the police got there, and they elbowed their way through the crowd, and they said, ``What happened?'' They said, ``We don't know.'' They said, ``By the time we got his head turned around straight, he was dead.'' [Laughter]

The record is there for all to see. This country entered the 1960's having made tremendous strides in reducing poverty. From 1949 until just before the Great Society burst upon the scene in 1964, the percentage of American families living in poverty fell dramatically from nearly 33 percent to only 18 percent. True, the number of blacks living in poverty was still disproportionately high. But tremendous progress had been made.

With the coming of the Great Society, government began eating away at the underpinnings of the private enterprise system. The big taxers and big spenders in the Congress had started a binge that would slowly change the nature of our society and, even worse, it threatened the character of our people.

By the end of the decade, the situation seemed out of control. At a time when defense spending was decreasing in real dollars, the Federal budget tripled. And, to pay for all of this spending, the tax load increased until it was breaking the backs of working people, destroying incentive, and siphoning off resources needed in the private sector to provide new jobs and opportunity.

Inflation had jumped to double-digit levels. Unemployment was climbing. And interest rates shot through the roof, reaching 21\1/2\ percent shortly before we took office. Perhaps the saddest part of the whole story is that much of this Federal spending was done in the name of helping those it hurt the most, the disadvantaged. For the result of all that big spending and taxing is that, today, those at the lower end of the economic ladder are the hardest hit of all.

The decrease in poverty I referred to earlier started in the 1950's. By the time the full weight of Great Society programs was felt, economic progress for America's poor had come to a tragic halt. By 1980 the trend had reversed itself, and even more people, including more blacks, were living in poverty than back in 1969.

It's ironic that if the economic expansion and low inflation of the years prior to the Great Society had been maintained, black families and all Americans would be appreciably better off today. In fact, if we had just maintained the progress made from 1950 through 1965, black family income in 1980 would have been nearly $3,000 higher than it was after 15 years of Great Society programs.

In 1980 the American people sent a message to Washington, D.C. They no longer believed that throwing tax money at a problem was acceptable, no matter how good the intentions of those doing the taxing and spending.

In 1980 the people turned to the Republican Party because we offered hope. Setting things straight would not be an easy job. Bringing back real growth to our economy and real increases in our standard of living would not be easy. But we Republicans knew it could be done, and we still know that. America's best days are not behind her, and we're moving forward to tackle the serious problems just as we said we would.

Having said all that, you can see that 20 months ago, when I started my current job, there were some tough decisions that had to be made. It wasn't easy. But together, we've laid the groundwork for better economic times ahead.

The signs that our program is working are just now on the horizon. Gross national product is up. The leading economic indicators are up. Inflation is down dramatically, and so are interest rates. Housing permits are up. The stock market is up and so, for the first time in years, is real income.

Yes, there have been other indicators saying the economy isn't well yet. But we've managed, despite all the gloom and doom spouted by our opponents, to instill a new spirit of confidence in the country.

It's been tough on all of us. But we Republicans made a commitment not to try quick fixes but to get to the heart of our economic problems and turn things around.

It's taken time. You can't reverse 20 years of irresponsibility in 20 months, but we've made a great start. I reworded that from a speech I made out in the Middle West the other day when I said, ``You can't clean up in 20 months what's been piling up for 20 years.'' And I decided -- [laughter] -- to say it the other way.

Our critics to the contrary, the poor and disadvantaged are better off today than if we had allowed runaway government spending, interest rates and inflation to continue ravaging the American economy. A family of four, for example, on a fixed income of $15,000 would today be $833 poorer, that much weaker in purchasing power, if we hadn't brought inflation alone down as far as we have from the double-digit rates that we inherited. A similar family living at the poverty level would be $472 poorer if inflation had continued at the 12.4 percent rate. It's been 5.4 percent since January.

When one considers that the poor spend most of their family budgets on necessities -- food, shelter, and clothing -- leaving few ways to cut back to beat inflation, the importance of solving inflation is better understood.

We must remain firm and not be lured again into inflation-spending patterns. But let's be frank: The lives of those in the lower income levels are not what we'd like them to be. Some critics, especially in a political season, seem to forget that this administration didn't create the problem. The poverty and unemployment of today is the outgrowth of policies and problems of the late 1960's and the 1970's. Our program has just gone on line. And, if the current indicators are any suggestion, it's beginning to work.

It should also be noted that we've taken steps, along with our basic program which is aimed at restoring health to the economy in general, to make certain that economic stimulus is channeled into the areas of greatest economic need.

Since the end of the Second World War, too many of our major cities have become stagnant and depressed, enclaves of despair even when times were good. Federal spending programs didn't make a dent in the problem. For example, from 1965 to 1974, the Federal urban renewal program spent over $7 billion and ended an abysmal failure, destroying more housing units than it replaced. The Federal regulations and grants of the Model Cities program in the late 1960's again spent billions. Yet, it was unable to halt urban decay.

On March 23d of this year, I proposed a new, experimental approach to the problem -- enterprise zones -- which would harness the energy of the private sector and direct it toward providing economic opportunity for some of our most needy citizens. By removing regulations and offering tax incentives, we seek to accomplish what hundreds of billions of tax dollars and millions of hours of bureaucratic planning failed to do.

The plan seems to have popular support. Fourteen States have already passed their own enterprise zone legislation, not even waiting for action from the Federal level. Hundreds of cities across the country are already mapping out enterprise zone sites. And in a recent survey of Fortune 500 chief executive officers, 67 percent said they would seriously consider investing in the zones after seeing the final version of the legislation. Most of those who responded said they wouldn't have invested in depressed areas before considering the incentives offered by our enterprise zone initiative.

Now, at a time of high unemployment and even higher black unemployment, you'd think the Congress would be anxious to move on an innovative idea to tackle such a serious national problem. Well, think again. The liberal leadership of the House of Representatives has refused to even put the bill before hearings of the main committees responsible for it. The blatant politics surrounding enterprise zone legislation, politics at the expense of some of our most needy citizens, is a disgrace.

The liberals have had a decade to tackle the problem of urban decay and failed. It's time for them to give a chance to some new ideas, even if it runs against their ideological obsession for ever bigger and more expensive government. Or is it the coming election? Do they want the economy to remain stagnant so they can use that as a campaign issue?

Later this month, I'll announce a program which will promote minority business development. Of course, the most important item for minority businessmen, as with all small businessmen, is the tax and regulatory reforms we've instituted over the last 20 months. Yet beyond these, we've committed the Federal Government to promote an economic environment in which minority entrepreneurs can fully marshal their talents and skills to make a go of it in the marketplace.

There are many things that we can do to help minority business take root. Part of this administration's overall initiative for minority enterprise will include a plan for the Federal Government to procure substantial amounts of the goods and services during fiscal years '83, '84, and '85 from minority businessmen -- [applause]. Thank you very much.

And beyond that, we're going to bring the leaders of American industry together with minority businessmen, something that should prove valuable to both parties. This is the type of approach which will strengthen the economic underpinnings of the minority community and strengthen the overall economy as well.

Putting the American economy back on the right track has clearly been the top priority of this administration. But I think it's important for all of us to understand that at the same time we haven't forgotten the Federal commitment to civil rights. Thomas Jefferson once said that no man ever leaves the Presidency with as good a reputation as he brought into the job. [Laughter] Well, that's because even in Jefferson's day there was a constant barrage of wild, politically motivated charges aimed at the man in the White House. Well, usually I try to ignore personal attacks, but one charge I will have to admit strikes at my heart every time I hear it. That's the suggestion that we Republicans are taking a less active approach to protecting the civil rights of all Americans. No matter how you slice it, that's just plain baloney.

There's no room in the Republican Party for bigots, and the record shows that we've been firm in protecting civil liberties ever since entering office nearly 20 months ago. And what we've been doing is nothing new. In 1888 Frederick Douglass, an adviser to President Lincoln and one of the first great black Republicans, expressed our party's commitment at the Republican Convention. He said, ``A government that can give liberty in its Constitution ought to have power to protect liberty in its administration.''

In this administration, I've appointed individuals for whom I have the deepest trust and admiration to head the Department of Justice, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Civil Rights Commission. They are committed, as I am, and as every other member of this administration, to protecting the civil rights of all Americans to the fullest extent of the law. Again I say, look at the record. The level of activity of this administration in investigating and prosecuting those who would attempt to deny blacks their civil liberties by violence and intimidation has exceeded the level of every past administration.

The Department of Justice has, since we came to Washington, filed 62 new cases charging criminal violations of civil rights laws and has conducted trials in 52 cases. And these numbers are greater than those in any previous administration. In addition, the Justice Department has filed nine new antidiscrimination cases against public employers and has reviewed more than 9,000 electoral changes to determine compliance with the Voting Rights Act. And that, too, is a higher level of activity than in any prior administration.

Consistent with this spirit, on June 29th of this year I signed into law the longest extension of the Voting Rights Act since its enactment. As I've said on many occasions, voting is the crown jewel of our liberties, and it's something that we as Republicans and Americans will never permit to be infringed upon.

The record of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, EEOC, is equally impressive. Under the first full year of this administration, the Commission dramatically increased its activity over the previous year. The number of charges of discrimination processed by the Commission increased by 25 percent. The number of persons assisted through negotiated remedies increased by 15 percent. And total backpay and other compensation provided in negotiated remedies increased by 60 percent.

Similarly, the number of suits filed by the Commission increased by 13 percent. And the number of suits settled by voluntary agreement increased by 25 percent. And in this era of necessary budget cuts, we've maintained the funding levels necessary for this vital protection. Over $531 million is proposed for fiscal year 1983. The difference between 1980 actual expenditures and proposed 1983 expenditures shows a 24-percent total dollar increase for the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice and 15 percent increase for the EEOC.

Now, no less important is this administration's first commitment to strengthening the historical black colleges, institutions which have played an important role in the progress of black America. More than 85 percent of black lawyers and doctors, for example, finished their undergraduate training at these schools. We have done our best to ensure that even in these times of necessary cuts, historical black colleges not only will survive but progress and will serve future generations of black Americans, as they have so faithfully for the last 100 years.

Now these are more than numbers. They represent this administration's solid, unshakable commitment to civil rights and human betterment. In the coming months, getting the message out about the progress being made on the economic front and our continued commitment to civil rights will be a major challenge for all of us in the Republican Party. We've got a story to tell and a record worth standing on. We Republicans are the hope for all those who seek expanded opportunity. You and I know that most of those trapped in welfare dependency would like nothing better than a chance for dignity and independence.

Alexander Hamilton, one of our greatest Founding Fathers, once said that ``a power over a man's subsistence amounts to a power over his will.'' What we've seen in too many cases in the inner city is the broken will of people who desire to be as proud and independent as any other American. And perhaps unintentionally, many government programs have been designed not to create social mobility and help the needy along their way, but instead to foster a state of dependency. Whatever their intentions, no matter their compassion, our opponents created a new kind of bondage for millions of American citizens.

Now, together, we can break this degrading cycle and we can do it with fairness, compassion, and love in our hearts. No other experience in American history runs quite parallel to the black experience. It has been one of great hardships, but also one of great heroism; of great adversity, but also great achievement. What our administration and our party seek is the day when the tragic side of the black legacy in America can be laid to rest once and for all, and the long, perilous voyage toward freedom, dignity, and opportunity can be completed -- a day when every child born in America will live free not only of political injustice but of fear, ignorance, prejudice, and dependency.

Earlier in the program you sang, ``Lift Every Voice and Sing.'' The third verse to that beautiful hymn ends with the words, ``May we forever stand true to our God and our native land.'' Tonight, let us make that pledge. Let us be true to our God and native land by standing by the ideals of liberty and opportunity that are so important to our heritage as free men and women. Let us prove again that America can truly be a promised land, a land where people of every race, creed, and background can live together in freedom, harmony, and prosperity. And let us proclaim for all to hear that America will have brotherhood from sea to shining sea.

Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at approximately 8:20 p.m. in the Regency Ballroom at the Shoreham Hotel.

TEXT CREDIT: Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, National Archives and Records Administration

For more information on the ongoing works of President Reagan's Foundation, visit at www.reaganfoundation.org.

VIDEO CREDIT: ReaganFoundation

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity's centennial to include "historic pilgrimage" to IU Bloomington

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Thousands of delegates of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc., convening for its national convention in Indianapolis next July, will make a "historic pilgrimage" to Indiana University Bloomington, where the organization was founded nearly 100 years ago.

The historically black fraternity also is planning a National Founders Day event in Bloomington in January to mark the centennial of the milestone, which took place on Jan. 5, 1911.

Kappa Alpha Psi was the second African American fraternity incorporated as a national organization. Elder Watson Diggs and nine other African American students at IU embraced a mutual vision to form a fraternity that today has 730 chapters and 120,000 members worldwide.

Early Kappa Alpha Psi members

Photo from "The Story of Kappa Alpha Psi" Early Kappa Alpha Psi members and friends gather for a social at IU Bloomington in this undated photo.
Officials of the national fraternity announced their plans at a news conference in Indianapolis on Monday (July 5). The 80th Grand Chapter Meeting and Centennial Celebration will take place July 5-10, 2011.

"We are preparing for the most significant event in the annals of the fraternity," said Dwayne M. Murray, the 31st grand polemarch (president and chief executive officer) of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc.
"We are convening with a record number of brothers at the places where our fraternal journey began.

"We are honoring Indiana University for its contributions in training our founding brothers, as well as brothers who have been members of the Alpha Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity on the campus of IU at Bloomington," Murray added.

Dr. Edwin C. Marshall, IU vice president for diversity, equity and multicultural affairs and a former vice polemarch of the Alpha Chapter at IU, said the campus is looking forward to welcoming back many IU Kappas as well as many more from around the world.

"It is interesting that you would have a fraternity that's predominantly African American founded on this campus in 1911," Marshall said. "When you look at some of the challenges that students faced then, and to a certain degree still do today, there was a need for a gathering of men, so to speak. Founding that on this campus and having it reach out beyond the state and beyond the nation was a pretty significant event.

"This is an opportunity for Indiana University to essentially showcase itself to the fraternity and its friends," Marshall added. "We do welcome, nurture and cultivate diversity and the founding of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity on the Bloomington campus is one notable example."

More than 20,000 are expected to gather for the Centennial Celebration. While most events will take place in Indianapolis, members, families and friends will be encouraged to visit IU Bloomington and places where the founders lived, studied and socialized. The route has been designated "The Kappa Trail." Activities are still being planned.

Diggs joined nine other IU students from Indiana and Kentucky to develop the fraternity's constitution and bylaws, which have never contained any clause that either excluded or suggested the exclusion of a man from membership because of color, creed or national origin. Originally chartered and incorporated with the state of Indiana as Kappa Alpha Nu on May 15, 1911, the name was changed to Kappa Alpha Psi in 1914 and became effective in April of the following year.

Alumni of the IU Kappa Alpha Psi chapter include Tavis Smiley, the prominent television and radio commentator; Dennis Hayes, former president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; William Mays, founder and president of Mays Chemical Co. and owner of the Indianapolis Recorder; George Taliaferro, IU football All-American and College Football Hall of Fame inductee; and acclaimed musician Booker T. Jones.

Two years ago, a historical marker, the Elder Watson Diggs Memorial, was placed at the intersection of 17th Street and Jordan Avenue, at the site of the first house built for the fraternity. IU's Alpha chapter remains very active on campus, but does not have a house.

More information about IU's Alpha Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi is available online at www.alphachapter1911.com/. For more information on the fraternity and centennial celebrations, visit their website at www.KappaAlphaPsi1911.com.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro

"What To The Slave Is The 4th Of July?" FREDERICK DOUGLASS SPEECH, 1852 Independence Day Speech at Rochester, July 5, 1852

Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens:

He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of my ability, than I do this day. A feeling has crept over me quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers of speech. The task before me is one which requires much previous thought and study for its proper performance. I know that apologies of this sort are generally considered flat and unmeaning. I trust, however, that mine will not be so considered. Should I seem at ease, my appearance would much misrepresent me. The little experience I have had in addressing public meetings, in country school houses, avails me nothing on the present occasion.

Frederick DouglassThe papers and placards say that I am to deliver a Fourth of July Oration. This certainly sounds large, and out of the common way, for me. It is true that I have often had the privilege to speak in this beautiful Hall, and to address many who now honor me with their presence. But neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall seems to free me from embarrassment.

The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, the distance between this platform and the slave plantation, from which I escaped, is considerable-and the difficulties to he overcome in getting from the latter to the former are by no means slight.

That I am here to-day is, to me, a matter of astonishment as well as of gratitude. You will not, therefore, be surprised, if in what I have to say I evince no elaborate preparation, nor grace my speech with any high sounding exordium. With little experience and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and trusting to your patient and generous indulgence I will proceed to lay them before you.

This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the Fourth of July. It is the birth day of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. This, to you, as what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. It carries your minds back to the day, and to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders, associated with that act, and that day. This celebration also marks the beginning of another year of your national life; and reminds you that the Republic of America is now 76 years old. l am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. I repeat, I am glad this is so. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and that she is still in the impressible stage of her existence. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? Were the nation older, the patriot's heart might be sadder, and the reformer's brow heavier. Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorrow. There is consolation in the thought that America is young.-Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. They may sometimes rise in quiet and stately majesty, and inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties. They may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. They, however, gradually flow back to the same old channel, and flow on as serenely as ever. But, while the river may not be turned aside, it may dry up, and leave nothing behind but the withered branch, and the unsightly rock, to howl in the abyss-sweeping wind, the sad tale of departed glory. As with rivers so with nations.

Fellow-citizens, I shall not presume to dwell at length on the associations that cluster about this day. The simple story of it is, that, 76 years ago, the people of this country were British subjects. The style and title of your "sovereign people" (in which you now glory) was not then born. You were under the British Crown. Your fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. This home government, you know, although a considerable distance from your home, did, in the exercise of its parental prerogatives, impose upon its colonial children, such restraints, burdens and limitations, as, in its mature judgment, it deemed wise, right and proper.

But your fathers, who had not adopted the fashionable idea of this day, of the infallibility of government, and the absolute character of its acts, presumed to differ from the home government in respect to the wisdom and the justice of some of those burdens and restraints. They went so far in their excitement as to pronounce the measures of government unjust, unreasonable, and oppressive, and altogether such as ought not to be quietly submitted to. I scarcely need say, fellow-citizens, that my opinion of those measures fully accords with that of your fathers. Such a declaration of agreement on my part would not be worth much to anybody. It would certainly prove nothing as to what part I might have taken had I lived during the great controversy of 1776. To say now that America was right, and England wrong, is exceedingly easy. Everybody can say it; the dastard, not less than the noble brave, can flippantly discant on the tyranny of England towards the American Colonies. It is fashionable to do so; but there was a time when, to pronounce against England, and in favor of the cause of the colonies, tried men's souls. They who did so were accounted in their day plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men. To side with the right against the wrong, with the weak against the strong, and with the oppressed against the oppressor! here lies the merit, and the one which, of all others, seems unfashionable in our day. The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your fathers. But, to proceed.

Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated, by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. Their conduct was wholly unexceptionable. This, however, did not answer the purpose. They saw themselves treated with sovereign indifference, coldness and scorn. Yet they persevered. They were not the men to look back.

As the sheet anchor takes a firmer hold, when the ship is tossed by the storm, so did the cause of your fathers grow stronger as it breasted the chilling blasts of kingly displeasure. The greatest and best of British statesmen admitted its justice, and the loftiest eloquence of the British Senate came to its support. But, with that blindness which seems to be the unvarying characteristic of tyrants, since Pharaoh and his hosts were drowned in the Red Sea, the British Government persisted in the exactions complained of.

The madness of this course, we believe, is admitted now, even by England; but we fear the lesson is wholly lost on our present rulers.

Oppression makes a wise man mad. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. Just here, the idea of a total separation of the colonies from the crown was born! It was a startling idea, much more so than we, at this distance of time, regard it. The timid and the prudent (as has been intimated) of that day were, of course, shocked and alarmed by it.

Such people lived then, had lived before, and will, probably, ever have a place on this planet; and their course, in respect to any great change (no matter how great the good to be attained, or the wrong to be redressed by it), may be calculated with as much precision as can be the course of the stars. They hate all changes, but silver, gold and copper change! Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor.

These people were called Tories in the days of your fathers; and the appellation, probably, conveyed the same idea that is meant by a more modern, though a somewhat less euphonious term, which we often find in our papers, applied to some of our old politicians.

Their opposition to the then dangerous thought was earnest and powerful; but, amid all their terror and affrighted vociferations against it, the alarming and revolutionary idea moved on, and the country with it.

On the 2nd of July, 1776, the old Continental Congress, to the dismay of the lovers of ease, and the worshipers of property, clothed that dreadful idea with all the authority of national sanction. They did so in the form of a resolution; and as we seldom hit upon resolutions, drawn up in our day, whose transparency is at all equal to this, it may refresh your minds and help my story if I read it.

"Resolved, That these united colonies are, and of right, ought to be free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, dissolved."

Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. They succeeded; and to-day you reap the fruits of their success. The freedom gained is yours; and you, there fore, may properly celebrate this anniversary. The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nation's history-the very ringbolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny.

Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ringbolt to the chain of your nation's destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.

From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening clouds may be seen. Heavy billows, like mountains in the distance, disclose to the leeward huge forms of flinty rocks! That bolt drawn, that chain broken, and all is lost. Cling to this day-cling to it, and to its principles, with the grasp of a storm-tossed mariner to a spar at midnight.

The coming into being of a nation, in any circumstances, is an interesting event. But, besides general considerations, there were peculiar circumstances which make the advent of this republic an event of special attractiveness. The whole scene, as I look back to it, was simple, dignified and sublime. The population of the country, at the time, stood at the insignificant number of three millions. The country was poor in the munitions of war. The population was weak and scattered, and the country a wilderness unsubdued. There were then no means of concert and combination, such as exist now. Neither steam nor lightning had then been reduced to order and discipline. From the Potomac to the Delaware was a journey of many days. Under these, and innumerable other disadvantages, your fathers declared for liberty and independence and triumphed.

Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men, too-great enough to give frame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory.

They loved their country better than their own private interests; and, though this is not the highest form of human excellence, all will concede that it is a rare virtue, and that when it is exhibited it ought to command respect. He who will, intelligently, lay down his life for his country is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise. Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, on the cause of their country. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests.

They were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. With them, nothing was "settIed" that was not right. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were "final"; not slavery and oppression. You may well cherish the memory of such men. They were great in their day and generation. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times.

How circumspect, exact and proportionate were all their movements! How unlike the politicians of an hour! Their statesmanship looked beyond the passing moment, and stretched away in strength into the distant future. They seized upon eternal principles, and set a glorious example in their defence. Mark them! Fully appreciating the hardships to be encountered, firmly believing in the right of their cause, honorably inviting the scrutiny of an on-looking world, reverently appealing to heaven to attest their sincerity, soundly comprehending the solemn responsibility they were about to assume, wisely measuring the terrible odds against them, your fathers, the fathers of this republic, did, most deliberately, under the inspiration of a glorious patriotism, and with a sublime faith in the great principles of justice and freedom, lay deep, the corner-stone of the national super-structure, which has risen and still rises in grandeur around you.

Of this fundamental work, this day is the anniversary. Our eyes are met with demonstrations of joyous enthusiasm. Banners and pennants wave exultingly on the breeze. The din of business, too, is hushed. Even mammon seems to have quitted his grasp on this day. The ear-piercing fife and the stirring drum unite their accents with the ascending peal of a thousand church bells. Prayers are made, hymns are sung, and sermons are preached in honor of this day; while the quick martial tramp of a great and multitudinous nation, echoed back by all the hills, valleys and mountains of a vast continent, bespeak the occasion one of thrilling and universal interest-nation's jubilee.

Friends and citizens, I need not enter further into the causes which led to this anniversary. Many of you understand them better than I do. You could instruct me in regard to them. That is a branch of knowledge in which you feel, perhaps, a much deeper interest than your speaker. The causes which led to the separation of the colonies from the British crown have never lacked for a tongue. They have all been taught in your common schools, narrated at your firesides, un folded from your pulpits, and thundered from your legislative halls, and are as familiar to you as household words. They form the staple of your national po etry and eloquence.

I remember, also, that, as a people, Americans are remarkably familiar with all facts which make in their own favor. This is esteemed by some as a national trait-perhaps a national weakness. It is a fact, that whatever makes for the wealth or for the reputation of Americans and can be had cheap! will be found by Americans. I shall not be charged with slandering Americans if I say I think the American side of any question may be safely left in American hands.

I leave, therefore, the great deeds of your fathers to other gentlemen whose claim to have been regularly descended will be less likely to be disputed than mine!

My business, if I have any here to-day, is with the present. The accepted time with God and His cause is the ever-living now.

Trust no future, however pleasant,
Let the dead past bury its dead;
Act, act in the living present,
Heart within, and God overhead.

We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future. To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds which can be gained from the past, we are welcome. But now is the time, the important time. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. You live and must die, and you must do your work. You have no right to enjoy a child's share in the labor of your fathers, unless your children are to be blest by your labors. You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your indolence. Sydney Smith tells us that men seldom eulogize the wisdom and virtues of their fathers, but to excuse some folly or wickedness of their own. This truth is not a doubtful one. There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. It was fashionable, hundreds of years ago, for the children of Jacob to boast, we have "Abraham to our father," when they had long lost Abraham's faith and spirit. That people contented themselves under the shadow of Abraham's great name, while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great. Need I remind you that a similar thing is being done all over this country to-day? Need I tell you that the Jews are not the only people who built the tombs of the prophets, and garnished the sepulchers of the righteous? Washington could not die till he had broken the chains of his slaves. Yet his monument is built up by the price of human blood, and the traders in the bodies and souls of men shout-"We have Washington to our father."-Alas! that it should be so; yet it is.

The evil, that men do, lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones.

Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?

Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold, that a nation's sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation's jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the "lame man leap as an hart."

But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common.-The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fa thers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrevocable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!

"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea! we wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there, they that carried us away captive, required of us a song; and they who wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth."

Fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!" To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then, fellow-citizens, is American slavery. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view. Standing there identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery-the great sin and shame of America! "I will not equivocate; I will not excuse"; I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just.

But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, "It is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more, and denounce less; would you persuade more, and rebuke less; your cause would be much more likely to succeed." But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They ac knowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia which, if committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. What is this but the acknowledgment that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and responsible being? The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read or to write. When you can point to any such laws in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may con sent to argue the manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then will I argue with you that the slave is a man!

For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are ploughing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver and gold; that, while we are reading, writing and ciphering, acting as clerks, merchants and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hill-side, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children, and, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian's God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men!

Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for Republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to be understood? How should I look to-day, in the presence of Americans, dividing, and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom? speaking of it relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding.-There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.

What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will not. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.

What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! Who can reason on such a proposition? They that can, may; I cannot. The time for such argument is passed.

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could reach the nation's ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

Take the American slave-trade, which we are told by the papers, is especially prosperous just now. Ex-Senator Benton tells us that the price of men was never higher than now. He mentions the fact to show that slavery is in no danger. This trade is one of the peculiarities of American institutions. It is carried on in all the large towns and cities in one-half of this confederacy; and millions are pocketed every year by dealers in this horrid traffic. In several states this trade is a chief source of wealth. It is called (in contradistinction to the foreign slave-trade) "the internal slave-trade." It is, probably, called so, too, in order to divert from it the horror with which the foreign slave-trade is contemplated. That trade has long since been denounced by this government as piracy. It has been denounced with burning words from the high places of the nation as an execrable traffic. To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. Everywhere, in this country, it is safe to speak of this foreign slave-trade as a most inhuman traffic, opposed alike to the Jaws of God and of man. The duty to extirpate and destroy it, is admitted even by our doctors of divinity. In order to put an end to it, some of these last have consented that their colored brethren (nominally free) should leave this country, and establish them selves on the western coast of Africa! It is, however, a notable fact that, while so much execration is poured out by Americans upon all those engaged in the foreign slave-trade, the men engaged in the slave-trade between the states pass with out condemnation, and their business is deemed honorable.

Behold the practical operation of this internal slave-trade, the American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and American religion. Here you will see men and women reared like swine for the market. You know what is a swine-drover? I will show you a man-drover. They inhabit all our Southern States. They perambulate the country, and crowd the highways of the nation, with droves of human stock. You will see one of these human flesh jobbers, armed with pistol, whip, and bowie-knife, driving a company of a hundred men, women, and children, from the Potomac to the slave market at New Orleans. These wretched people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers. They are food for the cotton-field and the deadly sugar-mill. Mark the sad procession, as it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives them. Hear his savage yells and his blood-curdling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives! There, see the old man with locks thinned and gray. Cast one glance, if you please, upon that young mother, whose shoulders are bare to the scorching sun, her briny tears falling on the brow of the babe in her arms. See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes! weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn! The drove moves tardily. Heat and sorrow have nearly consumed their strength; suddenly you hear a quick snap, like the discharge of a rifle; the fetters clank, and the chain rattles simultaneously; your ears are saluted with a scream, that seems to have torn its way to the centre of your soul The crack you heard was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard was from the woman you saw with the babe. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains! that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. Follow this drove to New Orleans. Attend the auction; see men examined like horses; see the forms of women rudely and brutally exposed to the shock ing gaze of American slave-buyers. See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. Tell me, citizens, where, under the sun, you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. Yet this is but a glance at the American slave-trade, as it exists, at this moment, in the ruling part of the United States.

I was born amid such sights and scenes. To me the American slave-trade is a terrible reality. When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. I lived on Philpot Street, Fell's Point, Baltimore, and have watched from the wharves the slave ships in the Basin, anchored from the shore, with their cargoes of human flesh, waiting for favorable winds to waft them down the Chesapeake. There was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt Street, by Austin Woldfolk. His agents were sent into every town and county in Maryland, announcing their arrival, through the papers, and on flaming "hand-bills," headed cash for Negroes. These men were generally well dressed men, and very captivating in their manners; ever ready to drink, to treat, and to gamble. The fate of many a slave has depended upon the turn of a single card; and many a child has been snatched from the arms of its mother by bargains arranged in a state of brutal drunkenness.

The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them, chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. When a sufficient number has been collected here, a ship is chartered for the purpose of conveying the forlorn crew to Mobile, or to New Orleans. From the slave prison to the ship, they are usually driven in the darkness of night; for since the antislavery agitation, a certain caution is observed.

In the deep, still darkness of midnight, I have been often aroused by the dead, heavy footsteps, and the piteous cries of the chained gangs that passed our door. The anguish of my boyish heart was intense; and I was often consoled, when speaking to my mistress in the morning, to hear her say that the custom was very wicked; that she hated to hear the rattle of the chains and the heart-rending cries. I was glad to find one who sympathized with me in my horror.

Fellow-citizens, this murderous traffic is, to-day, in active operation in this boasted republic. In the solitude of my spirit I see clouds of dust raised on the highways of the South; I see the bleeding footsteps; I hear the doleful wail of fettered humanity on the way to the slave-markets, where the victims are to be sold like horses, sheep, and swine, knocked off to the highest bidder. There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly broken, to gratify the lust, caprice and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men. My soul sickens at the sight.

Is this the land your Fathers loved,
The freedom which they toiled to win?
Is this the earth whereon they moved?
Are these the graves they slumber in?

But a still more inhuman, disgraceful, and scandalous state of things remains to be presented. By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. By that act, Mason and Dixon's line has been obliterated; New York has become as Virginia; and the power to hold, hunt, and sell men, women and children, as slaves, remains no longer a mere state institution, but is now an institution of the whole United States. The power is co-extensive with the star-spangled banner, and American Christianity. Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-hunter. Where these are, man is not sacred. He is a bird for the sportsman's gun. By that most foul and fiendish of all human decrees, the liberty and person of every man are put in peril. Your broad republican domain is hunting ground for men. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. Your law-makers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this hellish sport. Your President, your Secretary of State, your lords, nobles, and ecclesiastics enforce, as a duty you owe to your free and glorious country, and to your God, that you do this accursed thing. Not fewer than forty Americans have, within the past two years, been hunted down and, without a moment's warning, hurried away in chains, and consigned to slavery and excruciating torture. Some of these have had wives and children, dependent on them for bread; but of this, no account was made. The right of the hunter to his prey stands superior to the right of marriage, and to all rights in this republic, the rights of God included! For black men there is neither law nor justice, humanity nor religion. The Fugitive Slave Law makes mercy to them a crime; and bribes the judge who tries them. An American judge gets ten dollars for every victim he consigns to slavery, and five, when he fails to do so. The oath of any two villains is sufficient, under this hell-black enactment, to send the most pious and exemplary black man into the remorseless jaws of slavery! His own testimony is nothing. He can bring no witnesses for himself. The minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear but one side; and that side is the side of the oppressor. Let this damning fact be perpetually told. Let it be thundered around the world that in tyrant-killing, king-hating, people-loving, democratic, Christian America the seats of justice are filled with judges who hold their offices under an open and palpable bribe, and are bound, in deciding the case of a man's liberty, to hear only his accusers!

In glaring violation of justice, in shameless disregard of the forms of administering law, in cunning arrangement to entrap the defenceless, and in diabolical intent this Fugitive Slave Law stands alone in the annals of tyrannical legislation. I doubt if there be another nation on the globe having the brass and the baseness to put such a law on the statute-book. If any man in this assembly thinks differently from me in this matter, and feels able to disprove my statements, I will gladly confront him at any suitable time and place he may select.

I take this law to be one of the grossest infringements of Christian Liberty, and, if the churches and ministers of our country were nor stupidly blind, or most wickedly indifferent, they, too, would so regard it.

At the very moment that they are thanking God for the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, and for the right to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences, they are utterly silent in respect to a law which robs religion of its chief significance and makes it utterly worthless to a world lying in wickedness. Did this law concern the "mint, anise, and cummin"-abridge the right to sing psalms, to partake of the sacrament, or to engage in any of the ceremonies of religion, it would be smitten by the thunder of a thousand pulpits. A general shout would go up from the church demanding repeal, repeal, instant repeal!-And it would go hard with that politician who presumed to so licit the votes of the people without inscribing this motto on his banner. Further, if this demand were not complied with, another Scotland would be added to the history of religious liberty, and the stern old covenanters would be thrown into the shade. A John Knox would be seen at every church door and heard from every pulpit, and Fillmore would have no more quarter than was shown by Knox to the beautiful, but treacherous, Queen Mary of Scotland. The fact that the church of our country (with fractional exceptions) does not esteem "the Fugitive Slave Law" as a declaration of war against religious liberty, im plies that that church regards religion simply as a form of worship, an empty ceremony, and not a vital principle, requiring active benevolence, justice, love, and good will towards man. It esteems sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing above right doing; solemn meetings above practical righteousness. A worship that can be conducted by persons who refuse to give shelter to the houseless, to give bread to the hungry, clothing to the naked, and who enjoin obedience to a law forbidding these acts of mercy is a curse, not a blessing to mankind. The Bible addresses all such persons as "scribes, pharisees, hypocrites, who pay tithe ofÝ mint, anise, and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith."

But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. Many of its most eloquent Divines, who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. They have taught that man may, properly, be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained of God; that to send back an escaped bondman to his master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world for Christianity.

For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! welcome atheism! welcome anything! in preference to the gospel, as preached by those Divines! They convert the very name of religion into an engine of tyranny and barbarous cruelty, and serve to confirm more infidels, in this age, than all the infidel writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke put together have done! These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action nor bowels of compassion. They strip the love of God of its beauty and leave the throne of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, and thugs. It is not that "pure and undefiled religion" which is from above, and which is "first pure, then peaceable, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and with out hypocrisy." But a religion which favors the rich against the poor; which exalts the proud above the humble; which divides mankind into two classes, tyrants and slaves; which says to the man in chains, stay there; and to the oppressor, oppress on; it is a religion which may be professed and enjoyed by all the robbers and enslavers of mankind; it makes God a respecter of persons, denies his fatherhood of the race, and tramples in the dust the great truth of the brotherhood of man. All this we affirm to be true of the popular church, and the popular worship of our land and nation-a religion, a church, and a worship which, on the authority of inspired wisdom, we pronounce to be an abomination in the sight of God. In the language of Isaiah, the American church might be well addressed, "Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me: the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons, and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. They are a trouble to me; I am weary to bear them; and when ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you. Yea' when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood; cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgment; relieve the oppressed; judge for the fatherless; plead for the widow."

The American church is guilty, when viewed in connection with what it is doing to uphold slavery; but it is superlatively guilty when viewed in its connection with its ability to abolish slavery.

The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. Albert Barnes but uttered what the common sense of every man at all observant of the actual state of the case will receive as truth, when he declared that "There is no power out of the church that could sustain slavery an hour, if it were not sustained in it."

Let the religious press, the pulpit, the Sunday School, the conference meeting, the great ecclesiastical, missionary, Bible and tract associations of the land array their immense powers against slavery, and slave-holding; and the whole system of crime and blood would be scattered to the winds, and that they do not do this involves them in the most awful responsibility of which the mind can conceive.

In prosecuting the anti-slavery enterprise, we have been asked to spare the church, to spare the ministry; but how, we ask, could such a thing be done? We are met on the threshold of our efforts for the redemption of the slave, by the church and ministry of the country, in battle arrayed against us; and we are compelled to fight or flee. From what quarter, I beg to know, has proceeded a fire so deadly upon our ranks, during the last two years, as from the Northern pulpit? As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have appeared-men honored for their so-called piety, and their real learning. The Lords of Buffalo, the Springs of New York, the Lathrops of Auburn, the Coxes and Spencers of Brooklyn, the Gannets and Sharps of Boston, the Deweys of Washington, and other great religious lights of the land have, in utter denial of the authority of Him by whom they professed to be called to the ministry, deliberately taught us, against the example of the Hebrews, and against the remonstrance of the Apostles, that we ought to obey man's law before the law of God.2

My spirit wearies of such blasphemy; and how such men can be supported, as the "standing types and representatives of Jesus Christ," is a mystery which I leave others to penetrate. In speaking of the American church, however, let it be distinctly understood that I mean the great mass of the religious organizations of our land. There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher, of Brooklyn; Samuel J. May, of Syracuse; and my esteemed friend (Rev. R. R. Raymond) on the platform, are shining examples; and let me say further, that, upon these men lies the duty to inspire our ranks with high religious faith and zeal, and to cheer us on in the great mission of the slave's redemption from his chains.

One is struck with the difference between the attitude of the American church towards the anti-slavery movement, and that occupied by the churches in Eng land towards a similar movement in that country. There, the church, true to its mission of ameliorating, elevating and improving the condition of mankind, came forward promptly, bound up the wounds of the West Indian slave, and re stored him to his liberty. There, the question of emancipation was a high religious question. It was demanded in the name of humanity, and according to the law of the living God. The Sharps, the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, the Burchells, and the Knibbs were alike famous for their piety and for their philanthropy. The anti-slavery movement there was not an anti-church movement, for the reason that the church took its full share in prosecuting that movement: and the anti-slavery movement in this country will cease to be an anti-church movement, when the church of this country shall assume a favorable instead of a hostile position towards that movement.

Americans! your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. You boast of your love of liberty, your superior civilization, and your pure Christianity, while the whole political power of the nation (as embodied in the two great political parties) is solemnly pledged to support and perpetuate the enslavement of three millions of your countrymen. You hurl your anathemas at the crowned headed tyrants of Russia and Austria and pride yourselves on your Democratic institutions, while you yourselves consent to be the mere tools and body-guards of the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina. You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from abroad, honor them with banquets, greet them with ovations, cheer them, toast them, salute them, protect them, and pour out your money to them like water; but the fugitives from oppression in your own land you advertise, hunt, arrest, shoot, and kill. You glory in your refinement and your universal education; yet you maintain a system as barbarous and dreadful as ever stained the character of a nation-a system begun in avarice, supported in pride, and perpetuated in cruelty. You shed tears over fallen Hungary, and make the sad story of her wrongs the theme of your poets, statesmen, and orators, till your gallant sons are ready to fly to arms to vindicate her cause against the oppressor; but, in regard to the ten thousand wrongs of the American slave, you would enforce the strictest silence, and would hail him as an enemy of the nation who dares to make those wrongs the subject of public discourse! You are all on fire at the mention of liberty for France or for Ireland; but are as cold as an iceberg at the thought of liberty for the enslaved of America. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. You can bare your bosom to the storm of British artillery to throw off a three-penny tax on tea; and yet wring the last hard earned farthing from the grasp of the black laborers of your country. You profess to believe "that, of one blood, God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of all the earth," and hath commanded all men, everywhere, to love one another; yet you notoriously hate (and glory in your hatred) all men whose skins are not colored like your own. You declare before the world, and are understood by the world to declare that you "hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; and are endowed by their Creator with certain in alienable rights; and that among these are, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and yet, you hold securely, in a bondage which, according to your own Thomas Jefferson, "is worse than ages of that which your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose," a seventh part of the inhabitants of your country.

Fellow-citizens, I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretense, and your Christianity as a lie. It destroys your moral power abroad: it corrupts your politicians at home. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing and a bye-word to a mocking earth. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union. it fetters your progress; it is the enemy of improvement; the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters crime; it is a curse to the earth that supports it; and yet you cling to it as if it were the sheet anchor of all your hopes. Oh! be warned! be warned! a horrible reptile is coiled up in your nation's bosom; the venomous creature is nursing at the tender breast of your youthful republic; for the love of God, tear away, and fling from you the hideous monster, and let the weight of twenty millions crush and destroy it forever!

But it is answered in reply to all this, that precisely what I have now denounced is, in fact, guaranteed and sanctioned by the Constitution of the United States; that, the right to hold, and to hunt slaves is a part of that Constitution framed by the illustrious Fathers of this Republic.

Then, I dare to affirm, notwithstanding all I have said before, your fathers stooped, basely stooped

To palter with us in a double sense:
And keep the word of promise to the ear,
But break it to the heart.

And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest impostors that ever practised on mankind. This is the inevitable conclusion, and from it there is no escape; but I differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the Constitution of the United States. It is a slander upon their memory, at least, so I believe. There is not time now to argue the constitutional question at length; nor have I the ability to discuss it as it ought to be discussed. The subject has been handled with masterly power by Lysander Spooner, Esq. by William Goodell, by Samuel E. Sewall, Esq., and last, though not least, by Gerrit Smith, Esq. These gentlemen have, as I think, fully and clearly vindicated the Constitution from any design to support slavery for an hour.

Fellow-citizens! there is no matter in respect to which the people of the North have allowed themselves to be so ruinously imposed upon as that of the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. In that instrument I hold there is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the hateful thing; but interpreted, as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a glorious liberty document. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gate way? or is it in the temple? it is neither. While I do not intend to argue this question on the present occasion, let me ask, if it be not somewhat singular that, if the Constitution were intended to be, by its framers and adopters, a slaveholding instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave can any where be found in it. What would be thought of an instrument, drawn up, legally drawn up, for the purpose of entitling the city of Rochester to a tract of land, in which no mention of land was made? Now, there are certain rules of interpretation for the proper understanding of all legal instruments. These rules are well established. They are plain, commonsense rules, such as you and I, and all of us, can understand and apply, without having passed years in the study of law. I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality, or unconstitutionality of slavery, is not a question for the people. I hold that every American citizen has a right to form an opinion of the constitution, and to propagate that opinion, and to use all honorable means to make his opinion the prevailing one. Without this right, the liberty of an American citizen would be as insecure as that of a Frenchman. Ex-Vice-President Dallas tells us that the constitution is an object to which no American mind can be too attentive, and no American heart too devoted. He further says, the Constitution, in its words, is plain and intelligible, and is meant for the home-bred, unsophisticated understandings of our fellow-citizens. Senator Berrien tells us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that which controls all others. The charter of our liberties, which every citizen has a personal interest in understanding thoroughly. The testimony of Senator Breese, Lewis Cass, and many others that might be named, who are everywhere esteemed as sound lawyers, so regard the constitution. I take it, therefore, that it is not presumption in a private citizen to form an opinion of that instrument.

Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. On the other hand, it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery.

I have detained my audience entirely too long already. At some future period I will gladly avail myself of an opportunity to give this subject a full and fair discussion.

Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented, of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery.

"The arm of the Lord is not shortened," and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing encouragement from "the Declaration of Independence," the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. The time was when such could be done. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. Space is comparatively annihilated.-Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic are distinctly heard on the other.

The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. The fiat of the Almighty, "Let there be Light," has not yet spent its force. No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen in contrast with nature. Africa must rise and put on her yet unwoven garment. "Ethiopia shall stretch out her hand unto God." In the fervent aspirations of William Lloyd Garrison, I say, and let every heart join in saying it:

God speed the year of jubilee
The wide world o'er!
When from their galling chains set free,
Th' oppress'd shall vilely bend the knee,
And wear the yoke of tyranny
Like brutes no more.
That year will come, and freedom's reign,
To man his plundered rights again
Restore.

God speed the day when human blood
Shall cease to flow!
In every clime be understood,
The claims of human brotherhood,
And each return for evil, good,
Not blow for blow;
That day will come all feuds to end,
And change into a faithful friend
Each foe.

God speed the hour, the glorious hour,
When none on earth
Shall exercise a lordly power,
Nor in a tyrant's presence cower;
But to all manhood's stature tower,
By equal birth!
That hour will come, to each, to all,
And from his Prison-house, to thrall
Go forth.

Until that year, day, hour, arrive,
With head, and heart, and hand I'll strive,
To break the rod, and rend the gyve,
The spoiler of his prey deprive --
So witness Heaven!
And never from my chosen post,
Whate'er the peril or the cost,
Be driven.

Friday, July 2, 2010

First African–American Graduate of College of Education Deceased at 95

COLLEGE PARK, MD (June 2010) – On July 9, 1951, Rose Shockley Wiseman earned her M.Ed. One of the first three African–American students to receive a master’s degree from the University of Maryland, College Park, that commencement day marked her first visit to the then segregated campus.

Wiseman was part of a new UM program that offered African–Americans the opportunity to enroll in off–campus, in–service education studies to earn a master’s degree. Professor Daniel Prescott, who founded the Institute for Child Study in 1947 in the then School of Education, coordinated efforts to offer classes to students at various levels in the child study program.

"The professors were shuttled from the university each day—one arrived to teach his or her scheduled class as the other completed his hours and returned to College Park," Wiseman recalled in a 2003 interview for the College.

Rose Shockley Wiseman

Rose Wiseman as a Teacher at Bates School, Annapolis, 1950's. She was one of the first African-American students to receive a Master's degrees at College Park.

Photo Courtesy of Rose Wiseman.
She and two other students were the only African Americans who completed the fourth–year program offered through summers studies at Bowie State University. On graduation day, she recalled marching with her two colleagues "across the squishy grass (it had rained the night before) to the exercises on the green and stepping into the gap left for us in line." Dr. H. Curly Byrd, president of UM at the time, conferred the ‘covetous’ degrees, with Governor Theodore McKeldin and Baltimore City mayor Thomas D’Alesandro, Jr., in attendance.

Born in Salem, N.J. on May 11, 1915, Wiseman began her teaching career in Charles County. After attending Hampton Institute,
where she received her B.S. in 1940, she returned to teach in the County where she also worked in a war–time spotter station as part of a Board of Education’s requirement for teachers. After that she was the principal of a two–room elementary school in Bowie, Md., for seven years, then worked as an educator at Bates Jr.–Sr. High School from 1950–1965. In 1965 she transferred to Arundel Senior High School in Gambrills, Md. Two years later she joined Bowie State College (now Bowie State University) as an associate professor. While at Bowie State, she also taught night adult education classes at Bowie High School in Prince George’s County. When she resigned from the College in 1969, the Board of Education of Anne Arundel County appointed her the first head teacher of its GED Center.

Wiseman retired in 1971 due to health concerns, but still traveled extensively and was active in several organizations, including the University of Maryland Alumni Association, NAACP, Bowie State University Alumni, Banneker–Douglas Museum, Inc., Ebo Arts, and the Friends of St. John’s College.

In 2003, in recognition of her unique role in helping shape Maryland’s history, the College of Education presented Wiseman with its first Dean’s Award for Lifetime Achievement. In 2004, she was named the College’s Distinguished Alumnus of the Year and honored by the University of Maryland Alumni Association at its annual Awards Gala.

Wiseman passed away on May 31, 2010. Preceded in death by her husband, Dr. Joseph Alexander Wiseman, she is survived by their son, Adrian Darius Wiseman, daughter-in-law, Christelle Newman Wiseman, and two grandchildren–Anedra Wiseman Bourne and Christopher Wiseman.

The College of Education extends its deepest sympathy to the family and friends of the late Rose Shockley Wiseman. -end-

For more information on the College of Education, visit: www.education.umd.edu or contact Jenniffer Manning-Scherhaufer, Assistant Director for Communications, at: manning1@umd.edu

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Africana Studies to Collaborate with Friends of Historical Cemetery

CHARLOTTE - June 30, 2010 - UNC Charlotte’s Africana Studies department will collaborate with The Friends of Old Westview Cemetery, Inc. to develop a long-range plan to help restore the more than 150 year old cemetery in Wadesboro.

Since the passing of the cemetery’s caretaker in the 1960s, the cemetery has become overgrown and neglected, according to friends of the cemetery.

Participating in the Martin Luther King Day of Service earlier this year, members of the Africana Studies Club, a student organization at the University, led a project which involved cleaning and documenting grave markers. The collaboration grew out of the service project and was recently announced during a Friends of Old Westview Cemetery board of directors meeting.

Old Westview Cemetery was founded in the mid-19th century and has served as the primary burial ground for Wadesboro’s African-American community.

UNC Charlotte Many citizens who contributed to Wadesboro’s post-emancipation African-American community are buried in Old Westview. The cemetery is currently on the “Study List” of historical places and is eligible for placement on the National Register.
UNC Charlotte faculty and students will conduct research on the historical significance of the all-black cemetery and develop public educational programs on the history of Wadesboro and the biographies of those buried in Old Westview. Chair of Africana Studies department Akin Ogundiran and Africana Studies graduate student India Solomon will coordinate the project for the University.

“We would like people from all the surrounding areas to not only be aware of the cemetery in Wadesboro but also similar cemeteries in their own areas,” said Ogundiran. “We would like to encourage a widespread effort to preserve these cemeteries for public education and to document the stories of the people who helped shape our lives today.”

For more information, contact Ogundiran at 704.687.2355. ###

Public Relations media contact, Buffie Stephens, 704.687.5830, BuffieStephens@uncc.edu

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

American Studies journal dedicates double-issue to Aaron Douglas scholarship Articles originate primarily from 2007 interdisciplinary conference at KU

Lawrence, KS – Three years after the Spencer Museum of Art premiered its landmark exhibition Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist, a special double-issue of the journal American Studies celebrates Douglas’s legacy, gathering together articles about the Topeka-born artist by some of America’s preeminent scholars.

The issue, "Aaron Douglas and the Harlem Renaissance," contains essays primarily derived from "Aaron Douglas and the Arts of the Harlem Renaissance," a September 2007 interdisciplinary conference held at the University of Kansas in conjunction with the SMA exhibition.

Edited by KU Associate Professor of English William J. Harris, who organized the Douglas conference, the issue features articles by an impressive group of nationally known scholars and artists who spoke at the conference, including Terry Adkins (University of Pennsylvania), Gerald Early, (University of Washington), Farah Jasmine Griffin (Columbia University), Amy Helene Kirschke (University of North Carolina-Wilmington), David Krasner (Emerson College), Robert G. O’Meally (Columbia University), and Richard Powell (Duke University).

Aaron Douglas: African American ModernistMoreover, it includes two specially commissioned essays on Douglas by Stephanie Fox Knappe (Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, formerly of the Spencer, who served as Exhibition Coordinator for the Douglas show and also coordinated the conference symposium) and Cheryl Ragar (Kansas State University). The issue also features a generous selection of images of Douglas’s work.

“The issue has been long in the making but the wait has been worth it,” Harris says. “It was a very special moment when a great group of scholars came together to celebrate this major African American figure.
The celebration went beyond the scholars and also included the audience which was made of up family, graduate students, American and international scholars, and town folks. The structure let everybody speak which made those days democratic, profound, and moving. Everybody was an expert and nobody was an expert but wonderful things were said in those two days. I am glad that we could get these essays in a journal, a published account—to both record the conference and give a sense of the intellectual excitement.”

To purchase the Douglas edition of American Studies (Volume 49, Number 1/2, $12), please make checks payable to MAASA and send to Managing Editor, American Studies, Jayhawk Blvd., Bailey 213, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045-7545.
About Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist

Curated by Susan Earle, SMA Curator of European & American Art, Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist was the first major exhibition to celebrate the life, art and legacy of Douglas, an African American artist from Kansas who went on to become the most important visual artist of the Harlem Renaissance. The Spencer-organized exhibition, some seven years in the making, was the first-ever national traveling retrospective of Douglas’s work, and brought together nearly 100 works from public institutions and private collections across the country. The exhibition debuted at the Spencer in fall 2007, and then traveled to venues in Nashville (Frist Center for the Visual Arts), Washington, D.C. (Smithsonian American Art Museum), and New York (Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture). The exhibition included an eponymous, multi-author scholarly book, edited by Earle and published by Yale University Press. That publication, as well as the recently published Aaron Douglas and Alta Sawyer Douglas: Love Letters from the Harlem Renaissance, is for sale in the Spencer’s shop, and through the SMA website: www.spencerart.ku.edu

MEDIA CONTACTS Bill Woodard Director of Communications Spencer Museum of Art 785.864.0142 bwoodard@ku.edu

Monday, June 28, 2010

Downsville, Louisiana Man Pleads Guilty to Federal Hate Crime Hangman’s Noose Leads to Guilty Plea

WASHINGTON—The Justice Department today announced that Robert Jackson, 37, of Downsville, Louisiana, pleaded guilty in federal court to placing a hangman’s noose in the carport of the home of a family in order “to send a message” to African-American males who had been frequently visiting the victim’s home. Jackson entered a plea to violating the Fair Housing Act by intimidating and interfering with another’s housing rights because of race.

According to court testimony, the victim and her children arrived home on June 13, 2008, and found a hangman’s noose suspended from a bird-feeder underneath the carport of her home. A subsequent investigation determined that Jackson, a former employee at a local company located next door from the victim’s home, made the noose and placed it in the carport.

“A noose is an unmistakable symbol of hate in our nation, and it was used in this case to intimidate an innocent family,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Rights Division. “The Department of Justice will vigorously prosecute those who resort to threats motivated by hate.”

hangman's noose“A hangman’s noose is a powerful symbol of racial intimidation and intolerance, and when used to interfere with federally protected rights, becomes a federal crime.” said Stephanie A. Finley, U.S. Attorney for Western District of Louisiana. “The victim and her family sought nothing more than to live in their home in peace. Jackson’s racially motivated response has left him facing a prison sentence.”

Sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 28, 2010. Jackson faces a maximum penalty of 12 months in prison, a $100,000 fine, or both.
The case was investigated by the FBI, Monroe Resident Agency, and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Mary Mudrick and Trial Attorney Myesha Braden of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

For Immediate Release June 24, 2010 U.S. Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs (202) 514-2007/TDD (202) 514-1888

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Iowa African-American Hall of Fame to induct new members

AMES, Iowa -- The Iowa African-American Hall of Fame, housed in Iowa State University's Black Cultural Center, will induct five new members in August.

Founded in Des Moines in 1995, the IAAHF recognizes outstanding achievements of African-Americans with respect to enhancing the quality of life for all Iowans. Forty individuals have been inducted into the hall of fame since its inception.

This year, the Iowa African-American Hall of Fame recognizes the achievements of:

* Melvin Harper, manager of restaurants and entertainment venues in Iowa. A promoter of national musical acts, Harper was inducted into the Iowa Blues Hall of Fame in 2002. Harper also founded several construction businesses in Iowa.
* Elaine Estes, the first and only African-American director (now retired) of the Des Moines Public Library. Under her leadership, the library became the first in Iowa and in the country to carry out a materials preservation program and disaster preparedness plan, and Iowa became the first state to pass a law protecting library users' records.

Iowa African-American Hall of Fame * Iowa Tuskegee Airmen (group), African-Americans who participated in air crew, ground crew and operations support training in the Army Air Corps during World War II. Iowa had 12 black Tuskegee Airmen, six of whom served in combat. Between them, they flew over 400 combat missions.
* Chuck Toney (posthumous), former director of affirmative action at John Deere. The first African-American at an executive level at John Deere, Toney started out his career as the first welder of color in Iowa and Illinois.
* Zack E. Hamlett Jr. (posthumous), founder and first executive dean, Des Moines Area Community College Urban Campus. Hamlett also founded the Iowa Alliance of Black School Educators and served as chair of the Iowa State Black Network.

The 2010 inductees will be recognized at a reception and banquet starting at 5 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 6, at The Meadows Event and Conference Center, Prairie Meadows, Altoona. Tickets are $50 per individual. To reserve a seat, contact Rose Wilbanks at (515) 294-1909. In addition to supporting the IAAHF, proceeds help support the George Washington Carver Leadership Academy for developing youth leadership at Iowa colleges and universities. Proceeds also will help establish a permanent home for the Hall of Fame. -30-

Contacts: Thomas Hill, Vice President for Student Affairs, (515) 294-1909, tomhill@iastate.edu Annette Hacker, News Service, (515) 294-3720, annette@iastate.edu

Thursday, June 24, 2010

In Memoriam: Hannah Atkins

STILLWATER -On June 17, 2010, Hannah Atkins, the first African-American woman elected to the Oklahoma House of Representatives, passed away. Atkins’ legacy will be preserved in collections at the OSU Library.

Atkins served the House from 1968 to 1980 as representative from the 97th District. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter named her to the General Assembly of the 35th Session of the United Nations. She went on to hold state cabinet-level positions throughout the 80s.

Atkins’ papers are housed in the OSU Library Special Collections. The collection contains material about Atkins' life, career and involvement in organizations. Access is unrestricted, and the collection is open to the public.

In 2007, the OSU Library’s Oklahoma Oral History Research Program (OOHRP) interviewed Atkins for the Women of the Oklahoma Legislature Project. The interview audio and transcript are available online at www.library.okstate.edu/oralhistory/wotol/atkins/.

In tribute to Atkins, the OOHRP's weekly radio broadcast, Then and Now, will highlight interview clips with and about her on June 23, 30 and July 7. After episodes air, they are available online at www.library.okstate.edu/oralhistory/ or through the OSU channel of ITunes U.

Oklahoma State University is a modern land-grant system that cuts across disciplines to better prepare students for a new world. Oklahoma’s only university with a statewide presence, OSU improves the lives of people in Oklahoma, the nation, and the world through integrated, high-quality teaching, research and outreach. OSU has more than 32,000 students across its five-campus system and nearly 21,000 on its Stillwater campus; with students from all 50 states and about 110 nations. Established in 1890, OSU has graduated more than 200,000 students who have made a lasting impact on Oklahoma and the world. CREATE - INNOVATE - EDUCATE - GO STATE! -###-

For Immediate Release.