My followers of sorts often say that slavery and racism are history when I write about it on this blog. They have said that we can’t fix history and we need to write about things that are more current and to not keep dredging up something that happens a couple of centuries ago. So, with the help of the Equal Justice Initiative, here are some current events that have an Anniversary in November and December.
November 2, 2004, Alabama voters reject a constitutional amendment that would have officially desegregated Alabama schools. Law makers said that they like to keep the segregated schools for “white and colored children” laws on the books just in case.
November 3, 2000, Alabama finally repeals the 1901 state constitutional ban on interracial marriages. However, the majority of white voters were against the repeal.
November 15, 2010, former police officer James Bonnard Fowler pleads guiltily to the 1965 murder of civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson in Marion Alabama. He was given a six month sentence.
November 16, 2015, Texas history textbooks depicted enslaved people as “workers from Africa” rather than slaves. State law makers reject the call to change the textbooks and fact check the history recorded within.
November 18, 1983, James Cody was beaten, electrocuted, and threatened with castration by officers of the Chicago police department, that systematically tortured more than a hundred black men over thirty years.
November 19, 1988, Judge in Dallas Texas gives reduced sentence to white student for targeting and killing two gay men. He likened them to prostitutes and refused to give someone a life sentence for killing a prostitute.
November 23, 2014, Tamil Rice, a black 12-year-old boy, dies after being shot by the police for playing with a toy gun in a park by his home in Cleveland OH.
November 26, 2016, Southern Poverty Law Center reports 400 physical and verbal attacks and incidents of intimidation and harassment of women, Muslims, immigrants, and African-Americans since Trumps election.
November 27, 1995, Criminologists predict a black youth crime wave calling them “super-predators” leading to laws that expose thousands of black kids to adult prosecution.
December 10, 2008, Police officers in Shenandoah, PA face federal charges for covering up murder of Mexican immigrant Luis Ramirez by white teens spewing racial slurs.
December 22, 2013, Federal court in Alabama upholds a redistricting plan designed by Republicans that reduces black voting power.
Ok, now to mention a few older historic events.
November 22, 1865, (Thanksgiving Day in 2018) just a couple of weeks before ratification of the 13th amendment, Mississippi requires local sheriffs to round-up black orphans and sell them to whites as laborers.
December 24, 1865, Christmas Eve, a group of Confederate Army veterans establishes the Ku Klux Klan in Pulaski, Tennessee.
Here is another interesting event that I found that had an anniversary in October.
October 24, 2012, U.S. Justice Department files civil rights lawsuit against Meridian Mississippi officials for incarcerating black and disable children for dress code violations and talking back to teachers.
It doesn’t look to me like slavery and racist practices are a thing of long ago history. It is still right in front of us. I am not using the race card but showing the entire stacked deck. Thoughts?