On This Day – “Decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott Case”

On March 6, 1857, in its Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court held that Scott, a slave, could not sue for his freedom in a federal court.

The opinion of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott Case was delivered by Chief Justice Taney. It was a full and elaborate statement of the views of the Court. They have decided the following important points:

First – Negroes, whether slaves or free, that is, men of the African race, are not citizens of the United States by the Constitution.

Second – The Ordinance of 1787 had no independent constitutional force or legal effect subsequently to the adoption of the Constitution, and could not operate of itself to confer freedom or citizenship within the Northwest Territory on negroes not citizens by the Constitution.

Third – The provisions of the Act of 1820, commonly called the Missouri Compromise, in so far as it undertook to exclude negro slavery from, and communicate freedom and citizenship to, negroes in the northern part of the Louisiana cession, was a Legislative act exceeding the powers of Congress, and void, and of no legal effect to that end.

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“I’m Sorry But We Don’t Serve Colored Here”

On Feb. 1, 1960, four black college students began a sit-in protest at a lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., where they’d been refused service.

Excerpt from The New York Times article chronicling the sit-in protests:

The spark that touched off the protests was provided by four freshmen at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro. Even Negroes class Greensboro as one of the most progressive cities in the South in terms of race relations.

On Sunday night, Jan. 31, one of the students sat thinking about discrimination.

“Segregation makes me feel that I’m unwanted,” McNeil A. Joseph said later in an interview. ‘I don’t want my children exposed to it.’

The 17-year-old student from Wilmington, N. C., said that he approached three of his classmates the next morning and found them enthusiastic over a proposal that they demand service at the lunch counter of a downtown variety store.

About 4:45 P.M. they entered the F. W. Woolworth Company store on North Elm Street in the heart of Greensboro. Mr. Joseph said he bought a tube of tooth paste and the others made similar purchases. Then they sat down at the lunch counter.

The students asked a white waitress for coffee.

“I’m sorry but we don’t serve colored here,” they quoted her.

“I beg your pardon,” said Franklin McCain, 18, of Washington, “you just served me at a counter two feet away. Why is it that you serve me at one counter and deny me at another. Why not stop serving me at all the counters.”

The four students sat, coffee-less, until the store closed at 5:30 P. M. Then, hearing that they might be prosecuted, they went to the executive committee of the Greensboro N.A.A.C.P. to ask advice.

The Greensboro demonstrations and the others that it triggered were spontaneous.

The protests generally followed similar patterns. Young men and women and, in one case, high school boys and girls, walked into the stores and requested food service. Met with refusals in all cases, they remained at the lunch counters in silent protest.

Read the article in it’s entirety here: (Source)

On This Day – “High Court Rules Bus Segregation Unconstitutional”

On Nov. 13, 1956, the Supreme Court struck down laws calling for racial segregation on public buses.

“The Court affirmed a ruling by a three-judge Federal court that held the challenged statutes ‘violate the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.’

The Fourteenth Amendment provides that no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law nor deny to any citizen the equal protection of the laws.

[Officials of several Southern states indicated they would continue to enforce bus segregation laws despite the court’s decision. Segregationist leaders were bitter in their denunciations of the court and its ruling.]”

(Source)

New York Times Front Page – “Obama’s Night”

The New York edition of today’s New York Times announcing President Barack Obama’s re-election.

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On This Day – “Abraham Lincoln Probably Elected President by a Majority of the Entire Popular Vote”

On Nov. 6, 1860, former Illinois congressman Abraham Lincoln defeated three other candidates for the U.S. presidency.
“The election, so far as the City and State of New-York are concerned, will probably stand, hereafter as one of the most remarkable in the political contests of the country; marked, as it is, by far the heaviest popular vote ever cast in the City, and by the sweeping, and almost uniform, Republican majorities in the country.”

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On This Day – “Obama Elected President as Racial Barrier Falls “

On Nov. 4, 2008, Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States, as the country chose him as it’s first black chief executive.

Mr. Obama, 47, a first-term senator from Illinois, defeated Senator John McCain of Arizona, 72, a former prisoner of war who was making his second bid for the presidency.

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On This Day – “2 Black Power Advocates Ousted From Olympics”

On Oct. 18, 1968, the United States Olympic Committee suspended two black athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, for giving a “black power” salute as a protest during a victory ceremony in Mexico City.

“The two Negro sprinters were told by Douglas F. Roby, the president of the committee, that they must leave the Olympic Village. Their credentials also were taken away, which made it mandatory for them to leave Mexico within 48 hours.”(Source)

On This Day – Martin Luther King Wins Nobel Prize For Peace

On Oct. 14, 1964, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

“The 35-year-old civil rights leader is the youngest winner of the prize that Dr. Alfred Nobel instituted since the first was awarded in 1901.

The prize honors acts ‘for the furtherance of brotherhood among men and to the abolishment or reduction of standing armies and for the extension of these purposes.’

Dr. King said that “every penny” of the prize money, which amounts to about $54,000, would be given to the civil rights movement.”

(Source)

On This Day – Che Guevara Killed

On Oct. 9, 1967, Ernesto Che Guevara, the Latin American revolutionary leader, was killed in a clash between guerrillas and Bolivian troops in southeastern Bolivia while attempting to incite revolution.
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On This Day – Warsaw Outlaws Solidarity Union

On Oct. 8, 1982, all labor organizations in Poland, including Solidarity, were banned.

The Polish Parliament overwhelmingly approved a law that bans Solidarity, the independent trade union that once captured the imagination and allegiance of nearly 10 million Poles.

The law abolishes all existing labor organizations, including Solidarity, whose 15 months of existence brought exhilaration to many but drew the anger of the Soviet Union and other Eastern-bloc countries. It replaces them with a new set of unions whose ability to strike is sharply restricted.

(Source)

On This Day – Thurgood Marshall Became First Negro To Sit On The High Court

On Oct. 2, 1967, Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, becoming the first black to serve on the high court.

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On This Day – “All Slaves in States in Rebellion on the First of January Next to be Free”

On Sept. 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all slaves in rebel states should be free as of Jan. 1, 1863.

That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all person held as slaves within any State, or any designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever, free;

(Source)