EOTO: Emmett Till

During class today, students presented events throughout history that either advanced or weakened the Civil Rights Movement. One event that stood out to me as particularly impactful is the lynching of Emmett Till. After hearing his story, I believe it’s an important one to explore further and share.

Emmett Till was a young, African American man who grew up in Chicago, Illinois. Upon moving to Mississippi in 1955, he was faced with a deeper level of racism than he used to.

Emmett Till

When Emmett was in his family grocery store, he was accused of catcalling a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in some way. Stories of what he did range from whistling to flirting with her. However, when Carolyn talked about her interaction with Emmett, she distorted the interaction by saying there was unwanted physical contact.

Days later, Carolyn’s husband, Rob Bryant, and half-brother, J.W. Milam, kidnapped Emmett. They beat him terribly until he was fully mutilated. Once Emmett was only barely hanging on to life, they shot him in the head.

Emmett’s body was found three days later at the bottom of the Tallahatchie River. His corpse was so disfigured that the only way the body was identified was by the ring he wore.

Despite all of the damage to Emmett’s body, his mother still wanted him to have an open casket. She wanted the world to see and hear the story of her son.

Later, a trial was held to determine who murdered Emmett. Many witnesses suggested the names of Bryant and Milam as the killers. It didn’t even take an hour before the jury ruled “not guilty” to the clearly guilty murderers.

Many years later, Carolyn confessed that Emmett never touched, threatened, or harassed her. She exclaimed that what he did was not justifiable for what happened to him.

Sources:

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-death-of-emmett-till

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/emmett-till-murderers-make-magazine-confession

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke

In class today, we held a mock trial of the famous Supreme Court case Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. Students presented arguments representing both sides of the case. I was supporting the University of California. 

Allen Bakke applied for admission into the University of California’s medical school and was rejected – twice! In order to ensure diversity in the program, 16 of the 100 spots were reserved for minority applicants. 

Bakke believed that he was more qualified than the students who received admission through the special minority application process. Bakke deemed that reserving a quota of spaces for minorities violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

My group, advocating to uphold the quota system, argues that whether we like it or not, there has been a long historical culture of exclusivity in the United States. African American's have a history of discrimination and poverty. Therefore, many African Americans attend inferior schools that innately have a disadvantage in the admissions process. 

In a school historically being all white, introducing a quota for minorities is only a small, incremental step towards equality. Ultimately, by continuing racial quotas in the admission process, we will be able to elevate minorities and finally achieve full equality.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court did not historically rule in our favor. While SCOTUS agreed that diversity is important, it cannot be the only factor in a quote system. Factors other than race must be considered. This supports affirmative action, allowing race (among other factors) to be considered during the admission process. 

For further information on Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, please watch the video below:

Sources: 

https://www.oyez.org/cases/1979/76-811 

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/204166687.pdf

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/438/265

Popular Constitutionalism and Non-Judicial Precedent

In class today, we read Dean Smith’s academic paper, “The Real Story Behind the Nation's First Shield Law: Maryland, 1894–1897”. Two judicial concepts outlined in the paper are popular constitutionalism and non-judicial precedent. 

Dean Smith, Author of The Real Story Behind the Nation's First Shield Law

Popular constitutionalism is the idea that a national dialogue happening beyond the courts may change the meaning of the US Constitution. This goes along with the idea that the Constitution is a living, breathing document as it can be seen with an "interpretive view" (Smith). 

Non-judicial precedent takes popular constitutionalism a step further as the national dialogue leads to a statute that precedes the Supreme Court decision. These typically happen during a social movement to make a change at a government level. Non-judicial precedents "can remain operable outside court-made law" (Smith).

The March on Washington

In class today, we watched a short film discussing the March on Washington. Amidst the civil rights movement in the 1960s, many peaceful protests were held to spread awareness of the cause.

While many of the protests held by civil rights activists were peaceful, much spasmodic violence broke out against them. At one-point attack dogs were released which shocked everyone. 

A. Philip Randolph was the first leader to have a loud voice preaching mass action. He sent a message to Bayard Rustin reading, “rather than keep this a southern black movement, we need to organize a march on Washington that would make it a national movement”. This paved the way for the organization of the March on Washington. 

Famous civil rights activist, Martin Luther King Jr, began formulating support for the march. He called for a nonviolent, peaceful march on Washington by the hundreds of thousands. 

MLK, Rustin, and Randolph were invited into the White House to meet with President John F Kennedy regarding plans for the march. JFK was reluctant at first because any potential violence had the potential of halting any progression of civil rights. However, when JFK witnessed how stubborn MLK, Rustin, and Randolph were, he joined the force. 

JFK was told that the civil rights movement was infiltrated by communists, specifically Stanley Levison. They used this as justification for wiretapping conversations between Leviton and MLK, but there was never any resulting proof of Communism. 

Organizers of the March worked extremely long days, almost 18 hours, leading up to the big day!

The night before the March, anticipation was intense in the city. No one knew what was going to happen. 

During the March, about 250,000 people were attending from all across America. During peak hours of the day, about 100 busses were showing up every hour. That is almost two busses a minute! 

Many speeches and artists performed during the March. Joan Baez’s song, “We Shall Overcome” brought the entire crowd together. 

For further reading, consider the following articles:

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/march-on-washington 

https://www.naacp.org/marchonwashington/ 

Klansville U.S.A.

In class today we watched Callie Wiser’s short film, Klansville U.S.A. The film discussed the rise of the Klu Klux Klan (KKK) following the American Civil War.  

The KKK was made up of frustrated, poor white folks who were against the integration of blacks and whites. They were the main force for white Americans to counter the NAACP for black Americans. 

The KKK was originally formed as a club where they would mainly pull pranks on the black community. However, when newly freed slaves began to give off a petrified reaction, the Klan got more intense. They began performing despicable acts such as throwing ppl off bridges and hanging people from trees. 

While what the KKK was doing was innately racist, they would have never admitted to being racist. The Klan saw themselves as heroically standing up for the oppressed white people in the south. Ultimately, they just wanted blacks to “stay in their place” away from whites. 

Leaders of the KKK were overtly racist, which made the members of the Klan feel less racist in comparison.  Klan membership reached 4 million supporters during the height of the movement. Public officials were even elected into office by the power of the Klan. 

It was never very socially acceptable to openly support the KKK which is part of the reason they wore masks. However, the Klan would march on public sidewalks to show the community that they have nothing to hide and demonstrate that they are real genuine community members. While the walks were generally peaceful, other citizens had to move out of the Klan’s way which demonstrated the dominance that the KKK had in public spaces. 

Plessy v Ferguson: Justice Harlan's Dissent

In response to the infamous Plessy v Ferguson supreme court case, Justice John Marshall Harlen wrote his dissent. This is a written document expressing disagreement with the majority’s ruling. 

In Justice Harlan’s dissent, he explained that everyone has a fundamental right to take action when they deem an action made by the government as wrong. Therefore, this is a valid case that should be considered carefully. 

Justice Harlan also notes that in practice, segregation laws are clearly meant to exclude blacks from services meant for whites. Not the other way around. Furthermore, whites may see themselves as superior, however, that is not supported in writing in the law. Thus, it would infringe on personal liberty to enforce segregation based on skin color alone. 

In all, Justice Harlan says that we can’t praise freedom as a country when not everyone is given equal rights. I believe this is a very strong argument and probably ahead of its time. 

I think Justice Harlan’s dissent was very important to share as it helped spread awareness and grow the popularity of integration. Today, his ideas would be embraced as we move forward to an even more inclusive society. 

EOTO: Lincoln & Johnson

In class today, students presented on Presidents Lincoln and Johnson and some of their successes.

During Lincoln’s presidency, he founded the Freedman’s Bureau. This acted as a relief for former slaves and southerners after rejoining the union. The bureau was able to support the poor southerners by providing many houses and schools.

Lincoln was assassinated in April of 1865 by John Wilkes Booth. However, Booth did have other plans to harm Lincoln prior to his assassination. While he never went through with it, Booth actually planned to kidnap the President. 

Lincoln was notoriously assassinated during a play in Ford’s theater. It was noted that the audience originally believed Lincolns death was actually part of the play. 

The Freedman’s Bureau began to lose support after Lincoln’s death. Former confederates gained more seats in Congress, striking down the bureau. 

Andrew Johnson took over the presidency after Lincoln’s assassination. He made a lot of changes during his time in office. As mentioned before, he allowed over 60 former confederates to hold a position in the government. They ended up creating a divide in the government. 

Congress impeached Johnson, but by one vote he was not removed from office.