PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS SONG PROJECT X UPDATE

He described Ferguson as a community where local authorities consistently approached law enforcement not as a means for protecting public safety but as a way to generate revenue.Д®ric Holder: Revenue, a community where both policing and municipal court practices were found to be disproportionately harmful to African-American residents.

PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS SONG PROJECT X UPDATE

They were at the mercy of Lady Justice and she was not wearing her blindfold.ДЄ few years ago, I watched US Attorney General, Eric Holder, deliver an update on federal investigations in Ferguson, Missouri. No matter the charge, the accused had little recourse. Another equally absurd charge was reckless eyeballing, when a black person made and maintained eye contact with a white person for too long. I was especially struck by the ridiculous charges that landed black people in jail, charging black folk with abusive language was a favorite because it could be applied to any black person saying anything to any white person at any time. African-Americans were routinely arrested on trumped up charges and convicted in sham trials and when they could not pay the exorbitant court cost, they were leased to plantation owners and mine representatives who could. These turn-of-the-century records revealed a pattern and practice of police misconduct and judicial malfeasance that made a mockery of criminal justice. When I asked the probate judge if they still had rest ledgers from the 19th century, I was not surprised when he took me to a long-neglected shed containing county records scattered about and piled high in no particular order.ДЄfter a fair bit of climbing, crawling, sifting and sorting, I actually found what I was searching for, Lowndes CountyвЂ™s register of arrests from the 1880s. Like most places in the Alabama Black Belt, Lowndes County is resource-poor, making the preservation of local records a luxury the county cannot afford. You see, to understand the African-American freedom struggle in the 20th century, you have to understand the African American freedom struggle in the 19th century. But Bloody LowndesВ does not begin in the 1960s as one might expect but rather a century earlier at the moment of emancipation. It tells the remarkable story of the transformation of rural Lowndes County Alabama from a citadel of violent white supremacy into the center of Southern black militancy during the height of the civil rights movement. Hasan Kwame Jeffries: The title of my first book is Bloody Lowndes.

Editor, Congress and the Crisis of the 1850s.

Editor, Encyclopedia of African American History 1896 to the Present.

Editor, Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619вЂ“1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass.

An Imperfect Union: Slavery, Federalism, and Comity.

Learning for Justice, Exploring American Identity through the Constitution.

Learning for Justice, Article 1, Section 9 of the U.S.

Learning for Justice, Preamble to the US Constitution.

Learning for Justice, Human Rights and the Constitution.

Teaching Hard History, Episode 11: Slavery in the Supreme CourtВ (podcast).

Pursuit of happiness song project x