After 70 years of reign­ing as the United Kingdom’s monarch, Queen Elizabeth II will be laid to rest on Sept. 19, but just min­utes after her death was announced on Sept. 8, there were calls for her to return some of the roy­al fam­i­ly jew­els from South Africa.

Two pieces of the largest dia­mond ever dis­cov­ered are affixed in the British Sovereign’s Royal Scepter and the Imperial State Crown. The Star of Africa, or Cullinan, is a 530-carat fine-qual­i­ty col­or­less dia­mond, the largest cut of its kind in the world. It is mount­ed in the scepter and worth an esti­mat­ed $400 mil­lion. The Star of Africa II, or Cullinan II, is 317-carat dia­mond is in the crown. It is unclear how much the sec­ond dia­mond is worth.

Hours before her death, the Twitter account African Archives shared a pic­ture of the queen in the Imperial State Crown ref­er­enc­ing the big­ger dia­mond also known as “The Great Star of Africa” as “stolen” from South Africa. The tweet went viral and picked up speed after news of Elizabeth II’s death broke.

“We need what’s ours,” wrote Twitter user, @Lxngelo, who lives in Cape Town, South Africa.

The two gems were cut from a 3,106-carat dia­mond that was found in Premier Mine in Pretoria, South Africa, in 1905. It is the largest dia­mond dis­cov­ered, weigh­ing 1.33 pounds, accord­ing to History​.com. It was report­ed­ly pre­sent­ed to the reign­ing British monarch, King Edward VII, Elizabeth II’s great-grand­fa­ther, for his birth­day in 1907. The gov­ern­ment of a for­mer South African province, Transvaal, report­ed­ly gift­ed the dia­mond to Edward VII a year after Britain restored its inter­nal self-government.

Many believed that the full dia­mond, worth $2 bil­lion by some esti­mates, was stolen from indige­nous South Africans. Transvaal was over­whelm­ing­ly Boer, South Africans of Dutch, German, or Huguenot descent. The dia­mond was named after Sir Thomas Cullinan, the own­er of the mine, a white man who was born in the British colony Cape Colony.

“She wore this a cen­tu­ry lat­er in a time when the descen­dants of those minework­ers live the lega­cy of that plun­der, still earn a pit­tance and get slaugh­tered at Marikana for demand­ing human stan­dards of work­ing and liv­ing,” wrote Mikaela Nhondo Erskog, an African edu­ca­tor and researcher.

Two Boer provinces, includ­ing Transvaal, fought for their free­dom from Britain from 1899 to 1902. The British gov­ern­ment says the gift sym­bol­ized the heal­ing rela­tion­ship between the two coun­tries after the wars“The British claim that it was giv­en to them as a sym­bol of friend­ship and peace yet it was dur­ing colo­nial­ism. The British then replaced the name ‘The Great Star of Africa’ with name of Chairman of Mine ‘Thomas Cullinan,’” Africa Archives wrote.

The roy­al fam­i­ly has used the scepter in every coro­na­tion since 1661. The Imperial State Crown was made for King George VI in 1937 and is worn by the monarch when leav­ing Westminster Abbey after each coro­na­tion and on spe­cial occa­sions, includ­ing the open­ing of par­lia­ment. Luis Botha, who would become the first prime min­is­ter of the Union of South Africa, peti­tioned in 1907 that the dia­mond be pur­chased for £150,000, or near­ly $173,000, and pre­sent­ed to the British

The whole dia­mond was cut into nine large stones and about 100 small­er ones, accord­ing to Britannica. The queen also report­ed­ly owned the next two biggest stones in her brooch, known as “Granny Chips.”

During a 1995 vis­it to South Africa, Black town­ship lead­ers called on Elizabeth II to return the Great Star of Africa. The Azanian People’s Organization claimed the dia­mond was “stolen from the trea­sures of the Azanian (African) soil.”

“She must be remind­ed that the dia­mond belongs to the Black peo­ple of this coun­try, and to them alone,” said Azapo spokesper­son Zithulele Nxawe.

Buckingham Palace replied with a reminder that the dia­mond was a “gift.”

Although, the U.K. and some parts of the Commonwealth have declared a peri­od of mourn­ing lead­ing up to Elizabeth II’s funer­al, many said they could not feel sor­row for the queen’s death in light of her indul­gence in the pletho­ra of wealth the roy­al fam­i­ly accu­mu­lat­ed from col­o­niza­tion and nev­er acknowl­edg­ing the atroc­i­ties behind them. Some South Africans are urg­ing King Charles III, Elizabeth II’s suc­ces­sor, to return the jewels.

“We do not mourn the death of Elizabeth, because to us her death is a reminder of a very trag­ic peri­od in this coun­try and Africa’s his­to­ry. Britain, under the lead­er­ship of the roy­al fam­i­ly, took over con­trol of this ter­ri­to­ry that would become South Africa in 1795 from Batavian con­trol, and took per­ma­nent con­trol of the ter­ri­to­ry in 1806,” said Economic Freedom Fighters, a pan-Africanist polit­i­cal par­ty in South Africa, in a statement.

“From that moment onwards, native peo­ple of this land have nev­er known peace, nor have they ever enjoyed the fruits of the rich­es of this land, rich­es which were and still are uti­lized for the enrich­ment of the British roy­al fam­i­ly and those who look like them.”

You know we are roy­al­ly f****d in the head when we mourn the pass­ing of the very head of the shit-stim that has raped, enslaved, sodom­ized, and mur­dered our ances­tors and con­tin­ues to degrade us every day.
Stockholm syn­drome it is.….…
I mean, set aside the idea that we should speak no ill of the dead.…… because we will all die some­day. Why would peo­ple with a brain inside their cra­ni­ums allow any­one to tell them how to think or respond to events like the pass­ing of Elizabeth, queen of England?

It real­ly begs the ques­tion of why we should care about peo­ple who not only live priv­i­leged lives but come from a long line of oth­ers who ben­e­fit­ted from mur­der and the enslave­ment, dehu­man­iza­tion, and exploita­tion of oth­er humans for profit.
Take, for instance, Jamaicans who are mourn­ing the death of Elizabeth and have set aside twelve days (12) of mourn­ing, two (2) days more than the Brits them­selves who have decid­ed on ten days (10) of mourn­ing; what exact­ly are Jamaicans mourning?
Am I sup­posed to mourn the per­son who had his knee on my neck sud­den­ly had a heart attack, or should I be relieved?
Should I be the duti­ful slave who shucks and jive when mis­sus dies and mourn more than mis­sus’s fam­i­ly and friends?

Come on, peo­ple, I am ask­ing you to think.…take your eyes off the pomp and pageantry of the event on tele­vi­sion, dis­en­gage from the white­wash­ing of his­to­ry by the paid talk­ing-heads whose jobs it is to human­ize and can­on­ize the dece­dent as if that will restore their souls with a God that judges.
While the mur­der and may­hem were hap­pen­ing, what did you do?
Some of you rave about your edu­ca­tion; you pon­tif­i­cate about hav­ing more degrees than a ther­mome­ter, yet you are as dumb as a door­nail. You are unaware that the edu­ca­tion they gave you was designed to keep you fur­ther enslaved, slav­ish­ly ded­i­cat­ed, and def­er­en­tial to their caus­es, ways, cul­ture, and sense of superiority.
Maybe they are supe­ri­or to some of you, and maybe they were cre­at­ed to be served by some of you.
Because the way you fawn and try to ingra­ti­ate your­selves into accep­tance is frankly nau­se­at­ing. Maybe some of you were jump­ing from trees like mon­keys when they found you because some of you are lit­tle more than that now.

We need not go back to what the European pow­ers did to Africans to rec­og­nize that we as a peo­ple have no stake in mourn­ing any part of the destruc­tion or fall of the house of Babylon. From Africa to Asia, the Caribbean, and places in between, the British Government invad­ed, col­o­nized, bru­tal­ized, and sub­ju­gat­ed hun­dreds of mil­lions whose only sins were that they were going about their dai­ly lives.
It is not for me, a black man to wor­ry about what they did in India, Asia, or the Middle East. My con­cern is about what they did in Africa and the Caribbean. My con­cern is that 188 years after the abo­li­tion of slav­ery in Jamaica, what appears to be a plu­ral­i­ty of Jamaicans are still suf­fer­ing from sep­a­ra­tion anx­i­ety, Stockholm syn­drome, or some oth­er type of psy­cho­log­i­cal disorder.
Digital his­to­ry placed the num­ber of Africans killed dur­ing the North Atlantic Slave trade between 6 – 150 mil­lion. Let us pause for a moment and assim­i­late the grav­i­ty of that charge.
The African holo­caust is some­thing no one wants to talk about. They wrote these atroc­i­ties out of their his-tory books then, and today what lit­tle we learned about their bru­tal­i­ty and bar­barism, they are try­ing des­per­ate­ly to wipe our brains clean of the brutish­ness that char­ac­ter­ized their ances­tors and their own actions.

They would have us believe that slav­ery was a nec­es­sary evil. A grand bar­gain between pow­er­ful white enslavers and well-fed enslaved peo­ple who were con­tent with being fed and tak­en care of as you would some pigs that would end up as bacon.
The sad irony is that even if any iota of the fore­gone were true, it would still be slav­ery where one group owns another.
The white­wash­ing of his­tor­i­cal events like the African slave trade and what it means for peo­ple both on the con­ti­nent and in the dias­po­ra depicts a dement­ed and depraved mind­set by a peo­ple deter­mined to con­tin­ue to lie and deceive even as their num­bers and pow­er are diminishing.
And so they are doing what they do best, divide and con­quer, and why not? They have always been able to get sil­ly negroes to look at them all google-eyed as if they are gods from anoth­er plan­et. Many Blacks still look at them that way today and will kill you if you dare speak out against these demons for the crimes they have committed.

The largest slave trade in the his­to­ry of the world was cre­at­ed by white Christian Europeans. Before it was over, as many as 60 mil­lion Africans would be killed for the prof­it of white Christian impe­ri­al­ism. A key rea­son for the high death toll was the tidal wave of war and des­o­la­tion that the slave trade unleashed into the heart of Africa. Huge num­bers of peo­ple died being marched to the coasts of Africa from the inte­ri­or, as well as in an end­less series of wars pro­duced by the quest for new­ly enslaved peo­ple. Millions more would die in con­cen­tra­tion camps at both ends of the sea jour­ney, and sig­nif­i­cant num­bers would die due to the appalling con­di­tions on the slave ships. The finan­cial prof­its of this slave trade helped build the eco­nom­ic foun­da­tions of America. It was not just the south. Northern busi­ness inter­ests made huge prof­its too. (world​fu​ture​fund​.org)
Richard Drayton wrote for the Guardian in 2005, “the wealth of the west was built on Africa’s exploita­tion.” A well-known fact and some­thing that ought to draw yawns and exhausted-‘yes we knows”. But this is no jok­ing matter.
Britain was the prin­ci­pal slav­ing nation of the mod­ern world. In The Empire Pays Back, a doc­u­men­tary called on the British to take stock of this past. Why had Britain not apol­o­gized for African slav­ery, as it had done for the Irish pota­to famine? Why was there no sub­stan­tial pub­lic mon­u­ment of nation­al con­tri­tion equiv­a­lent to Berlin’s Holocaust Museum? Why, most cru­cial­ly, was there no recog­ni­tion of how wealth extract­ed from Africa and Africans made pos­si­ble the vig­or and pros­per­i­ty of mod­ern Britain? Was there not a case for Britain to pay repa­ra­tions to the descen­dants of enslaved Africans?
I ask why are Jamaicans mourn­ing the death of Elizabeth, the head of the house of Windsor. The last time the sub­ject of repa­ra­tions was broached at the Prime Ministerial lev­el David Cameron was Prime Minister of England, and Portia Simpson Miller was in Jamaica House.

In 2020 Brooke Newman writ­ing for slate said: In Britain, as in the United States, the anti-racism protests that have erupt­ed since the police killing of George Floyd in late May have rein­vig­o­rat­ed cam­paigns for repa­ra­tions for slav­ery. Having only recent­ly acknowl­edged their his­tor­i­cal links to slav­ery and the trans-Atlantic slave trade, British uni­ver­si­ties and London finan­cial insti­tu­tions are fac­ing calls to make amends for past injus­tices and pay repa­ra­tions to the descen­dants of enslaved peo­ple. But one insti­tu­tion has remained silent: the British monar­chy. Still, it’s no secret that the his­to­ry of the British roy­al fam­i­ly is inter­twined with slav­ery. The slave-trad­ing ini­tia­tives endorsed by the English monar­chy began with Queen Elizabeth I’s enthu­si­as­tic sup­port of John Hawkins’ slav­ing expe­di­tions in the 1560s. In three sep­a­rate voy­ages backed by gov­ern­ment offi­cials, London mer­chants, and the queen, Hawkins raid­ed African set­tle­ments on the West African coast and seized hun­dreds of enslaved cap­tives from Portuguese ships. In defi­ance of Portugal’s dom­i­nance over the European slave trade in Africans, Hawkins sold his car­go of African cap­tives in the Spanish Caribbean. After his prof­itable sec­ond voy­age, the queen hon­ored Hawkins with a coat of arms and crest fea­tur­ing a nude African bound with rope.
No, it was not this Elizabeth that recent­ly passed, but look at England today and a small glimpse of the insane wealth and opu­lence that the enslave­ment and mur­der of our ances­tors brought to the priv­i­leged in England today.

Cameron not only rebuffed demands for his gov­ern­ment to pay repa­ra­tions, but he also refused to apol­o­gize for its role in the slave trade dur­ing his vis­it to Jamaica.
David Cameron stood in the Jamaican par­lia­ment and told the Jamaican peo­ple that slav­ery was “abhor­rent in all its forms” but called for the two coun­tries to “move on” and look to the future.” Wait, what the f***?
Oh, sor­ry, my bad, I am not an elo­quent lau­re­ate from the Bourjois, I am a Jamaican Blackman with a brain in my head, and I am extreme­ly proud of that.
But I digress; the Ass‑w*** offered Jamaicans a prison.….. yes, a prison, a prison that would house British [sub­jects], many of whom nev­er set foot in Jamaica but were born to Jamaican par­ents who went to England to build that coun­try after Hitler dec­i­mat­ed it with his nazi bombs.
Those peo­ple heed­ed the call, and now that Britain used them up as it had used up their ances­tors for free, she want­ed them out.

Might make right for sure because you best believe that if I had the pow­er, I would march right in, over­turn every­thing not nailed down, and take every last ounce of what belongs to us. From the stolen African arti­facts to every pen­ny of repa­ra­tions owed us.

There is a strange unex­plained phe­nom­e­non that I am yet to under­stand; it is the propen­si­ty of some negroes to dis­re­gard all of the evils that white peo­ple did to them and their ances­tors and will lit­er­al­ly kill their own black broth­ers and sis­ters who dare point to those atrocities.
It gets worse when they are allowed to get some of the white man’s brain­wash­ing that they call get­ting an edu­ca­tion. I have a lot more to say, but Nah, I have made my point. And so, as a rebel, I harken to the words of anoth­er true Jamaican rebel.

“We don’t have edu­ca­tion; we have inspi­ra­tion; if I was edu­cat­ed, I would be a damn fool.”

.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

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Lizzie Pugh, a Black Detroit pub­lic schools retiree, has filed a fed­er­al law­suit alleg­ing that white employ­ees at Fifth Third Bank in Livonia refused to cash and deposit her slot machine jack­pot check. She won it dur­ing a church out­ing to the Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort in Mt. Pleasant.

The 71-year-old alleges that three white bank employ­ees told her the five-fig­ure check was fraud­u­lent and refused to give it back, reports Tresa Baldas of the Detroit Free Press. Pugh, who is a dea­con at her church, says it’s bla­tant racism.

“I couldn’t real­ly believe they did that to me,” Pugh tells the Freep. “I was dev­as­tat­ed. I kept ask­ing, ‘How do you know the check is not real?’ … And they just insist­ed that it was fraud­u­lent. … I was terrified.”

The Aug. 29 law­suit filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit says after much per­sis­tence that day, she got the bank to return her check, which she then deposit­ed at a near­by Chase bank. It cleared the fol­low­ing day with­out issue, the law­suit says. Fifth Third Bank did­n’t respond to sev­er­al requests for comment.

The Civil War in the United States began in 1861, after decades of sim­mer­ing ten­sions between north­ern and south­ern states over slav­ery, states’ rights, and west­ward expan­sion. The elec­tion of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 caused sev­en south­ern states to secede and form the Confederate States of America; four more states soon joined them. The War Between the States, as the Civil War was also known, end­ed in the Confederate sur­ren­der in 1865. The con­flict was the costli­est and dead­liest war ever fought on American soil, with some 620,000 of 2.4 mil­lion sol­diers killed, mil­lions more injured, and much of the South left in ruin

Causes of the Civil War

In the mid-19^th cen­tu­ry, while the United States was expe­ri­enc­ing an era of tremen­dous growth, a fun­da­men­tal eco­nom­ic dif­fer­ence exist­ed between the country’s north­ern and south­ern regions.

In the North, man­u­fac­tur­ing, and indus­try was well estab­lished, and agri­cul­ture was most­ly lim­it­ed to small-scale farms, while the South’s econ­o­my was based on a sys­tem of large-scale farm­ing that depend­ed on the labor of Black enslaved peo­ple to grow cer­tain crops, espe­cial­ly cot­ton and tobacco.

Growing abo­li­tion­ist sen­ti­ment in the North after the 1830s and north­ern oppo­si­tion to slavery’s exten­sion into the new west­ern ter­ri­to­ries led many south­ern­ers to fear that the exis­tence of slav­ery in America—and thus the back­bone of their econ­o­my — was in danger.

In 1854, the U.S. Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which essen­tial­ly opened all new ter­ri­to­ries to slav­ery by assert­ing the rule of pop­u­lar sov­er­eign­ty over con­gres­sion­al edict. Pro- and anti-slav­ery forces strug­gled vio­lent­ly in “Bleeding Kansas,” while oppo­si­tion to the act in the North led to the for­ma­tion of the Republican Party, a new polit­i­cal enti­ty based on the prin­ci­ple of oppos­ing slavery’s exten­sion into the west­ern ter­ri­to­ries. After the Supreme Court’s rul­ing in the Dred Scott case (1857) con­firmed the legal­i­ty of slav­ery in the ter­ri­to­ries, the abo­li­tion­ist John Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry in 1859 con­vinced more and more south­ern­ers that their north­ern neigh­bors were bent on the destruc­tion of the “pecu­liar insti­tu­tion” that sus­tained them. Abraham Lincoln’s elec­tion in November 1860 was the final straw, and with­in three months, sev­en south­ern states–South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas–had seced­ed from the United States.

Even as Lincoln took office in March 1861, Confederate forces threat­ened the fed­er­al-held Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. On April 12, after Lincoln ordered a fleet to resup­ply Sumter, Confederate artillery fired the first shots of the Civil War. Sumter’s com­man­der, Major Robert Anderson, sur­ren­dered after less than two days of bom­bard­ment, leav­ing the fort in the hands of Confederate forces under Pierre G.T. Beauregard. Four more south­ern states–Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee –joined the Confederacy after Fort Sumter. Border slave states like Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland did not secede, but there was much Confederate sym­pa­thy among their citizens.

Though on the sur­face, the Civil War may have seemed a lop­sided con­flict, with the 23 states of the Union enjoy­ing an enor­mous advan­tage in pop­u­la­tion, man­u­fac­tur­ing (includ­ing arms pro­duc­tion), and rail­road con­struc­tion, the Confederates had a strong mil­i­tary tra­di­tion, along with some of the best sol­diers and com­man­ders in the nation. They also had a cause they believed in: pre­serv­ing their long-held tra­di­tions and insti­tu­tions, chief among these being slavery.

In the First Battle of Bull Run (known in the South as First Manassas) on July 21, 1861, 35,000 Confederate sol­diers under the com­mand of Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson forced a greater num­ber of Union forces (or Federals) to retreat toward Washington, D.C., dash­ing any hopes of a quick Union vic­to­ry and lead­ing Lincoln to call for 500,000 more recruits. In fact, both sides’ ini­tial call for troops had to be widened after it became clear that the war would not be a lim­it­ed or short conflict.

The Civil War in Virginia (1862)

George B. McClellan–who replaced the aging General Winfield Scott as supreme com­man­der of the Union Army after the first months of the war – was beloved by his troops, but his reluc­tance to advance frus­trat­ed Lincoln. In the spring of 1862, McClellan final­ly led his Army of the Potomac up the penin­su­la between the York and James Rivers, cap­tur­ing Yorktown on May 4. The com­bined forces of Robert E. Lee and Jackson suc­cess­ful­ly drove back McClellan’s army in the Seven Days’ Battles (June 25-July 1), and a cau­tious McClellan called for yet more rein­force­ments in order to move against Richmond. Lincoln refused and instead with­drew the Army of the Potomac to Washington. By mid-1862, McClellan had been replaced as Union gen­er­al-in-chief by Henry W. Halleck, though he remained in com­mand of the Army of the Potomac.

Lee then moved his troops north­wards and split his men, send­ing Jackson to meet Pope’s forces near Manassas, while Lee him­self moved sep­a­rate­ly with the sec­ond half of the army. On August 29, Union troops led by John Pope struck Jackson’s forces in the Second Battle of Bull Run (Second Manassas). The next day, Lee hit the Federal left flank with a mas­sive assault, dri­ving Pope’s men back towards Washington. On the heels of his vic­to­ry at Manassas, Lee began the first Confederate inva­sion of the North. Despite con­tra­dic­to­ry orders from Lincoln and Halleck, McClellan was able to reor­ga­nize his army and strike at Lee on September 14 in Maryland, dri­ving the Confederates back to a defen­sive posi­tion along Antietam Creek, near Sharpsburg.

On September 17, the Army of the Potomac hit Lee’s forces (rein­forced by Jackson’s) in what became the war’s blood­i­est sin­gle day of fight­ing. Total casu­al­ties at the Battle of Antietam (also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg) num­bered 12,410 of some 69,000 troops on the Union side, and 13,724 of around 52,000 for the Confederates. The Union vic­to­ry at Antietam would prove deci­sive, as it halt­ed the Confederate advance in Maryland and forced Lee to retreat into Virginia. Still, McClellan’s fail­ure to pur­sue his advan­tage earned him the scorn of Lincoln and Halleck, who removed him from com­mand in favor of Ambrose E. Burnside. Burnside’s assault on Lee’s troops near Fredericksburg on December 13 end­ed in heavy Union casu­al­ties and a Confederate vic­to­ry; he was prompt­ly replaced by Joseph “Fighting Joe” Hooker, and both armies set­tled into win­ter quar­ters across the Rappahannock River from each other.

After the Emancipation Proclamation (1863−4)

Lincoln had used the occa­sion of the Union vic­to­ry at Antietam to issue a pre­lim­i­nary Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all enslaved peo­ple in the rebel­lious states after January 1, 1863. He jus­ti­fied his deci­sion as a wartime mea­sure and did not go so far as to free the enslaved peo­ple in the bor­der states loy­al to the Union. Still, the Emancipation Proclamation deprived the Confederacy of the bulk of its labor forces and put inter­na­tion­al pub­lic opin­ion strong­ly on the Union side. Some 186,000 Black Civil War sol­diers would join the Union Army by the time the war end­ed in 1865, and 38,000 lost their lives.

In the spring of 1863, Hooker’s plans for a Union offen­sive were thwart­ed by a sur­prise attack by the bulk of Lee’s forces on May 1, where­upon Hooker pulled his men back to Chancellorsville. The Confederates gained a cost­ly vic­to­ry in the Battle of Chancellorsville, suf­fer­ing 13,000 casu­al­ties (around 22 per­cent of their troops); the Union lost 17,000 men (15 per­cent). Lee launched anoth­er inva­sion of the North in June, attack­ing Union forces com­mand­ed by General George Meade on July 1 near Gettysburg in south­ern Pennsylvania. Over three days of fierce fight­ing, the Confederates were unable to push through the Union cen­ter and suf­fered casu­al­ties of close to 60 percent.

Meade failed to coun­ter­at­tack, how­ev­er, and Lee’s remain­ing forces were able to escape into Virginia, end­ing the last Confederate inva­sion of the North. Also, in July 1863, Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant took Vicksburg (Mississippi) in the Siege of Vicksburg, a vic­to­ry that would prove to be the turn­ing point of the war in the west­ern the­ater. After a Confederate vic­to­ry at Chickamauga Creek, Georgia, just south of Chattanooga, Tennessee, in September, Lincoln expand­ed Grant’s com­mand, and he led a rein­forced Federal army (includ­ing two corps from the Army of the Potomac) to vic­to­ry in the Battle of Chattanooga in late November.

Toward a Union Victory (1864−65)

In March 1864, Lincoln put Grant in supreme com­mand of the Union armies, replac­ing Halleck. Leaving William Tecumseh Sherman in con­trol in the West, Grant head­ed to Washington, where he led the Army of the Potomac towards Lee’s troops in north­ern Virginia. Despite heavy Union casu­al­ties in the Battle of the Wilderness and at Spotsylvania (both May 1864), at Cold Harbor (ear­ly June), and the key rail cen­ter of Petersburg (June), Grant pur­sued a strat­e­gy of attri­tion, putting Petersburg under siege for the next nine months.

Sherman out­ma­neu­vered Confederate forces to take Atlanta by September, after which he and some 60,000 Union troops began the famous “March to the Sea,” dev­as­tat­ing Georgia on the way to cap­tur­ing Savannah on December 21. Columbia and Charleston, South Carolina, fell to Sherman’s men by mid-February, and Jefferson Davis belat­ed­ly hand­ed over the supreme com­mand to Lee, with the Confederate war effort on its last legs. Sherman pressed on through North Carolina, cap­tur­ing Fayetteville, Bentonville, Goldsboro, and Raleigh by mid-April.

Meanwhile, exhaust­ed by the Union siege of Petersburg and Richmond, Lee’s forces made a last attempt at resis­tance, attack­ing and cap­tur­ing the Federal-con­trolled Fort Stedman on March 25. An imme­di­ate coun­ter­at­tack reversed the vic­to­ry, how­ev­er, and on the night of April 2 – 3 Lee’s forces evac­u­at­ed Richmond. For most of the next week, Grant and Meade pur­sued the Confederates along the Appomattox River, final­ly exhaust­ing their pos­si­bil­i­ties for escape. Grant accept­ed Lee’s sur­ren­der at Appomattox Court House on April 9. On the eve of vic­to­ry, the Union lost its great leader: The actor and Confederate sym­pa­thiz­er John Wilkes Booth assas­si­nat­ed President Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in Washington on April 14. Sherman received Johnston’s sur­ren­der at Durham Station, North Carolina, on April 26, effec­tive­ly end­ing the Civil War. (History​.com)

A Black Texas cou­ple were sub­jects of mis­tak­en iden­ti­ty gone ter­ri­bly wrong as police search­ing for teenagers left the elder­ly cou­ple trau­ma­tized as they were held at gun­point and hand­cuffed. The cou­ple has since filed a law­suit against the depart­ment accus­ing them of exces­sive force.

A Black dis­abled man has filed a $50 mil­lion law­suit against the police he claims used exces­sive force after wrong­ly accus­ing him of a crime he did not com­mit. “I thought I was going to die in this sit­u­a­tion,” said Waverly Lucas, 48, an amputee who uses a pros­thet­ic leg. “The only rea­son they stopped him was because of the col­or of his skin,” said Heather Palmore, chief tri­al coun­sel with the Napoli Shkolnik law firm and Lucas’ attorney.

It’s been a year since Lucas of Long Island, New York was the vic­tim of a vio­lent arrest by Suffolk County police as he attempt­ed to vis­it the con­ve­nience store near his home.

“The gas sta­tion I was going to was at the cor­ner from my house that I lived for all my life so you might just go there to get a soda or some­thing to drink,” Lucas said.

Lucas says, he just pulled up to a Gulf gas sta­tion in the Long Island town of Wyandach, New York, on Aug. 18, 2021, and as he was get­ting out of his car prepar­ing to go inside, he was putting on his pros­thet­ic leg when Suffolk County police offi­cers Michael Casey and Michael Renna approached him, ask­ing for his iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and accused him of uri­nat­ing in public.

“There’s no evi­dence of that, what’s clear is he had stopped his vehi­cle and he had attempt­ed to put his leg on to walk into the con­ve­nience store and there’s noth­ing else oth­er than that,” Palmore said.

Lucas began record­ing the police encounter on Facebook Live, which shows what hap­pened next, when police became phys­i­cal­ly aggres­sive with him. According to the law­suit filed over the inci­dent, an offi­cer placed Lucas in a choke­hold, then grabbed his arms and wrenched them. After hav­ing his arms pulled to be hand­cuffed, Lucas was shoved towards the police car and placed into the back seat.

“I thought I was going to die in this sit­u­a­tion because I’m being choked out and I don’t know if anybody’s ever been choked out, but you go to sleep, and I just thought I was going to die and there was noth­ing I could do,” Lucas said.

The law­suit also accus­es the offi­cers of pulling on Lucas’ pros­thet­ic leg and throw­ing it into the trunk of the police car, leav­ing the ampu­tat­ed Lucas in seri­ous pain.

“It was excru­ci­at­ing pain, when some­one is try­ing to bend some­thing that is con­nect­ed to your body and when you’ve got your kneecap pop­ping out at the same time, you’re not think­ing about any at the time but the pain that you’re going through and that’s all I can remem­ber think­ing at the time is the excru­ci­at­ing pain,” Lucas said.

Once tak­en to jail, Lucas’ trou­bles con­tin­ued as he was charged with obstruc­tion, resist­ing arrest and pos­ses­sion of his doc­tor-pre­scribed Oxycodone pain med­i­cine. Those charges were lat­er dropped.

“Maybe an hour or so pri­or to all of this hap­pen­ing, so it was a brand-new pre­scrip­tion, it was dat­ed and logged and it’s fed­er­al record every time you get a nar­cot­ic,” Lucas said

After first being sent to jail, Lucas was tak­en to a hos­pi­tal where he did not receive treat­ment — at least not at first, accord­ing to his attorney.

“He wasn’t treat­ed at the hos­pi­tal because he was in cus­tody at the time and the way he was being treat­ed at the hos­pi­tal is not that what you would expect,” Palmore said.

Palmore says Lucas returned back to jail to be processed and booked. When Lucas final­ly left the jail for good, he was tak­en by ambu­lance back to the hos­pi­tal but with­out his pros­thet­ic leg which had been tak­en by police, the law­suit claims Lucas was left to hop on one leg out of the police precinct. 

“When he returns back to the hos­pi­tal, he was made to crawl out of the precinct, crawl out of the precinct and was removed back to the same hos­pi­tal and had to stay overnight and that’s when he was diag­nosed with the frac­tured orbital due to the arrest,” Palmore said.

With a slew of alle­ga­tions lodged against the Suffolk County police, Atlanta Black Star request­ed a response from the Suffolk County Police Department. A spokes­woman said by phone, the depart­ment had no comment.

“They per­formed an ille­gal search of his vehi­cle after he was already in cus­tody, took the keys out of his hand and entered his vehi­cle although he wasn’t there so there are a lot of lay­ers here,” Palmore said.

Lucas filed a $50 mil­lion exces­sive force law­suit against the police on Aug. 8. He and his lawyer want to see pol­i­cy change so the department’s pat­tern of tar­get­ing peo­ple of col­or will stop.

“Policy change, dis­ci­pli­nary action against the offi­cers,” Palmore said. “This is a micro­cosm of what goes on every sin­gle day in com­mu­ni­ties of col­or here,” she continued.

Police con­tin­ue to shoot black peo­ple in ways that they dare not shoot ani­mals with­out con­se­quence. Worse yet, the sys­tem con­tin­ues to allow one police agency to inves­ti­gate anoth­er police agency and come to con­clu­sions of inno­cence or guilt as if it isn’t still police inves­ti­gat­ing police.
As a for­mer Police offi­cer, I am pre­dis­posed to giv­ing police offi­cers the ben­e­fit of the doubt in tense sit­u­a­tions where it’s life and death, and they are forced to make snap decisions.
In most of these killings, we are wit­ness­ing not sit­u­a­tions where offi­cers shoot because they see a gun; they are shoot­ing peo­ple based on the alle­ga­tions against them.
Please remem­ber that we are devolv­ing from a stan­dard where an assailant had to be in actu­al pos­ses­sion of an iden­ti­fi­able gun and point­ing, turn­ing, or lift­ing the [gun] to point it toward a per­son, includ­ing a cop, for police to be jus­ti­fied in shoot­ing that assailant.
We have now devolved to where police offi­cers are shoot­ing peo­ple who do not have weapons and have made [no]hostile moves toward police.

We can­not as a soci­ety have a devolv­ing stan­dard that jus­ti­fies police killing cit­i­zens as the stan­dard of law enforce­ment. Look how far we have devolved from freeze-drop your weapon to the present, where sim­ply awak­en­ing from deep sleep is enough to get one mur­dered by law enforce­ment officers.
President Biden, in a recent speech, said he is against defund­ing the police, and he is against defund­ing the FBI. one of his senior advis­ers, for­mer Atlanta Mayor Keish Lance-Bottoms, an African-American woman, puts it best on Tuesday, ‘we want law enforce­ment to keep our com­mu­ni­ties safe not warriors.
We can­not con­tin­ue to con­done police killing our peo­ple based on alle­ga­tions that they, the police them­selves, made against the per­son. This police depart­ment has been and still is one of the most vio­lent, bru­tal, and lethal­ly unlaw­ful police depart­ments in the United States. That speaks vol­umes about the lethal­i­ty of the depart­ment based on the vio­lence that char­ac­ter­izes most, if not all of the over 18,000 police depart­ments across the country.
We know quite well that a large per­cent­age of cops are absolute­ly no good. We should stop these killings once and for all.(mb).’

AP Andrew Welsh-Huggins

Footage shows an offi­cer imme­di­ate­ly shoot­ing Donovan Lewis after open­ing a bed­room door. The city’s police chief claims Lewis appeared to be hold­ing a vape pen.

Dumb big­ot­ed cops, the bane of police depart­ments across America no longer the excep­tions as some would have you believe they are the rule. The idea is not to pro­tect and serve; it is to bul­ly, arrest and even kill.
Pastor Jennings did iden­ti­fy him­self even though he had no oblig­a­tion to do that; he also told them he lived right across the street.
Here we have a trio of hick cops, includ­ing what appears to be a super­vi­sor with no abil­i­ty to think crit­i­cal­ly, who went to the arrest option rather than walk away after they saw that there was no crime being committed.
The crime pas­tor Jennings com­mit­ted was “con­tempt of cop.”
First, they refer to him as ‘man,’ not sir, ‘lis­ten to me, man.’ How do I know you were water­ing flow­ers? Because he had a water hose in his hand with after flow from it.
Here is the thing, these men­tal midgets would have approached a white man com­plete­ly; dif­fer­ent­ly, it would have been hi there, sir; sor­ry to both­er you, and there would have been no demand for identification.
Furthermore, Pastor Jennings [did] tell the clown that he was pas­tor Jennings and that he was water­ing his neigh­bor’s flowers.
That ought to have been the end of it; sor­ry to both­er you sir and be on their way. But they are so addict­ed to demand­ing black peo­ple’s iden­ti­fi­ca­tions that they are not sure how to oper­ate when they are told no.
Even when they have the per­son­’s name, they now demand their social secu­ri­ty num­ber, which they have absolute­ly no right to.
The tragedy inher­ent in this sad affair is that they actu­al­ly planned what kind of charge to ginn up to charge him with on cam­era. The charge they end­ed up with was ‘obstruc­tion of gov­ern­men­tal oper­a­tions, which was prompt­ly dismissed.
The white woman refused to give her name and was allowed to walk away with­out charge.

As a layper­son, it took me some time, mean­ing many years, to real­ize that it is one of the hard­est things for a brain­washed per­son to fig­ure out that they are brainwashed.
Brainwashing: to make (some­one) adopt rad­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent beliefs by using sys­tem­at­ic and often forcible pressure.
What does it mean when a per­son is brain­washed? A forcible indoc­tri­na­tion induces some­one to give up basic polit­i­cal, social, or reli­gious beliefs and atti­tudes and to accept con­trast­ing reg­i­ment­ed ideas.
How can you tell if some­one is brain­washed?

1. They Blatantly Lie. The abuser bla­tant­ly and habit­u­al­ly lies to change anoth­er per­son­’s reality. …
2. They Attack Things Important to You. …
3. They Project. …
4. They Manipulate Your Relationships. …
5. They Wear You Down. …
6. They Dangle Compliments as Weapons. 

What is an exam­ple of brainwashing?
To brain­wash is to change some­one’s beliefs or atti­tudes using intense teach­ing and indoc­tri­na­tion. An exam­ple of brain­wash­ing is to lock new reli­gious con­verts in a room and teach them the details of reli­gion with­out allow­ing access to the out­side world. To sub­ject to brainwashing.

To sub­ject to brainwashing.
(1)To indoc­tri­nate so inten­sive­ly and thor­ough­ly as to effect a rad­i­cal trans­for­ma­tion of beliefs and men­tal attitudes.
(2) The process or an instance of brainwashing.
(3) To brain­wash is to change some­one’s beliefs or atti­tudes using intense teach­ing and indoctrination.
(4)To affect one’s mind using extreme men­tal pres­sure or any oth­er mind-affect­ing process. (i.e., hypnosis)
(5) An effect upon one’s mem­o­ry, belief, or ideas.

How does brain­wash­ing affect the brain?
Long-term effects of brain­wash­ing have been linked with com­plex PTSD, depres­sion, anx­i­ety, and sui­ci­dal thoughts. Withdrawal from life. Victims of brain­wash­ing often inter­nal­ize their anger, lead­ing to depres­sion, anx­i­ety, and some­times suicide.

Does Teaching Religion “Brainwash” Kids? Perhaps the best answer to this ques­tion I’ve seen is this expla­na­tion from wor​don​fire​.org.

Is teach­ing chil­dren reli­gion brain­wash­ing? The ques­tion was posed at Debate​.org, and an astound­ing 86% of respon­dents said yes. So why should Christian par­ents share the Gospel with their children?

The clear­est answer to this comes from St. John Paul II’s encycli­cal on the rela­tion­ship between faith and rea­son (fit­ting­ly, called Faith and Reason, or Fides et Ratio). The encycli­cal opens this way:

Faith and rea­son are like two wings on which the human spir­it ris­es to the con­tem­pla­tion of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth — in a word, to know him­self — so that, by know­ing and lov­ing God, men and women may also come to the full­ness of truth about them­selves (cf. Ex 33:18; Ps 27:8 – 9; 63:2 – 3; Jn 14:8; 1 Jn 3:2).

This is a rad­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent under­stand­ing of reli­gion and intel­lec­tu­al­ism than many assume. He’s not say­ing, “watch out for sci­ence,” or “come to church, but leave your brain at the door.” He’s not say­ing, “you don’t need a rea­son any­more because you’ve got faith.” No, he’s say­ing that faith is a gift from God, but so is rea­son, and both faith and rea­son are giv­en to us to help us to respond to this hunger; we all have to know the truth. And in fact, this intel­lec­tu­al hunger is itself a gift from God. Maybe you haven’t noticed this, but man is the only ani­mal that has this yearn­ing to know the truth about God, the uni­verse, and him­self. That hunger can cause a lot of unhap­pi­ness when we’re lost and con­fused. But it’s pre­cise­ly in work­ing through this hunger faith­ful­ly and rea­son­ably that we come to know and love God and learn the deep­est truths about who we are. (wor​don​fire​.org)

As a per­son of faith, I have con­sis­tent­ly looked at how Christians usu­al­ly behave toward each oth­er; their behav­ior ebb and flows based on their likes and dis­likes. Indoctrinated Christians have absolute­ly no time or patience for any­thing some­one who dis­agrees with their the­ol­o­gy (what they were told) has to say.
The same is true for oth­er reli­gions that teach that any devi­a­tion from the ortho­doxy of what they teach is pun­ish­able by death.
For exam­ple, Salman Rushdie was forced into hid­ing because he wrote the book ( The Satanic Verses) which crit­i­cized Islam. Mister Rushdie was recent­ly stabbed repeat­ed­ly at a pub­lic event and has been con­va­lesc­ing at a hos­pi­tal after being in crit­i­cal condition.
The many facets of mod­ern Christianity tend to be less vis­cer­al in deal­ing with dis­sent; notwith­stand­ing, the con­tra­dic­tions of the faith as espoused by the com­pet­ing branch­es have been vast­ly crit­i­cized and even ridiculed by thinkers from the outside.
People with anti-reli­gious views would always have ammu­ni­tion to go up against faith-based religion.

Mahatma Gandhi was assas­si­nat­ed in New Delhi by a Hindu Nationalist at an inter­faith gath­er­ing for his legal and activist work on behalf of Muslims in 1948. Martin Luther King was assas­si­nat­ed by peo­ple in the United States who casu­al­ly refer to them­selves as Christians.
Dr. King was a Christian preach­er, but his vision of a nation where all peo­ple would have the same rights and priv­i­leges clashed with the views of oth­ers who want­ed those rights and priv­i­leges all to themselves.
Nowadays, we see mem­bers of the same church not speak­ing to each oth­er. We see mem­bers of the same small con­gre­ga­tion jock­ey­ing for atten­tion. Not for God’s atten­tion but for the pas­tor’s atten­tion and approval. Husband against wife, wife against hus­band, dea­con against dea­con. It is the very def­i­n­i­tion of brain­wash­ing. The very rea­son so many drank the cool-aid in Jim Jones Guyana cult.

Both my grand­fa­thers were men of the Christian faith. My mater­nal grand­dad was choir direc­tor in his church, and my pater­nal grand grand­fa­ther was a trained pas­tor and educator.
My father is, at best, an agnos­tic, vis­cer­al­ly opposed to any idea of reli­gion. I once asked him to explain his strained rela­tion­ship with his father, my grandad, he told me reli­gion made a rela­tion­ship with him impossible.
I thought how sad it was that some­thing that should be bring­ing peo­ple clos­er was tear­ing them apart.
My father pub­lished a book of poet­ry years ago; look­ing at the book, I often won­dered whether his strained rela­tion­ship with his dad may have influ­enced the title.
Some anti-reli­gious com­men­ta­tors have argued that reli­gion is harm­ful to humans. For exam­ple, hun­dreds of mil­lions have died in so-called “Holy Wars,” “Jihads, Crusades,” or any reli­gious quar­rel. It pro­motes extreme reac­tion­ism and the thought that the lives of peo­ple not list­ed as “okay” in the Bible, Torah, or Koran are not valu­able; and, there­fore, expendable.
There are black and white ver­sions of Christianity right here in the good old US of A. The white ver­sion believes that it is supe­ri­or to the black version.
Setting reli­gion aside, how can those who are faith lead­ers attract con­verts to the faith in light of these inconsistencies?
How do we explain being more con­cerned about what the pas­tor thinks than what God thinks as we jock­ey to demon­strate who loves the pas­tor more than who loves God more?
I am just ask­ing, do not shoot the mes­sen­ger; we need to self-exam­ine our­selves and deter­mine whether we are adher­ing to the dic­tates of the most high God or we are active­ly com­mit­ting idol­a­try in the open.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

If you thought the orange mon­ster was the only men­ace to democ­ra­cy, think again. Developing in the sew­er swamps of Florida’s ran­cid lagoons is anoth­er wannabe author­i­tar­i­an who has done every­thing in his pow­er to turn back the clock to the 1920s in his state.
He is a bul­ly and a big­ot who hates crit­i­cal race the­o­ry and gets indig­nant that chil­dren are taught the true his­to­ry of America, not the watered-down ver­sion of what hap­pened to black peo­ple here.

»»»»

By Phillip Jackson

A civ­il rights group is ask­ing for a fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tion into “sys­temic, con­doned racism” in a small town where 86% of the pop­u­la­tion is Black.

If you are Black, have a family, and live in the United States but want to discuss sports and movies with me but have no clue about what is happening around you otherwise.
Do me a favor, miss me with the questions on sports and movies. I am not your guy. (mb)

By Andrew Wolfson

Former Louisville Metro Police Detective Kelly Goodlett will plead guilty to one count of con­spir­ing to vio­late the civ­il rights of Breonna Taylor for help­ing fal­si­fy an affi­davit for the search of her apart­ment in March 2020, her attor­ney said. 

Goodlett will appear Aug. 22 before U.S. District Judge David Hall to enter her plea, her lawyer, Brandon Marshall, announced in court Friday.

Magistrate Judge Regina Edwards ordered Goodlett to sur­ren­der her pass­port and have no con­tact with her code­fen­dants ― Sgt. Kyle Meany and for­mer detec­tives Joshua Jaynes and Brett Hankison.

Goodlett was expect­ed to plead guilty ― and tes­ti­fy against her col­leagues ― because she was charged by infor­ma­tion rather than indicted.

LATEST:Feds charge 4 Louisville police offi­cers in Breonna Taylor shooting

She faces a sen­tence of no more than five years in prison.

The charg­ing doc­u­ment says Goodlett false­ly claimed a postal inspec­tor had ver­i­fied Taylor was receiv­ing pack­ages for her ex-boyfriend, con­vict­ed drug deal­er Jamarcus Glover, at her apart­ment before the raid

Goodlett, a detec­tive in the now-dis­band­ed Place-Based Investigations, also is charged with know­ing­ly con­spir­ing with Jaynes and oth­ers to fal­si­fy the search war­rant affidavit.

She is also accused of false­ly telling inves­ti­ga­tors with the Kentucky Attorney General’s office that Sgt. John Mattingly “in pass­ing” had told Goodlett and Jaynes that three months before Taylor’s death that Glover was get­ting mail or Amazon pack­age at her apartment

And she is accused of meet­ing with Jaynes in his garage after local TV sta­tion WDRB report­ed the claim about the postal inspec­tor was bogus so she and Jayne could “get on the same page.”

Jayne and Meany also face civ­il rights charges for the search that end­ed in Taylor’s death while Hankison is charged with vio­lat­ing the civ­il rights of Taylor; her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker; and three of Taylor’s neigh­bors; by blind­ly fir­ing shots into her apartment.

Taylor was killed dur­ing a police raid on her Louisville apart­ment when Walker, think­ing an intrud­er was break­ing in, fired one shot that hit Mattingly in the leg. He and Cosgrove returned fire, killing Taylor.

She was 26, and her death set off protests that last­ed for months in Louisville and across the country. 

Crime is essen­tial­ly a social issue, but it also grows expo­nen­tial­ly where there’s tol­er­ance for it, then it becomes cultural.
In the United States, for exam­ple, most of the crim­i­nal activ­i­ties in and around large and small cities may be traced direct­ly to struc­tur­al builtins cre­at­ed by the gov­ern­ment along racial lines…
In the black com­mu­ni­ty, for exam­ple, schools are sub­stan­dard, hous­ing is sub­stan­dard, health care and facil­i­ties are sub­stan­dard, and polic­ing ser­vices are not only sub­stan­dard, but they are also a direct cause of parts of the com­mu­ni­ty’s refusal to be a part of the con­sent between police and the com­mu­ni­ty that makes polic­ing work.
Here are some alarm­ing facts accord­ing to the United Nations Children’s Fund.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​t​r​u​m​p​-​i​n​v​o​k​e​s​-​t​h​e​-​5​t​h​-​a​t​-​t​i​s​h​-​j​a​m​e​s​-​o​f​f​i​c​e​-​b​u​t​-​w​a​i​t​-​w​h​at/

♦ African American stu­dents are less like­ly than white stu­dents to access col­lege-ready cours­es. In fact, in 2011-12, only 57 per­cent of black stu­dents had access to a full range of math and sci­ence cours­es nec­es­sary for col­lege readi­ness, com­pared to 81 per­cent of Asian American stu­dents and 71 per­cent of white students.

♦ Even when black stu­dents do have access to hon­ors or advanced place­ment cours­es, they are vast­ly under­rep­re­sent­ed in these cours­es. Black and Latino stu­dents rep­re­sent 38 per­cent of stu­dents in schools that offer AP cours­es, but only 29 per­cent of stu­dents enrolled in at least one AP course. Black and Latino stu­dents also have less access to gift­ed and tal­ent­ed edu­ca­tion pro­grams than white students.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​3​5​9​864 – 2/

♦African American stu­dents are often locat­ed in schools with less qual­i­fied teach­ers, teach­ers with low­er salaries, and novice teachers.

♦ Research has shown evi­dence of sys­tem­at­ic bias in teacher expec­ta­tions for African American stu­dents, and non-black teach­ers were found to have low­er expec­ta­tions of black stu­dents than black teachers.

♦ African American stu­dents are less like­ly to be col­lege-ready. In fact, 61 per­cent of ACT-test­ed black stu­dents in the 2015 high school grad­u­at­ing class met none of the four ACT col­lege readi­ness bench­marks, near­ly twice the 31 per­cent rate for all students.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​d​o​n​a​l​d​-​t​r​u​m​p​-​p​o​i​s​o​n​e​d​-​t​h​e​-​c​o​u​n​t​r​y​-​b​u​t​-​m​o​s​t​-​i​m​p​o​r​t​a​n​t​l​y​-​p​e​r​h​a​p​s​-​h​e​-​p​o​i​s​o​n​e​d​-​t​h​e​-​f​e​d​e​r​a​l​-​j​u​d​i​c​i​a​ry/

♦ Black stu­dents spend less time in the class­room due to dis­ci­pline, which fur­ther hin­ders their access to qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion. Black stu­dents are near­ly two times as like­ly to be sus­pend­ed with­out edu­ca­tion­al ser­vices as white stu­dents. Black stu­dents are also 3.8 times as like­ly to receive one or more out-of-school sus­pen­sions as white stu­dents. In addi­tion, black chil­dren rep­re­sent 19 per­cent of the nation’s pre-school pop­u­la­tion, yet 47 per­cent of those receiv­ing more than one out-of-school sus­pen­sion. In com­par­i­son, white stu­dents rep­re­sent 41 per­cent of pre-school enroll­ment but only 28 per­cent of those receiv­ing more than one out-of-school sus­pen­sion. Even more trou­bling, black stu­dents are 2.3 times as like­ly to receive a refer­ral to law enforce­ment or be sub­ject to a school-relat­ed arrest as white students.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​s​a​m​u​e​l​-​a​l​i​t​o​-​g​l​o​a​t​s​-​c​h​a​s​t​i​s​e​d​-​f​o​r​e​i​g​n​-​l​e​a​d​e​r​s​-​a​f​t​e​r​-​o​v​e​r​t​u​r​n​i​n​g​-​r​oe/

These are not acci­den­tal facts; they are well thought out, well-exe­cut­ed strate­gies designed to dis­rupt and deny black stu­dents’ progress, with the ulti­mate goal of direct­ing our young peo­ple into the prison indus­tri­al complex.
In her riv­et­ing book titled “The New Jim Crow,” Attorney, Author, Activist, and Academic Michelle Alexander lays out suc­cinct­ly how this das­tard­ly sys­tem crim­i­nal­izes young black chil­dren, par­tic­u­lar­ly males.
Young black men who are sub­ject­ed to the fore­gone are at tremen­dous risk of end­ing up ensnared in the trap of the for-prof­it prison indus­tri­al complex.
The result is fathers removed from black homes, sub­ject­ing their chil­dren to the full raft of neg­a­tive con­se­quences asso­ci­at­ed with that trauma.
This results in a con­tin­u­ous cycle of neg­a­tiv­i­ty, the type that has plagued the African American com­mu­ni­ty since after Reconstruction, the peri­od after slav­ery when the laws of the sec­ond act of slav­ery were designed.
Crime in the Black com­mu­ni­ty that is decried, politi­cized, and racial­ized is a con­struct; it is not acci­den­tal. It is mere­ly one of the results of deep plan­ning, the same we are wit­ness­ing today in vot­ing and oth­er areas by the polit­i­cal right.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​t​e​x​a​s​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​w​e​r​e​-​l​o​o​k​i​n​g​-​f​o​r​-​t​e​e​n​-​s​u​s​p​e​c​t​s​-​b​u​t​-​t​h​e​y​-​i​n​s​t​e​a​d​-​d​e​t​a​i​n​e​d​-​a​-​b​l​a​c​k​-​c​o​u​p​l​e​-​i​n​-​t​h​e​i​r​-​5​0​s​-​a​n​d​-​6​0​s​-​a​t​-​g​u​n​p​o​i​n​t​-​l​a​w​s​u​i​t​-​s​a​ys/

The Reconstruction era was a peri­od in American his­to­ry fol­low­ing the American Civil War; it last­ed from 1865 to 1877.
The Compromise of 1877 was an infor­mal agree­ment between south­ern Democrats and allies of the Republican Rutherford Hayes to set­tle the result of the 1876 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion and marked the end of the Reconstruction era. 
Immediately after the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion of 1876, it became clear that the out­come of the race hinged large­ly on dis­put­ed returns from Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina–the only three states in the South with Reconstruction-era Republican gov­ern­ments still in pow­er. As a bipar­ti­san con­gres­sion­al com­mis­sion debat­ed over the out­come ear­ly in 1877, allies of the Republican Party can­di­date Rutherford Hayes met in secret with mod­er­ate south­ern Democrats in order to nego­ti­ate accep­tance of Hayes’ election. 
The Democrats agreed not to block Hayes’ vic­to­ry on the con­di­tion that Republicans with­draw all fed­er­al troops from the South, thus con­sol­i­dat­ing Democratic con­trol over the region. As a result of the so-called Compromise of 1877 (or Compromise of 1876), Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina became Democratic once again, effec­tive­ly bring­ing an end to the Reconstruction era. (History​.com)
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​l​o​u​i​s​i​a​n​a​-​a​t​t​o​r​n​e​y​-​g​e​n​e​r​a​l​-​d​r​o​p​s​-​c​h​a​r​g​e​s​-​a​g​a​i​n​s​t​-​a​a​r​o​n​-​b​o​w​m​a​n​-​a​-​b​l​a​c​k​-​m​a​n​-​a​r​r​e​s​t​e​d​-​a​f​t​e​r​-​b​e​i​n​g​-​s​t​r​u​c​k​-​1​8​-​t​i​m​e​s​-​w​i​th/

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

By the 1870s, sup­port was wan­ing for the racial­ly egal­i­tar­i­an poli­cies of Reconstruction, a series of laws put in place after the Civil War to pro­tect the rights of African Americans, espe­cial­ly in the South. Many south­ern whites had resort­ed to intim­i­da­tion and vio­lence to keep blacks from vot­ing and restore white suprema­cy in the region.
I will stop here; suf­fice to say that as we wit­ness a near-total dis­in­te­gra­tion of rights and free­doms in the United States as peo­ple of col­or, let us revis­it two con­cepts, (1) the idea that we are mak­ing progress, that we must be patient for the time when all peo­ple are treat­ed equal­ly, and (2) Dr. Martin Luther King’s charge to be wary of what he called the tran­quil drug of gradualism.
The sons and daugh­ters of slavers, rapists, and mur­der­ers are not about to sud­den­ly become great peo­ple. Believe they will have at your own peril.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​a​n​o​t​h​e​r​-​u​n​a​r​m​e​d​-​b​l​a​c​k​-​m​a​n​-​m​u​r​d​e​r​e​d​-​b​y​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​h​i​s​-​c​r​i​m​e​-​s​h​o​p​l​i​f​t​i​ng/

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

Even after the dis­cov­ery of an arrest war­rant and an unpub­lished mem­oir, the woman behind Emmett Till‘s lynch­ing has yet again avoid­ed pros­e­cu­tion. A grand jury on Tuesday declined to indict Carolyn Bryant Donham, the woman who accused Emmett of mak­ing a pass at her in 1955 in Mississippi dur­ing the Jim Crow Era. Leflore County dis­trict attor­ney Dewayne Richardson said the grand jury heard more than sev­en hours of tes­ti­mo­ny from inves­ti­ga­tors and wit­ness­es last week and decid­ed there wasn’t enough evi­dence to pur­sue charges against Donham. (According to StlantaBlackstar).

Donham’s hus­band and broth­er-in-law were arrest­ed then acquit­ted for Emmett’s mur­der in 1955. Parker said Emmett whis­tled at the woman at her fam­i­ly store. She told her hus­band about the encounter, set­ting off the dead­ly attack. Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam admit­ted to kid­nap­ping, tor­tur­ing and beat­ing the teenag­er before tying him to a gin fan and dump­ing his body in a riv­er. Donham told the court dur­ing her husband’s tri­al that the boy held her hand and told her he had been with oth­er white women.

A Black elder­ly cou­ple has filed a law­suit against a Texas police depart­ment after they said police vio­lent­ly arrest­ed them at gun­point while search­ing for teenage sus­pects. Attorneys for 67-year-old Michael Lewis and his girl­friend, 57-year-old Regina Armstead, said the Rosenberg Police Department used exces­sive force dur­ing the November 2020 arrest. “What they went through was incred­i­bly demean­ing and dehu­man­iz­ing and uncon­sti­tu­tion­al,” attor­ney Lauren Bonds told Insider. The law­suit said that five RPD offi­cers were search­ing for a group of Black teenagers who were sus­pect­ed of bran­dish­ing weapons and assault when they pulled over Lewis and Armstead. 

A Black elder­ly cou­ple has filed a law­suit against a Texas police depart­ment after they said police vio­lent­ly arrest­ed them at gun­point while search­ing for teenage sus­pects. Attorneys for 67-year-old Michael Lewis and his girl­friend, 57-year-old Regina Armstead, said the Rosenberg Police Department used exces­sive force dur­ing the November 2020 arrest. “What they went through was incred­i­bly demean­ing and dehu­man­iz­ing and uncon­sti­tu­tion­al,” attor­ney Lauren Bonds told Insider. The law­suit said that five RPD offi­cers were search­ing for a group of Black teenagers who were sus­pect­ed of bran­dish­ing weapons and assault when they pulled over Lewis and Armstead. 

We both feared for our lives’

After Armstead was placed in the back of a police vehi­cle, “four armed offi­cers — includ­ing one hold­ing an assault rifle — then ordered Mr. Lewis out of the vehi­cle and told him to get on the ground,” the law­suit said. “I was pray­ing to God that the guns did­n’t go off on us because when you point guns at some­body like that, you nev­er know,” Lewis told Insider. The offi­cers cuffed Lewis despite his med­ical objec­tions and placed him in a sep­a­rate police car while they searched Armstead’s vehi­cle and con­fis­cat­ed her cell phone with­out expla­na­tion, said the law­suit, which accus­es RPD of ille­gal search and seizure, unlaw­ful deten­tion, and false arrest. “That was real scary. I tell you, it real­ly was. I feared for my life. I real­ly did, and Regina too,” Lewis said. “We both feared for our lives. Because, like I said, a gun could have went off.”

The law­suit said that after offi­cers found “no weapons, no con­tra­band, and no oth­er evi­dence of ille­gal activ­i­ty” in Armstead’s vehi­cle, she and Lewis were uncuffed. Armstead asked why they had been stopped and searched, and an offi­cer said they were search­ing for teenage sus­pects, the law­suit said. Armstead lat­er real­ized she did not have her cell phone or her keys, the law­suit said. They returned to the scene to col­lect Armstead’s phone from an offi­cer and dis­cov­ered their key fob, which had been tossed out the win­dow at police instruc­tion, was crushed. RPD said they would reim­burse Armstead for the key fob, but they did not, the law­suit said. Both Armstead and Lewis “felt fright­ened, humil­i­at­ed, embar­rassed, and per­se­cut­ed for being Black, and suf­fered severe men­tal anguish from the arrest and from being detained,” said the law­suit, which claims offi­cers vio­lat­ed the Fourth Amendment and the Americans With Disabilities Act. “As a result of the hand­cuff­ing dur­ing his arrest, Mr. Lewis’s med­ical device in his wrist mal­func­tioned. This result­ed in three sep­a­rate med­ical pro­ce­dures to replace his fis­tu­la. These pro­ce­dures caused pro­longed pain and suf­fer­ing to Mr. Lewis,” the law­suit said. Bonds, Lewis and Armstead’s attor­ney, said she hopes “to see if we can get them some account­abil­i­ty and jus­tice.” A spokesper­son for RPD did not imme­di­ate­ly respond to Insider’s request for comment.
(This sto­ry orig­i­nat­ed @ Insider​.com)