On this Day in American history, September 14, 1874 — White Supremacist Militia Overthrows Louisiana’s Elected, Integrated State Government

Posted on September 14, 2018 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

In 1872, William Pitt Kellogg, a supporter of Reconstruction, was elected governor of Louisiana, largely on the strength of his support among African-American voters. That same year, Caesar Carpenter Antoine, an African American man, was elected lieutenant governor.

The electoral success of an integrated ticket angered many whites, and attempts to overthrow the elected government began nearly as soon as Governor Kellogg and Lt. Governor Antoine took office in 1873. During the summer of 1874, Frederick Nash Ogden, a former colonel in the Confederate army, began to organize a militia. The militia, which consisted primarily of white Confederate veterans who opposed Reconstruction, became known as the White League.

On September 14, 1874, 1500 members of the White League attacked New Orleans and overthrew the Louisiana government. After cutting the telegraph lines out of the city and killing at least thirteen members of the integrated New Orleans police force, the militia overran the state house and attempted to establish a new government. Governor Kellogg was forced to take refuge in a nearby federal building. After three days, President Ulysses S. Grant ordered the U.S. Army to put down the rebellion and the elected government was restored.

The 1874 coup was emblematic of the political violence that occurred during Reconstruction, which aimed to overthrow elected, integrated governments throughout the South and restore white supremacy under law. In 1891, following the conclusion of Reconstruction, the state of Louisiana installed a monument celebrating the coup as the “overthrow of carpetbag government ousting the usurpers.” The monument remains standing in New Orleans today.

“The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) is proud to present A History of Racial Injustice – 2018 Calendar.  America’s history of racial inequality continues to undermine fair treatment, equal justice, and opportunity for many Americans.  The genocide of Native people, the legacy of slavery and racial terror, and the legally supported abuse of racial minorities are not well understood.  EJI believes that a deeper engagement with our nation’s history of racial injustice is important to addressing present-day questions of social justice and equality.

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On this Day in American history, September 13, 1976 — In Lawsuit Settlement, Alaska Agrees to Build Local High Schools for Native Students

Posted on September 13, 2018 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

In the late 1890s, the Gold Rush drastically increased the Alaska territory’s non-Native population. As white residents settled in Alaska, they began to demand a separate system of schools to educate their children apart from Native children.

In 1905, the federal government responded, proclaiming that the education of Native children would remain a federal responsibility, while the territorial government would oversee the education of “white children and children of mixed blood who lead a civilized life.” Known as the Nelson Act, this law established a dual school system in Alaska. A subsequent 1917 law, which followed the formal creation of the Territory of Alaska, transferred power over education of “white and colored children and children of mixed blood who lead a civilized life” to the Alaska Territorial Legislature.

The federal government continued to oversee the education of Alaska Natives by sending Native high school students away from their villages to boarding schools in other states. Meanwhile, white and “mixed-blood” children attended local high schools. In the 1920s, the federal government retreated from its assimilationist program and began sending students to boarding schools within Alaska – but as enrollment increased beyond the capacity of the in-state schools, some students were once again sent out of state.

The Johnson-O’Malley Act, passed in 1934, transferred the responsibility of educating Native children to state and local school systems. The Alaska territorial government soon began assuming control of some Native schools, but the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) continued to operate separate Native schools as well – even after Alaska gained statehood in 1958. It was not until the early 1960s that the Alaska and federal governments made the final push to reduce the dual school systems to one unified system.

Many natives lived in rural areas without local high schools and had to attend boarding school or enroll in a largely unsuccessful correspondence study if they desired a high school education. In 1966, Alaska established its own Boarding Home Program to provide secondary education to students living in areas with no local high school. While Alaska’s boarding program meant Native students did not have to leave the state unless they wished, as many as 600 students per year were still forced to leave their homes to attend programs in towns hundreds or thousands of miles away. Students in the boarding program “experienced accelerated drop-out rates, psychological and social problems, including disruption of family life and loss of sense of identity, and failure to live up to educational potential” at a much higher rate than students attending local schools. In addition, many students boarded with white families were treated as servants.

In 1975, 27 Native high school students brought a suit against the state of Alaska for failing to provide secondary education in their villages in violation of their right to education guaranteed by the Alaska Constitution and the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. The case, Tobeluk v. Lind, is commonly known as the “Molly Hootch” case, after one of the named plaintiffs. On September 13, 1976, a settlement was reached, in which the State of Alaska agreed to build secondary schools in rural Native villages.

“The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) is proud to present A History of Racial Injustice – 2018 Calendar.  America’s history of racial inequality continues to undermine fair treatment, equal justice, and opportunity for many Americans.  The genocide of Native people, the legacy of slavery and racial terror, and the legally supported abuse of racial minorities are not well understood.  EJI believes that a deeper engagement with our nation’s history of racial injustice is important to addressing present-day questions of social justice and equality.

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On this Day in American history, September 12, 1966 — Black Students Attacked While Integrating Schools in Grenada, Mississippi

Posted on September 12, 2018 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Twelve years after the United States Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling holding school segregation unconstitutional, the city of Grenada, Mississippi, continued to operate a segregated school system. In August of 1966, a federal judge ordered that African American students be permitted to enroll in the formerly whites-only schools. Approximately 450 African American students enrolled prior to the scheduled start of the school year on September 2, 1966.

On September 2, the school district postponed the start of school by ten days. White leaders used that time to attempt to coerce African American parents into withdrawing their children from the white schools by threatening them with firing or eviction; as a result, 200 students withdrew.

On September 12, 1966, the Grenada schools opened, and 250 African American students attempted to integrate the schools. A large white mob surrounded the school and turned away most of the African American students. As the students retreated, members of the mob pursued them through the streets, beating them with chains, pipes, and clubs. At lunchtime, the mob returned to the school to attack the few African American students who had successfully entered. As the students left for lunch, members of the mob attacked them, leaving some hospitalized with broken bones. Reporters covering the story were also beaten.

The mob violence continued for several days, with no intervention from law enforcement. On September 16, a federal judge ordered protection for the students, and on September 17, thirteen members of the mob were arrested by the FBI.

“The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) is proud to present A History of Racial Injustice – 2018 Calendar.  America’s history of racial inequality continues to undermine fair treatment, equal justice, and opportunity for many Americans.  The genocide of Native people, the legacy of slavery and racial terror, and the legally supported abuse of racial minorities are not well understood.  EJI believes that a deeper engagement with our nation’s history of racial injustice is important to addressing present-day questions of social justice and equality.

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On this Day in American history, September 11, 1895 — South Carolina Officials Begin Proceedings to Disenfranchise Black Residents

Posted on September 11, 2018 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

On September 11, 1895, South Carolina began the process of rewriting the state constitution with the express purpose of disenfranchising the state’s African-American voters and restoring white supremacy in all matters political. The convention’s most prominent figure was Benjamin Tillman, affectionately nicknamed “Pitchfork Ben,” a former governor and then-Senator from the state. A renowned orator, Tillman spoke at great length during the convention; excerpts of one such speech are below:

A continuation of the existing conditions and perpetuation of fraud, or fraudulent methods; and the sword of Damocles suspended over our heads by a single hair swings, and swings, and swings; and all that is necessary to bring about chaos is for a sufficient number of white men, actuated by hate, or ambition, or from any unpatriotic motive, to climb up and cut it loose, mobilize and register the negroes, lead them and give them a free vote and fair count under manhood suffrage…The poor, ignorant cotton field hand, who never reaped any advantage, nor saw anything except a pistol, blindly followed like sheep wherever their black and white leaders told them to go, voted unanimously every time for the Republican ticket during that dark period, and these results were achieved solely and wholly by reason of the ballot being in the hands of such cattle. Is the danger gone ? No. How did we recover our liberty ? By fraud and violence…How did we bring it about ? Every white man sunk his personal feelings and ambitions. The white people of the State, illustrating our glorious motto, “Ready with their lives and fortunes.” came together as one. By fraud and violence, if you please, we threw it off. In 1878 we had to resort to more fraud and violence, and so again in 1880. Then the Registration Law and eight-box system was evolved from the superior intelligence of the white man to check and control this surging, muddy stream of ignorance…

A statue of Tillman stands in front of the South Carolina State House to this day, and his name adorns a number of buildings throughout the state, including the main building on the campus of Clemson University.

“The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) is proud to present A History of Racial Injustice – 2018 Calendar.  America’s history of racial inequality continues to undermine fair treatment, equal justice, and opportunity for many Americans.  The genocide of Native people, the legacy of slavery and racial terror, and the legally supported abuse of racial minorities are not well understood.  EJI believes that a deeper engagement with our nation’s history of racial injustice is important to addressing present-day questions of social justice and equality.

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On this Day in American history, September 10, 1963 — State Funds Private School for Whites to Avoid Integration in Tuskegee, Alabama

Posted on September 10, 2018 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

In January 1963, African American parents of students in Macon County, Alabama, sued the Macon County Board of Education to desegregate the county’s public schools. Though the United States Supreme Court had declared school segregation unconstitutional nearly nine years earlier, the board had taken no steps to integrate local schools. In August 1963, Federal District Judge Frank Johnson ordered the school board to begin integration immediately.

The school board selected 13 African American students to integrate Tuskegee High School that fall. On September 2, 1963, the scheduled first day of integrated classes, Alabama Governor George Wallace ordered the school closed due to “safety concerns.” The school reopened a week later, and on September 10, 1963, the second day of classes, white students began to withdraw. Within a week, all 275 white students had left the school.

Most fleeing white students enrolled at Macon Academy, a newly formed, all-white private school. In support of the school and its efforts to sidestep federal law to maintain school segregation, Governor Wallace and the school board approved the use of state funds to provide white students abandoning the public school system with scholarships to attend Macon Academy. Meanwhile, the Macon County School Board ordered Tuskegee High School closed due to low enrollment and split its remaining African American students among all-white high schools in Notasulga and Shorter, Alabama. White students in those high schools boycotted for several days and many eventually transferred to Macon Academy.

Now Macon-East Academy, the school relocated near Montgomery, Alabama, in 1995, and today operates as one of several private schools in the Alabama Black Belt with origins rooted in resistance to integration. As of the 2007-2008 school year, Macon-East Academy’s student population of more than 400 was 98% white and less than 1% African American.

“The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) is proud to present A History of Racial Injustice – 2018 Calendar.  America’s history of racial inequality continues to undermine fair treatment, equal justice, and opportunity for many Americans.  The genocide of Native people, the legacy of slavery and racial terror, and the legally supported abuse of racial minorities are not well understood.  EJI believes that a deeper engagement with our nation’s history of racial injustice is important to addressing present-day questions of social justice and equality.

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On this Day in American history, September 9, 1739 — Enslaved Black People Rebel in South Carolina Colony

Posted on September 9, 2018 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

During the eighteenth century, the South Carolina colony’s economy was based on rice and cotton, which relied heavily on slave labor. Due to the slave trade that brought many black laborers from West Africa and the Caribbean, the territory’s enslaved black population outnumbered the white population in the 1730s. At the same time, Spain and England were in dispute over their claims to North American territories; Spain controlled Florida and, in an effort to undermine the English colonies’ supply of enslaved labor, promised land and freedom to blacks who fled bondage in English colonies for Florida.

Possibly motivated by Spain’s promises, a literate, enslaved African known as Jemmy, along with at least twenty other Africans enslaved in South Carolina, planned to rebel. Jemmy and his comrades were natives of the Kingdom of Kongo, a central African nation that practiced Catholicism, and sharing a common religion with the Spanish may have helped motivate their preference for Florida. The rebels planned to attack plantations on a Sunday, when their white captors were most likely to be unprepared.

On September 9, 1739, the group met by the Stono River and began their attack at a store near the Stono River Bridge, killing two whites and taking firearms. The group of rebels grew to over 80 people, who burned seven plantations and killed more than twenty whites. They were then confronted by a militia and in the ensuing fight, forty-four rebels were killed, along with twenty militia men. Most of the surviving rebels were executed, and the rest were sold to planters in the West Indies. The uprising, which came to be known as “Cato’s Rebellion” or “Stono’s Rebellion,” was the largest uprising of enslaved blacks in the American colonies prior to the American Revolution.

“The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) is proud to present A History of Racial Injustice – 2018 Calendar.  America’s history of racial inequality continues to undermine fair treatment, equal justice, and opportunity for many Americans.  The genocide of Native people, the legacy of slavery and racial terror, and the legally supported abuse of racial minorities are not well understood.  EJI believes that a deeper engagement with our nation’s history of racial injustice is important to addressing present-day questions of social justice and equality.

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On this Day in American history, September 8, 1959 — Black Man Vows to Sue Mississippi Southern College if Denied Admission Due to Race

Posted on September 8, 2018 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

In 1955, Clyde Kennard, a black U.S. Army veteran and Mississippi native, attempted to enroll in Mississippi Southern College, an all-white public university in the city of Hattiesburg. Mr. Kennard’s credentials met the criteria for admission, but his application was denied because he was unable to provide references from five alumni in his home county.

In December 1958, in a letter to a local newspaper, Mr. Kennard announced his intent to re-apply to the university. In response, the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission – a state agency formed to protect segregation – hired investigators to research Mr. Kennard’s background and uncover details that could be used to discredit him; these attempts were unsuccessful. Soon after, Mr. Kennard withdrew his application after the governor of Mississippi personally requested that he do so.

On September 8, 1959, Mr. Kennard once again tried to apply for admission to Mississippi Southern College. In a letter written to the college’s administration, he declared that, if again rejected, he would sue the University for denying him admission based on his race. After he unsuccessfully tried to register for courses on September 15, 1959, Mr. Kennard was charged with illegal possession of alcohol.

Despite this legal retaliation, Mr. Kennard continued his attempts to register at Mississippi Southern. In September of 1960, he was arrested and charged with assisting in stealing $25 worth of chicken feed from a local store. Although there was little evidence against him, an all-white jury convicted him of being an accessory to burglary, and he was sentenced to seven years in state prison. In July of 1963, while still incarcerated, Mr. Kennard died of colon cancer that had gone undiagnosed and untreated in prison; he was 36 years old.

“The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) is proud to present A History of Racial Injustice – 2018 Calendar.  America’s history of racial inequality continues to undermine fair treatment, equal justice, and opportunity for many Americans.  The genocide of Native people, the legacy of slavery and racial terror, and the legally supported abuse of racial minorities are not well understood.  EJI believes that a deeper engagement with our nation’s history of racial injustice is important to addressing present-day questions of social justice and equality.

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On this Day in American history, September 7, 1976 — First Black Person Elected to Statewide Office in the South Since Reconstruction

Posted on September 7, 2018 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

On September 7, 1976, Joseph Woodrow Hatchett was elected to a seat on the Florida Supreme Court, becoming the first black person elected to any statewide office in the South since the end of Reconstruction nearly a century before. A year earlier, in September 1975, Governor Rubin Askew appointed Judge Hatchett to a seat on the Court, making him the first black Florida Supreme Court justice in state history.

“Reconstruction” refers to a period following the Civil War, when the Republican-controlled United States Congress passed legislation granting black Americans citizenship, civil rights, and federal protection and established federally-controlled military governments in former Confederate states to oversee compliance. The inclusion of blacks in the political process angered many white Southern Democrats still invested in white supremacy. Their efforts to infringe upon blacks’ new political rights often involved extreme violence. Despite the danger of political involvement, blacks bravely took a more active role in the country’s political life than ever before, as both voters and candidates. Backed by federal forces’ presence and oversight, nine black men were elected to Congress between 1865 and 1877, and several black men served in the Florida state legislature.

When Reconstruction ended prematurely in 1877, with the removal of federal troops from the South as part of a political compromise to declare Rutherford B. Hayes winner of the contested 1876 presidential election, Southern states quickly passed laws to undo black political and social progress. This marked the start of a new era, defined by Jim Crow and widespread racial terrorism, in which blacks were economically exploited, restricted in their access to quality education and employment, and excluded from the political process through discriminatory laws and violent intimidation. The effects were immediate and long-lasting; most states in the region would not again elect a black person to state or national office for decades.

For many, the election to Florida’s highest court of Justice Hatchett, whose proud father and mother had worked as a fruit picker and domestic worker, realized the dreams of the civil rights movement, and represented a step in the direction of progress. After four years as a Florida Supreme Court justice, President Jimmy Carter appointed Hatchett to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth (later Eleventh) Circuit, where he sat until his retirement from the bench in 1999.

“The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) is proud to present A History of Racial Injustice – 2018 Calendar.  America’s history of racial inequality continues to undermine fair treatment, equal justice, and opportunity for many Americans.  The genocide of Native people, the legacy of slavery and racial terror, and the legally supported abuse of racial minorities are not well understood.  EJI believes that a deeper engagement with our nation’s history of racial injustice is important to addressing present-day questions of social justice and equality.

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On this Day in American history, September 5, 1890 — Mississippi Abolishes Convict Lease System and Authorizes Creation of Parchman Farm Penitentiary

Posted on September 6, 2018 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

In the summer of 1890, 134 delegates gathered in Jackson to create a new constitution for the state of Mississippi. Their primary goal was the political disenfranchisement of the state’s black citizens; one newspaper headline declared “White Supremacy” as “The One Idea of the Convention.”

Another key issue confronting the delegates was convict leasing, a system whereby the state leased its prisoners–overwhelmingly black–to private plantations and railroad camps where they faced brutal conditions and were often literally worked to death. The system was so outrageous that a legislative committee formed six years earlier to investigate conditions had documented widespread abuse. However, the legislature had not acted on those findings.

Rather than humanitarian concerns, the opposition to convict leasing that emerged in 1890 was spurred by economic competition. White laborers and owners of small farms felt the convict leasing system allowed the privileged plantation owners and railroad tycoons to maintain their economic dominance and displace white workers by leasing cheap black labor from the state. The conflict threatened to split the white Democratic consensus that had controlled the state since 1876.

Accordingly, on September 5, 1890, an overwhelming majority of delegates to the Mississippi constitutional convention voted to abolish convict leasing. Because there was no penitentiary large enough to hold the state’s prisoner population at that time, the convention set the order to take effect four years in the future: December 31, 1894. In the meantime, the convention ordered that the state establish a “prison farm” to house and work the state’s prisoners.

Despite the convention’s order, convict leasing lingered for years in Mississippi, and Parchman Farm would not begin accepting its first prisoners until 1901. By 1917, 90 percent of Parchman’s prisoners would be black men.

“The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) is proud to present A History of Racial Injustice – 2018 Calendar.  America’s history of racial inequality continues to undermine fair treatment, equal justice, and opportunity for many Americans.  The genocide of Native people, the legacy of slavery and racial terror, and the legally supported abuse of racial minorities are not well understood.  EJI believes that a deeper engagement with our nation’s history of racial injustice is important to addressing present-day questions of social justice and equality.

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On this Day in American history, September 6, 2010 — Alabama Prison Bans Pulitzer Prize-Winning Book, Slavery By Another Name

Posted on September 6, 2018 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

In September 2010, lawyers at the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), a nonprofit civil rights law firm in Montgomery, Alabama, mailed a copy of Slavery by Another Nameto client Mark Melvin, then incarcerated at Kilby Correctional Facility. Written by award-winning journalist Douglas Blackmon, the Pulitzer Prize-winning book documents the little known history of convict leasing in Alabama in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As the book’s title suggests, the exploitative and inhumane convict leasing system strongly resembled slavery. Under the pretext of criminal punishment, African Americans arrested on frivolous charges were sold to plantations, turpentine farms, mining companies, and railroads and forced to work in perilous conditions to pay off “debt” accumulated from unjust court costs and fines.

Deciding that the book’s title was “too provocative,” Kilby prison officials prohibited Mark Melvin from receiving Slavery by Another Name when it arrived in the mail. When Melvin used the internal grievance process to appeal the book’s banning, prison officials defended their decision and insisted the book was properly banned under a rule prohibiting material that incites “violence based on race, religion, sex, creed, or nationality, or disobedience toward law enforcement officials or correctional staff.” Alabama prison officials had previously limited prisoners’ access to portrayals of Southern racial history; in the early 2000s, wardens in some Alabama prisons prohibited prisoners from watching a re-broadcast of the Roots miniseries.

In September 2011, represented by EJI lawyers, Mark Melvin sued the Alabama Department of Corrections to be able to read Slavery By Another Name. The civil litigation was settled in February 2013, when state officials finally agreed to allow prisoners to read the book.

“The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) is proud to present A History of Racial Injustice – 2018 Calendar.  America’s history of racial inequality continues to undermine fair treatment, equal justice, and opportunity for many Americans.  The genocide of Native people, the legacy of slavery and racial terror, and the legally supported abuse of racial minorities are not well understood.  EJI believes that a deeper engagement with our nation’s history of racial injustice is important to addressing present-day questions of social justice and equality.

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