A SMALL LOOK BACK:

The Original Django!

Dangerfield Newby (1815 – 1859) was the old­est of John Brown’s raiders, one of five black raiders, and the first of his men to die at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.[1] Born a slave in Fauquier County, Virginia, Newby mar­ried a woman also enslaved. Newby was lat­er freed by his Scottish father, but his wife and sev­en chil­dren remained in bondage.[2] A let­ter found on his body revealed the motive for join­ing John Brown and the raid on Harpers Ferry. Newby’s wife was the slave of Jesse Jennings, of Arlington or Warrenton, Virginia. She and her chil­dren were sold to Louisiana after the raid. Newby had been unable to pur­chase the free­dom of his wife and sev­en chil­dren. Their mas­ter raised the price after Newby had saved the $1,500 that had pre­vi­ous­ly been agreed on. Because all of Newby’s oth­er efforts had failed he hoped to free them by force. Harriet’s poignant let­ters, found on his body, proved instru­men­tal in advanc­ing the abo­li­tion­ist cause. Newby was six foot two.
On the 17^th of October, 1859, the cit­i­zens of Harpers Ferry set to put down the raid. Harpers Ferry man­u­fac­tured guns but the cit­i­zens had lit­tle ammu­ni­tion, so dur­ing the assault on the raiders they fired any­thing they could fit into a gun bar­rel. One man was shoot­ing six inch spikes from his rifle, one of which struck Newby in the throat, killing him instant­ly. After the raid, the peo­ple of Harpers Ferry took his body, stabbed it repeat­ed­ly, and ampu­tat­ed his limbs. His body was left in an alley to be eat­en by hogs.[3] In 1899 the remains of Newby-plus remains of nine oth­er raiders-were reburied in a com­mon grave near the body of John Brown in North Elba New York.
Dangerfield Newby’s descen­dants are still alive today; Tyler Newby cur­rent­ly lives in a sub­urb of Cleveland, Ohio. Josh Newby lives in a sub­urb of San Francisco, California and Drew Szrom lives in Massachusetts.

Sojourner Truth, abo­li­tion­ist and women’s rights activist. She was born a slave and her orig­i­nal name was Isabella Bomfree. She felt called by God to change her name to Sojourner Truth and cru­sade for the rights of slaves and women. As a pow­er­ful speak­er, she drew crowds of peo­ple from across the coun­try. Being unable to read or write, she dic­tat­ed her auto­bi­og­ra­phy titled “The Narrative of Sojourner Truth.” She nursed African American sol­diers dur­ing the Civil War and she estab­lished a job place­ment pro­gram. In 1864, she was appoint­ed by President Abraham Lincoln to coun­sel for­mer slaves on mak­ing the tran­si­tion from being slaves to being free peo­ple. She retired in 1875 to Battle Creek, Michigan.

W.E.B. DuBois, civ­il rights leader, writer. He was the great­est African American intel­lec­tu­al and civ­il rights leader of the 20^th cen­tu­ry before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He was com­mit­ted to gain­ing full cit­i­zen­ship for African Americans and fought against racial prej­u­dices. In 1905, he cofound­ed the Niagara Movement ded­i­cat­ed to the civ­il and polit­i­cal rights of African Americans. The Niagara Movement lat­er became the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Medgar Wiley Evers (July 2, 1925 – June 12, 1963) was an African-American civ­il rights activist from Mississippi involved in efforts to over­turn seg­re­ga­tion at the University of Mississippi. After return­ing from over­seas mil­i­tary ser­vice in World War II and com­plet­ing his sec­ondary edu­ca­tion, he became active in the civ­il rights move­ment. He became a field sec­re­tary for the NAACP.
Evers was assas­si­nat­ed by Byron De La Beckwith, a mem­ber of the White Citizens’ Council. As a vet­er­an, Evers was buried with full mil­i­tary hon­ors at Arlington National Cemetery. His mur­der and the result­ing tri­als inspired civ­il rights protests, as well as numer­ous works of art, music, and film.

Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857), also known as the Dred Scott Decision, was a land­mark deci­sion by the U.S. Supreme Court. It held that the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment had no pow­er to reg­u­late slav­ery in the ter­ri­to­ries, and that peo­ple of African descent (both slave and free) were not pro­tect­ed by the Constitution and were not U.S. cit­i­zens. Since pas­sage of the 14^th Amendment to the U.S. Const…itution, the deci­sion has not been a prece­dent case, but retains his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance as it is wide­ly regard­ed as the worst deci­sion ever made by the Supreme Court. The opin­ion of the court, writ­ten by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, stirred debate. The deci­sion was 7 – 2, and every Justice besides Taney wrote a sep­a­rate con­cur­rence or dis­sent. For the first time since Marbury v. Madison, the Court held an Act of Congress to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. The deci­sion began by con­clud­ing that Scott, as a per­son of African ances­try, was not a cit­i­zen of the United States and there­fore had no right to sue in fed­er­al court. This hold­ing was con­trary to the prac­tice of numer­ous states at the time, par­tic­u­lar­ly Free states, where free blacks did in fact enjoy the rights of cit­i­zens, such as the right to vote and hold pub­lic office. In what is some­times con­sid­ered mere obiter dic­tum, the Court went on to hold that Congress had no author­i­ty to pro­hib­it slav­ery in fed­er­al ter­ri­to­ries because slaves are per­son­al prop­er­ty and the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution pro­tects prop­er­ty own­ers against depri­va­tion of their prop­er­ty with­out due process of law. In reach­ing this deci­sion, Taney had hoped to set­tle the grow­ing con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing slav­ery in the United States, but it had the oppo­site effect. The deci­sion was fierce­ly debat­ed across the coun­try, as per­haps best exem­pli­fied by the Lincoln – Douglas debates of 1858. Abraham Lincoln, the sec­ond-ever Republican nom­i­nee for President, was able to win the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in 1860; the stop­ping of the fur­ther expan­sion of slav­ery was a key Republican par­ty plank. The deci­sion played an impor­tant role in the tim­ing of state seces­sion and the Civil War, although it is extreme to say the deci­sion “caused” the war. The deci­sion is acknowl­edged for the influ­en­tial role it played in alter­ing the nation­al polit­i­cal land­scape: the deci­sion is cred­it­ed with launch­ing Abraham Lincoln’s nation­al polit­i­cal career and ulti­mate­ly allow­ing for his elec­tion. Although the Supreme Court has nev­er explic­it­ly over­ruled the Dred Scott case, the Court stat­ed in the Slaughter-House Cases that at least one part of it had already been over­ruled by the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, which begins by stat­ing, “All per­sons born or nat­u­ral­ized in the United States, and sub­ject to the juris­dic­tion there­of, are cit­i­zens of the United States and of the State where­in they reside.” To which the Court not­ed: The first obser­va­tion we have to make on this clause is, that it puts at rest both the ques­tions which we stat­ed to have been the sub­ject of dif­fer­ences of opin­ion. It declares that per­sons may be cit­i­zens of the United States with­out regard to their cit­i­zen­ship of a par­tic­u­lar State, and it over­turns the Dred Scott deci­sion by mak­ing all per­sons born with­in the United States and sub­ject to its juris­dic­tion cit­i­zens of the United States.