My little contribution to the protest

By the way what you see is Jupiter...

I 'll be out all day at work

This street in downtown Columbus MS was, in the days of segregation, the economic and cultural center of the Afro American community in the town. This mural is meant to reflect that. As you recede into the background of the mural you recede backwards in time as the cars and clothing reflect an earlier time. The street is indeed named Catfish Alley. Columbus celebrates a festival every spring to honor the history and cultural significance of this site.

King pats a youngster on the back as he pickets in St. Augustine on June 10, 1964. AP

Via: www.cnn.com/interactive/2018/04/us/martin-luther-king-jr-...

Today is Elliott Erwitt’s birthday! Although Henri Cartier-Bresson coined the term “decisive moment”, Erwitt was a master at capturing it. Erwitt is most well known for his candid shots of ironic and absurd situations within everyday settings.

Our Trooper has decided to recreate one of Erwitt's most well know shots depicting the segregation of African Americans in the 1950s. He hopes he has done it justice.

Enjoy!

This photo is part of my mini series Cloned Photos.

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Visit our troopers at www.365DaysofClones.com.

Built around the turn of the century at 26th and M, the old Central High School building remained in use until 1954, when a new building was erected. Central was the first high school in Texas for African-Americans, and was merged into Ball High School in 1968 when Ball was finally integrated.

Ball High School was built in 1884 with a gift of $50,000 from local businessman George Ball, who died before the school was completed. Local lore has it that after his death, his heirs offered the city an additional $10,000 if the school accepted only white students. The City took the bribe and, as a result, Central High was built for black children.

The asymmetrical wing on the right housed the library branch for the city's black readers. It was built in 1905. Architect Nicholas Clayton designed the original high school.

The annex was constructed by Harry Devlin of Galveston (at a total cost for the two-story addition of $2,633.00) who was hired by the Rosenberg Library board of directors.

The Board provided additional funds for bookshelves, furniture, and 1,000 books at the branch. Prof. John R. Gibson, principal of Central High, was appointed manager of the colored branch. He was paid $150 per year to run the library, in addition to his compensation as principal. At some later time Ms. Lilian Davis was hired as a full time librarian.

(Image courtesy of Rosenberg Library; information from Mr. Ennis Williams Jr., Central Cultural Center, and Ms. Eleanor Clark, Rosenberg Library. Errors, if any, are mine.)

Just like so many abandoned building around town, I like to imagine them when they were in their prime. During the segregation period down here in the South this was an African-American hotel, The Lincoln, near a then functioning but now, long demolished, train station. They also had a lunch room where, rumor has it, many famous performers like Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong enjoyed a meal. Nearby is the Prince Masonic Lodge that hosted many of the premier acts of the 1950 and 60's in their amazing, balconied, top-floor, ball room. There is even a rumor that Ornette Coleman's performance was so avant-guard that the dissatisfied crowd took his saxophone into the street in front of the Prince and stomped it flat. Such is the life of the touring musicial iconoclast.

You can get a peak in to that venue as you drive over the North Boulevard overpass. So far as I can tell, this is main reason for the North Boulecard overpass to exist because its the construction destroyed the much loved Rose and Thomas' Soul Food restaurant, Tabby's Blues Box and spelled the end of Romano's Grocery and plate lunch emporium. Such is the cost of meager progress, I suppose.

Anyway, I like to imagine this stalwart and elegant brick hotel when it was in its heyday. Well dressed men and women visiting the barber shop next door, taking the family out to dinner after church or folks ducking in for a little bite after a wild night of dancing and music at the Prince. I am too young to have ever seen the Prince or the Lincoln Hotel in their prime, though the Prince has been remodeled and is still in use. I did once drunkenly watched a Mike Tyson match in their ground floor barber shop in what ended up to be a singularly surreal evening. But, that is a story for another day.

When I first moved back to Baton Rouge after college I ate many a plate lunch of white beans and sausage with a smothered pork chop under a velvet painting of Jessy Jackson in Rose and Thomas' soul food joint. I heard great bands play the night away in a haze of smoke and cheap bottled beer taken from ice-chests behind the bar at Tabby's; I was 15 and this was back when people cared much less about underage drinking. I paid my money there to a plump woman working a cash registerer with a .38 special strapped to it. Maybe that is when I fell in love with my city, when I interloped into the separate, but no less vibrant, black half of the community from which I had been carefully isolated since birth... with the exception on incident where Ida, our old house-keeper, took me to her cousin's bar and I danced on the jukebox, aged about 4.

All that shameful Jim Crow era segregation is gone. But, the un-codified barriers are still very much in place. I would not dream of going into Webb's barber shop, near the now moldering Hotel Lincoln, without one of my black neighbors. Not because of any fear of violence but because I know there are separate and special places where people come together to congregate and they prefer to do so away from prying eyes or the voyeuristic lens of a culturally interested transgressor like myself. So, imagination is what remains. Imagination about what was and what continues to be.

Check out more at my blog, Lemons and Beans, for lots of photos, recipes, travel writing and other ramblings. I appreciate any feedback but, please do not post graphic awards or invitations in your comments.

History ~ Prince Charles Hotel, One of Two Early 20th Century Hotels in Fayetteville, NC

Text of the historic "I Have A Dream" speech delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on August. 28, 1963 from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Washington DC....

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon of hope to millions of Negro slaves, who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But one hundred years later, the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacle of segregation and the chains of discrimination.

One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our Nation's Capital to cash a check. When the architects of our great republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.

This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed to the inalienable rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check that has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is not time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.

Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy.

Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.

Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

Now is the time to make justice a reality to all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of it's colored citizens. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual.

There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds.

Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must ever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.

We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.

We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one.

We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "for white only."

We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.

No, no we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of your trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by storms of persecutions and staggered by the winds of police brutality.

You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our modern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, that even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow. I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; that one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and every mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plains and the crooked places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I will go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.

With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.

With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to climb up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my father's died, land of the Pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!"

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that, let freedom, ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi and every mountainside.

And when this happens, when we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every tenement and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old spiritual, "Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was a Baptist minister and American political activist who was the most famous leader of the American civil rights movement. King won the Nobel Peace Prize before being assassinated in 1968. In 1977, King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, by Jimmy Carter. For his promotion of non-violence and racial equality, King is considered a peacemaker and martyr by many people around the world. Martin Luther King Day was established in his honor.

King was born in Atlanta, Georgia (on 501 Auburn Avenue) to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr. and Alberta Williams King. (Birth records for Martin Luther King Jr. list his name as Michael.) He graduated from Morehouse College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology in 1948. At Morehouse, King was mentored by President Benjamin Mays, a civil rights leader. Later he graduated from Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1951. In 1955, he received a Ph.D. in Systematic theology from Boston University.

Jackson, MS (est. 1821, pop. 165,000)

Marker:

front

"On May 28, 1961, a Greyhound bus with nine Freedom Riders aboard arrived here, the third group of Riders into Jackson. The first two came on Trailways buses May 24. That summer 329 people were arrested in Jackson for integrating public transportation facilities. Convicted on "breach of peace" and jailed, most refused bail and were sent to the state penitentiary. Their protest worked. In September 1961, the federal government mandated that segregation in interstate transportation end."

back

"Greyhound Bus Station This former Greyhound bus station was the scene of many historic arrests in 1961, when Freedom Riders challenged racial segregation in Jackson’s bus and train stations and airport. The Freedom Riders, part of a campaign created by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), pressured the federal government to enforce the law regarding illegal racially separate waiting rooms, rest rooms, and restaurants—common in public transportation facilities across the South.

"On May 4, 1961, thirteen Riders—blacks and whites, men and women—left Washington, D.C., on two buses. Trained in nonviolent direct action, they planned to desegregate bus stations throughout the South. They integrated stations in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia with few incidents but were attacked by vicious mobs in Anniston, Birmingham, and Montgomery, Alabama. The Kennedy administration implored them to stop, a call echoed by the media and some civil rights leaders. The Riders, however, reinforced with new volunteers from the Nashville Student Movement, were determined to continue.

"On May 24, two buses of Freedom Riders left Montgomery bound for Jackson, with highway patrolmen and National Guardsmen as armed guards. Instead of a protest mob, policemen met them in Jackson, urging them to “move on” when the Riders tried to use facilities denied them. When the Riders refused, they were arrested, charged with “breach of peace,” and quickly convicted.

"Embracing the "jail-no bail" tactic, they invited new Riders from around the country to join them in Jackson. Within three weeks the city’s jails were full, and the Riders were transferred to the state penitentiary at Parchman, where most served six weeks, suffering indignities and injustices with fortitude and resolve. Between May 24 and September 13, 329 people were arrested in Jackson—half black, half white, and a quarter of them women. Most were between the ages of eighteen and thirty. They came from thirty-nine states and ten other countries; forty-three were from Mississippi.

"On September 23, the Interstate Commerce Commission mandated an end to segregation in all bus and train stations and airports. The victorious Freedom Riders left a legacy of historic changes, proving the value of nonviolent direct action, providing a template for future campaigns, and helping jump-start the movement in Mississippi."

Old Greyhound Station History

• in the mid-1930s, as America struggled through Great Depression, Greyhound Lines adopted a Streamline Moderne design for their buses & terminals, echoing the speed lines of their Super Coaches which, like the Greyhound logo, promised a swift, state of the art ride • brought in engineer Dwight Austin (1897-1960) to create the new Super Coach design & Louisville architect William Strudwick Arrasmith (1898-1965) to reimagine Greyhound terminal design

• in 1937, Greyhound Lines contracted for a Streamline Moderne style terminal in Jackson, topped by a vertical, illuminated "Greyhound" sign • the bldg. was faced with blue Vitrolux structural glass panels and ivory Vitrolite trim • included a coffee shop with a horseshoe-shaped counter & bathing facilities for women (a bath tub) and men (a shower)

• the design is widely believed to be one of the ~60 Moderne Greyhound stations credited to Arrasmith, although photographic evidence suggests that Memphis architect William Nowland Van Powell (1904-1977) — working with George Mahan Jr. (1887-1967) — was responsible for the design, with or without Arrasmith as the consulting architect

• restoration architect Robert Parker Adams acquired the then threatened bldg. in 1988, moved in after restoration, retaining the original neon sign —Wikipedia

The Farish Street Historic District

“but out of the bitterness we wrought an ancient past here in this separate place and made our village here.” —African Village by Margaret Walker (1915-1998)

• during the Reconstruction era that followed the American Civil War, white Southerners struggled to reclaim their lives as millions of black Southerners sought new ones • with the stroke of a pen, the Emancipation Proclamation had transformed African slaves into African Americans & released them into hostile, vengeful & well-armed white communities amid the ruins of a once flourishing society

• the antebellum South had been home to over 262,000 rights-restricted "free blacks" • post-emancipation, the free black population soared to 4.1 million • given that the South had sacrificed 20% of it's white males to the war, blacks now comprised over half the total population of some southern states • uneducated & penniless, most of the new black Americans depended on the Freedman's Bureau for food & clothing

• the social & political implications of this disruptive shift in demographics fueled a violence-laced strain of American racism • in this toxic environment, de facto racial segregation was a given, ordained as Mississippi law in 1890 • with Yankees (the U.S. Army) patrolling Jackson & Maine-born Republican Adelbert Ames installed in the Governor's Mansion, the Farish Street neighborhood was safe haven for freedmen

• as homeless African American refugees poured into Jackson from all reaches of the devastated state, a black economy flickered to life in the form of a few Farish Street mom-and-pops • unwelcome at white churches, the liberated slaves built their own, together with an entire neighborhood's worth of buildings, most erected between 1890 & 1930

• by 1908 1/3 of the district was black-owned, & half of the black families were homeowners • the 1913-1914 business directory listed 11 African American attorneys, 4 doctors, 3 dentists, 2 jewelers, 2 loan companies & a bank, all in the Farish St. neighborhood • the community also had 2 hospitals & numerous retail & service stores —City Data

• by mid-20th c. Farish Street, the state's largest economically independent African American community, had become the cultural, political & business hub for central Mississippi's black citizens [photos] • on Saturdays, countryfolk would come to town on special busses to sell produce & enjoy BBQ while they listened to live street music • vendors sold catfish fried in large black kettles over open fires • hot tamales, a Mississippi staple, were also a popular street food —The Farish District, Its Architecture and Cultural Heritage

“I’ve seen pictures. You couldn’t even get up the street. It was a two-way street back then, and it was wall-to-wall folks. It was just jam-packed: people shopping, people going to clubs, people eating, people dancing.” — Geno Lee, owner of the Big Apple Inn

• as Jackson's black economy grew, Farish Street entertainment venues prospered, drawing crowds with live & juke blues music • the musicians found or first recorded in the Neighborhood include Robert Johnson, Sonny Boy Williamson II & Elmore James

• Farish Street was also home to talent scouts & record labels like H.C. Speir, & Trumpet Records, Ace Records • both Speir & Trumpet founder Lillian McMurry were white Farish St. business owners whose furniture stores also housed recording studios • both discovered & promoted local Blues musicians —The Mississippi Encyclopedia

• Richard Henry Beadle (1884-1971), a prominent Jackson photographer, had a studio at 199-1/2 N. Farish • he was the son of Samuel Alfred Beadle (1857-1932), African-American poet & attorney • born the son of a slave, he was the author of 3 published books of poetry & stories

• The Alamo Theatre was mainly a movie theater but periodically presented musical acts such as Nat King Cole, Elmore James & Otis Spann • Wednesday was talent show night • 12 year old Jackson native Dorothy Moore entered the contest, won & went on to a successful recording career, highlighted by her 1976 no. 1 R&B hit, "Misty Blue" [listen] (3:34)

• in their heyday, Farish Street venues featured African American star performers such as Bessie Smith & the Rabbit Foot Minstrels, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Duke Ellington & Dinah Washington —Farish Street Records

• on 28 May, 1963, John Salter, a mixed race (white/Am. Indian) professor at historically black Tougaloo College, staged a sit-in with 3 African American students at the "Whites Only" Woolworth's lunch counter in downtown Jackson • they were refused service • an estimated 300 white onlookers & reporters filled the store

• police officers arrived but did not intercede as, in the words of student Anne Moody, "all hell broke loose" while she and the other black students at the counter prayed • "A man rushed forward, threw [student] Memphis from his seat and slapped my face. Then another man who worked in the store threw me against an adjoining counter." • this act of civil disobedience is remembered as the the signature event of Jackson's protest movement —L.A. Times

"This was the most violently attacked sit-in during the 1960s and is the most publicized. A huge mob gathered, with open police support while the three of us sat there for three hours. I was attacked with fists, brass knuckles and the broken portions of glass sugar containers, and was burned with cigarettes. I'm covered with blood and we were all covered by salt, sugar, mustard, and various other things." —John Salter

• the Woolworth Sit-in was one of many non-violent protests by blacks against racial segregation in the South • in 1969 integration of Jackson's public schools began • this new era in Jackson history also marked the beginning of Farish Street's decline —The Farish Street Project

"Integration was a great thing for black people, but it was not a great thing for black business... Before integration, Farish Street was the black mecca of Mississippi.” — Geno Lee, Big Apple Inn

• for African Americans, integration offered the possibility to shop outside of the neighborhood at white owned stores • as increasing numbers of black shoppers did so, Farish Street traffic declined, businesses closed & the vacated buildings fell into disrepair

• in 1983, a Farish St. redevelopment plan was presented

• in 1995 the street was designated an endangered historic place by the National Trust for Historic Preservation

• in the 1990s, having redeveloped Memphis' Beale Street, Performa Entertainment Real Estate was selected to redevelop Farish St

• in 2008, The Farish Street Group took over the project with plans for a B.B. King's Blues Club to anchor the entertainment district

• in 2012, having spent $21 million, the redevelopment — limited to repaving of the street, stabilizating some abandoned buildings & demolishing many of the rest — was stuck in limbo —Michael Minn

• 2017 update:

"Six mayors and 20 years after the City of Jackson became involved in efforts to develop the Farish Street Historic District, in hopes of bringing it back to the bustling state of its heyday, the project sits at a standstill. Recent Mayor Tony Yarber has referred to the district as “an albatross.” In September of 2014, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development sanctioned the City of Jackson, the Jackson Redevelopment Authority, and developers for misspending federal funds directed toward the development of the Farish Street Historic District. Work is at a halt and "not scheduled to resume until December 2018, when the City of Jackson repays HUD $1.5 million." —Mississippi Dept. of Archives & History

• Farish Street Neighborhood Historic District, National Register # 80002245, 1980

Jackson, MS (est. 1821, pop. 165,000)

Marker:

front

"On May 28, 1961, a Greyhound bus with nine Freedom Riders aboard arrived here, the third group of Riders into Jackson. The first two came on Trailways buses May 24. That summer 329 people were arrested in Jackson for integrating public transportation facilities. Convicted on "breach of peace" and jailed, most refused bail and were sent to the state penitentiary. Their protest worked. In September 1961, the federal government mandated that segregation in interstate transportation end."

back

"Greyhound Bus Station This former Greyhound bus station was the scene of many historic arrests in 1961, when Freedom Riders challenged racial segregation in Jackson’s bus and train stations and airport. The Freedom Riders, part of a campaign created by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), pressured the federal government to enforce the law regarding illegal racially separate waiting rooms, rest rooms, and restaurants—common in public transportation facilities across the South.

"On May 4, 1961, thirteen Riders—blacks and whites, men and women—left Washington, D.C., on two buses. Trained in nonviolent direct action, they planned to desegregate bus stations throughout the South. They integrated stations in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia with few incidents but were attacked by vicious mobs in Anniston, Birmingham, and Montgomery, Alabama. The Kennedy administration implored them to stop, a call echoed by the media and some civil rights leaders. The Riders, however, reinforced with new volunteers from the Nashville Student Movement, were determined to continue.

"On May 24, two buses of Freedom Riders left Montgomery bound for Jackson, with highway patrolmen and National Guardsmen as armed guards. Instead of a protest mob, policemen met them in Jackson, urging them to “move on” when the Riders tried to use facilities denied them. When the Riders refused, they were arrested, charged with “breach of peace,” and quickly convicted.

"Embracing the "jail-no bail" tactic, they invited new Riders from around the country to join them in Jackson. Within three weeks the city’s jails were full, and the Riders were transferred to the state penitentiary at Parchman, where most served six weeks, suffering indignities and injustices with fortitude and resolve. Between May 24 and September 13, 329 people were arrested in Jackson—half black, half white, and a quarter of them women. Most were between the ages of eighteen and thirty. They came from thirty-nine states and ten other countries; forty-three were from Mississippi.

"On September 23, the Interstate Commerce Commission mandated an end to segregation in all bus and train stations and airports. The victorious Freedom Riders left a legacy of historic changes, proving the value of nonviolent direct action, providing a template for future campaigns, and helping jump-start the movement in Mississippi."

Old Greyhound Station History

• in the mid-1930s, as America struggled through Great Depression, Greyhound Lines adopted a Streamline Moderne design for their buses & terminals, echoing the speed lines of their Super Coaches which, like the Greyhound logo, promised a swift, state of the art ride • brought in engineer Dwight Austin (1897-1960) to create the new Super Coach design & Louisville architect William Strudwick Arrasmith (1898-1965) to reimagine Greyhound terminal design

• in 1937, Greyhound Lines contracted for a Streamline Moderne style terminal in jn Jackson, topped by a vertical, illuminated "Greyhound" sign • the bldg. was faced with blue Vitrolux structural glass panels and ivory Vitrolite trim • included a coffee shop with a horseshoe-shaped counter & bathing facilities for women (a bath tub) and men (a shower)

• the design is widely believed to be one of the ~60 Moderne Greyhound stations credited to Arrasmith, although photographic evidence suggests that Memphis architect William Nowland Van Powell (1904-1977) — working with George Mahan Jr. (1887-1967) — was responsible for the design, with or without Arrasmith as the consulting architect

• restoration architect Robert Parker Adams acquired the then threatened bldg. in 1988, moved in after restoration, retaining the original neon sign —Wikipedia

The Farish Street Historic District

“but out of the bitterness we wrought an ancient past here in this separate place and made our village here.” —African Village by Margaret Walker (1915-1998)

• during the Reconstruction era that followed the American Civil War, white Southerners struggled to reclaim their lives as millions of black Southerners sought new ones • with the stroke of a pen, the Emancipation Proclamation had transformed African slaves into African Americans & released them into hostile, vengeful & well-armed white communities amid the ruins of a once flourishing society

• the antebellum South had been home to over 262,000 rights-restricted "free blacks" • post-emancipation, the free black population soared to 4.1 million • given that the South had sacrificed 20% of it's white males to the war, blacks now comprised over half the total population of some southern states • uneducated & penniless, most of the new black Americans depended on the Freedman's Bureau for food & clothing

• the social & political implications of this disruptive shift in demographics fueled a violence-laced strain of American racism • in this toxic environment, de facto racial segregation was a given, ordained as Mississippi law in 1890 • with Yankees (the U.S. Army) patrolling Jackson & Maine-born Republican Adelbert Ames installed in the Governor's Mansion, the Farish Street neighborhood was safe haven for freedmen

• as homeless African American refugees poured into Jackson from all reaches of the devastated state, a black economy flickered to life in the form of a few Farish Street mom-and-pops • unwelcome at white churches, the liberated slaves built their own, together with an entire neighborhood's worth of buildings, most erected between 1890 & 1930

• by 1908 1/3 of the district was black-owned, & half of the black families were homeowners • the 1913-1914 business directory listed 11 African American attorneys, 4 doctors, 3 dentists, 2 jewelers, 2 loan companies & a bank, all in the Farish St. neighborhood • the community also had 2 hospitals & numerous retail & service stores —City Data

• by mid-20th c. Farish Street, the state's largest economically independent African American community, had become the cultural, political & business hub for central Mississippi's black citizens [photos] • on Saturdays, countryfolk would come to town on special busses to sell produce & enjoy BBQ while they listened to live street music • vendors sold catfish fried in large black kettles over open fires • hot tamales, a Mississippi staple, were also a popular street food —The Farish District, Its Architecture and Cultural Heritage

“I’ve seen pictures. You couldn’t even get up the street. It was a two-way street back then, and it was wall-to-wall folks. It was just jam-packed: people shopping, people going to clubs, people eating, people dancing.” — Geno Lee, owner of the Big Apple Inn

• as Jackson's black economy grew, Farish Street entertainment venues prospered, drawing crowds with live & juke blues music • the musicians found or first recorded in the Neighborhood include Robert Johnson, Sonny Boy Williamson II & Elmore James

• Farish Street was also home to talent scouts & record labels like H.C. Speir, & Trumpet Records, Ace Records • both Speir & Trumpet founder Lillian McMurry were white Farish St. business owners whose furniture stores also housed recording studios • both discovered & promoted local Blues musicians —The Mississippi Encyclopedia

• Richard Henry Beadle (1884-1971), a prominent Jackson photographer, had a studio at 199-1/2 N. Farish • he was the son of Samuel Alfred Beadle (1857-1932), African-American poet & attorney • born the son of a slave, he was the author of 3 published books of poetry & stories

• The Alamo Theatre was mainly a movie theater but periodically presented musical acts such as Nat King Cole, Elmore James & Otis Spann • Wednesday was talent show night • 12 year old Jackson native Dorothy Moore entered the contest, won & went on to a successful recording career, highlighted by her 1976 no. 1 R&B hit, "Misty Blue" [listen] (3:34)

• in their heyday, Farish Street venues featured African American star performers such as Bessie Smith & the Rabbit Foot Minstrels, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Duke Ellington & Dinah Washington —Farish Street Records

• on 28 May, 1963, John Salter, a mixed race (white/Am. Indian) professor at historically black Tougaloo College, staged a sit-in with 3 African American students at the "Whites Only" Woolworth's lunch counter in downtown Jackson • they were refused service • an estimated 300 white onlookers & reporters filled the store

• police officers arrived but did not intercede as, in the words of student Anne Moody, "all hell broke loose" while she and the other black students at the counter prayed • "A man rushed forward, threw [student] Memphis from his seat and slapped my face. Then another man who worked in the store threw me against an adjoining counter." • this act of civil disobedience is remembered as the the signature event of Jackson's protest movement —L.A. Times

"This was the most violently attacked sit-in during the 1960s and is the most publicized. A huge mob gathered, with open police support while the three of us sat there for three hours. I was attacked with fists, brass knuckles and the broken portions of glass sugar containers, and was burned with cigarettes. I'm covered with blood and we were all covered by salt, sugar, mustard, and various other things." —John Salter

• the Woolworth Sit-in was one of many non-violent protests by blacks against racial segregation in the South • in 1969 integration of Jackson's public schools began • this new era in Jackson history also marked the beginning of Farish Street's decline —The Farish Street Project

"Integration was a great thing for black people, but it was not a great thing for black business... Before integration, Farish Street was the black mecca of Mississippi.” — Geno Lee, Big Apple Inn

• for African Americans, integration offered the possibility to shop outside of the neighborhood at white owned stores • as increasing numbers of black shoppers did so, Farish Street traffic declined, businesses closed & the vacated buildings fell into disrepair

• in 1983, a Farish St. redevelopment plan was presented

• in 1995 the street was designated an endangered historic place by the National Trust for Historic Preservation

• in the 1990s, having redeveloped Memphis' Beale Street, Performa Entertainment Real Estate was selected to redevelop Farish St

• in 2008, The Farish Street Group took over the project with plans for a B.B. King's Blues Club to anchor the entertainment district

• in 2012, having spent $21 million, the redevelopment — limited to repaving of the street, stabilizating some abandoned buildings & demolishing many of the rest — was stuck in limbo —Michael Minn

• 2017 update:

"Six mayors and 20 years after the City of Jackson became involved in efforts to develop the Farish Street Historic District, in hopes of bringing it back to the bustling state of its heyday, the project sits at a standstill. Recent Mayor Tony Yarber has referred to the district as “an albatross.” In September of 2014, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development sanctioned the City of Jackson, the Jackson Redevelopment Authority, and developers for misspending federal funds directed toward the development of the Farish Street Historic District. Work is at a halt and "not scheduled to resume until December 2018, when the City of Jackson repays HUD $1.5 million." —Mississippi Dept. of Archives & History

• Farish Street Neighborhood Historic District, National Register # 80002245, 1980

Jackson, MS (est. 1821, pop. 165,000)

Marker:

front

"On May 28, 1961, a Greyhound bus with nine Freedom Riders aboard arrived here, the third group of Riders into Jackson. The first two came on Trailways buses May 24. That summer 329 people were arrested in Jackson for integrating public transportation facilities. Convicted on "breach of peace" and jailed, most refused bail and were sent to the state penitentiary. Their protest worked. In September 1961, the federal government mandated that segregation in interstate transportation end."

back

"Greyhound Bus Station This former Greyhound bus station was the scene of many historic arrests in 1961, when Freedom Riders challenged racial segregation in Jackson’s bus and train stations and airport. The Freedom Riders, part of a campaign created by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), pressured the federal government to enforce the law regarding illegal racially separate waiting rooms, rest rooms, and restaurants—common in public transportation facilities across the South.

"On May 4, 1961, thirteen Riders—blacks and whites, men and women—left Washington, D.C., on two buses. Trained in nonviolent direct action, they planned to desegregate bus stations throughout the South. They integrated stations in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia with few incidents but were attacked by vicious mobs in Anniston, Birmingham, and Montgomery, Alabama. The Kennedy administration implored them to stop, a call echoed by the media and some civil rights leaders. The Riders, however, reinforced with new volunteers from the Nashville Student Movement, were determined to continue.

"On May 24, two buses of Freedom Riders left Montgomery bound for Jackson, with highway patrolmen and National Guardsmen as armed guards. Instead of a protest mob, policemen met them in Jackson, urging them to “move on” when the Riders tried to use facilities denied them. When the Riders refused, they were arrested, charged with “breach of peace,” and quickly convicted.

"Embracing the "jail-no bail" tactic, they invited new Riders from around the country to join them in Jackson. Within three weeks the city’s jails were full, and the Riders were transferred to the state penitentiary at Parchman, where most served six weeks, suffering indignities and injustices with fortitude and resolve. Between May 24 and September 13, 329 people were arrested in Jackson—half black, half white, and a quarter of them women. Most were between the ages of eighteen and thirty. They came from thirty-nine states and ten other countries; forty-three were from Mississippi.

"On September 23, the Interstate Commerce Commission mandated an end to segregation in all bus and train stations and airports. The victorious Freedom Riders left a legacy of historic changes, proving the value of nonviolent direct action, providing a template for future campaigns, and helping jump-start the movement in Mississippi."

Old Greyhound Station History

• in the mid-1930s, as America struggled through Great Depression, Greyhound Lines adopted a Streamline Moderne design for their buses & terminals, echoing the speed lines of their Super Coaches which, like the Greyhound logo, promised a swift, state of the art ride • brought in engineer Dwight Austin (1897-1960) to create the new Super Coach design & Louisville architect William Strudwick Arrasmith (1898-1965) to reimagine Greyhound terminal design

• in 1937, Greyhound Lines contracted for a Streamline Moderne style terminal in jn Jackson, topped by a vertical, illuminated "Greyhound" sign • the bldg. was faced with blue Vitrolux structural glass panels and ivory Vitrolite trim • included a coffee shop with a horseshoe-shaped counter & bathing facilities for women (a bath tub) and men (a shower)

• the design is widely believed to be one of the ~60 Moderne Greyhound stations credited to Arrasmith, although photographic evidence suggests that Memphis architect William Nowland Van Powell (1904-1977) — working with George Mahan Jr. (1887-1967) — was responsible for the design, with or without Arrasmith as the consulting architect

• restoration architect Robert Parker Adams acquired the then threatened bldg. in 1988, moved in after restoration, retaining the original neon sign —Wikipedia

The Farish Street Historic District

“but out of the bitterness we wrought an ancient past here in this separate place and made our village here.” —African Village by Margaret Walker (1915-1998)

• during the Reconstruction era that followed the American Civil War, white Southerners struggled to reclaim their lives as millions of black Southerners sought new ones • with the stroke of a pen, the Emancipation Proclamation had transformed African slaves into African Americans & released them into hostile, vengeful & well-armed white communities amid the ruins of a once flourishing society

• the antebellum South had been home to over 262,000 rights-restricted "free blacks" • post-emancipation, the free black population soared to 4.1 million • given that the South had sacrificed 20% of it's white males to the war, blacks now comprised over half the total population of some southern states • uneducated & penniless, most of the new black Americans depended on the Freedman's Bureau for food & clothing

• the social & political implications of this disruptive shift in demographics fueled a violence-laced strain of American racism • in this toxic environment, de facto racial segregation was a given, ordained as Mississippi law in 1890 • with Yankees (the U.S. Army) patrolling Jackson & Maine-born Republican Adelbert Ames installed in the Governor's Mansion, the Farish Street neighborhood was safe haven for freedmen

• as homeless African American refugees poured into Jackson from all reaches of the devastated state, a black economy flickered to life in the form of a few Farish Street mom-and-pops • unwelcome at white churches, the liberated slaves built their own, together with an entire neighborhood's worth of buildings, most erected between 1890 & 1930

• by 1908 1/3 of the district was black-owned, & half of the black families were homeowners • the 1913-1914 business directory listed 11 African American attorneys, 4 doctors, 3 dentists, 2 jewelers, 2 loan companies & a bank, all in the Farish St. neighborhood • the community also had 2 hospitals & numerous retail & service stores —City Data

• by mid-20th c. Farish Street, the state's largest economically independent African American community, had become the cultural, political & business hub for central Mississippi's black citizens [photos] • on Saturdays, countryfolk would come to town on special busses to sell produce & enjoy BBQ while they listened to live street music • vendors sold catfish fried in large black kettles over open fires • hot tamales, a Mississippi staple, were also a popular street food —The Farish District, Its Architecture and Cultural Heritage

“I’ve seen pictures. You couldn’t even get up the street. It was a two-way street back then, and it was wall-to-wall folks. It was just jam-packed: people shopping, people going to clubs, people eating, people dancing.” — Geno Lee, owner of the Big Apple Inn

• as Jackson's black economy grew, Farish Street entertainment venues prospered, drawing crowds with live & juke blues music • the musicians found or first recorded in the Neighborhood include Robert Johnson, Sonny Boy Williamson II & Elmore James

• Farish Street was also home to talent scouts & record labels like H.C. Speir, & Trumpet Records, Ace Records • both Speir & Trumpet founder Lillian McMurry were white Farish St. business owners whose furniture stores also housed recording studios • both discovered & promoted local Blues musicians —The Mississippi Encyclopedia

• Richard Henry Beadle (1884-1971), a prominent Jackson photographer, had a studio at 199-1/2 N. Farish • he was the son of Samuel Alfred Beadle (1857-1932), African-American poet & attorney • born the son of a slave, he was the author of 3 published books of poetry & stories

• The Alamo Theatre was mainly a movie theater but periodically presented musical acts such as Nat King Cole, Elmore James & Otis Spann • Wednesday was talent show night • 12 year old Jackson native Dorothy Moore entered the contest, won & went on to a successful recording career, highlighted by her 1976 no. 1 R&B hit, "Misty Blue" [listen] (3:34)

• in their heyday, Farish Street venues featured African American star performers such as Bessie Smith & the Rabbit Foot Minstrels, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Duke Ellington & Dinah Washington —Farish Street Records

• on 28 May, 1963, John Salter, a mixed race (white/Am. Indian) professor at historically black Tougaloo College, staged a sit-in with 3 African American students at the "Whites Only" Woolworth's lunch counter in downtown Jackson • they were refused service • an estimated 300 white onlookers & reporters filled the store

• police officers arrived but did not intercede as, in the words of student Anne Moody, "all hell broke loose" while she and the other black students at the counter prayed • "A man rushed forward, threw [student] Memphis from his seat and slapped my face. Then another man who worked in the store threw me against an adjoining counter." • this act of civil disobedience is remembered as the the signature event of Jackson's protest movement —L.A. Times

"This was the most violently attacked sit-in during the 1960s and is the most publicized. A huge mob gathered, with open police support while the three of us sat there for three hours. I was attacked with fists, brass knuckles and the broken portions of glass sugar containers, and was burned with cigarettes. I'm covered with blood and we were all covered by salt, sugar, mustard, and various other things." —John Salter

• the Woolworth Sit-in was one of many non-violent protests by blacks against racial segregation in the South • in 1969 integration of Jackson's public schools began • this new era in Jackson history also marked the beginning of Farish Street's decline —The Farish Street Project

"Integration was a great thing for black people, but it was not a great thing for black business... Before integration, Farish Street was the black mecca of Mississippi.” — Geno Lee, Big Apple Inn

• for African Americans, integration offered the possibility to shop outside of the neighborhood at white owned stores • as increasing numbers of black shoppers did so, Farish Street traffic declined, businesses closed & the vacated buildings fell into disrepair

• in 1983, a Farish St. redevelopment plan was presented

• in 1995 the street was designated an endangered historic place by the National Trust for Historic Preservation

• in the 1990s, having redeveloped Memphis' Beale Street, Performa Entertainment Real Estate was selected to redevelop Farish St

• in 2008, The Farish Street Group took over the project with plans for a B.B. King's Blues Club to anchor the entertainment district

• in 2012, having spent $21 million, the redevelopment — limited to repaving of the street, stabilizating some abandoned buildings & demolishing many of the rest — was stuck in limbo —Michael Minn

• 2017 update:

"Six mayors and 20 years after the City of Jackson became involved in efforts to develop the Farish Street Historic District, in hopes of bringing it back to the bustling state of its heyday, the project sits at a standstill. Recent Mayor Tony Yarber has referred to the district as “an albatross.” In September of 2014, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development sanctioned the City of Jackson, the Jackson Redevelopment Authority, and developers for misspending federal funds directed toward the development of the Farish Street Historic District. Work is at a halt and "not scheduled to resume until December 2018, when the City of Jackson repays HUD $1.5 million." —Mississippi Dept. of Archives & History

• Farish Street Neighborhood Historic District, National Register # 80002245, 1980

"Der Wind der Veränderung blies bis in die Ruinen unserer Republik. Der Sommer kam und Berlin war der schönste Platz auf Erden. Wir hatten das Gefühl im Mittelpunkt der Welt zu stehn. Dort wo sich endlich was bewegte. Und wir bewegten uns mit." - Alexander “Alex” Kerner(Daniel Brühl) – From Goodbye Lenin

Wonderful Berlin

The innovation of an instrument of segregation, division and terror to an symbol of joy, free expression, and unity. The Berlin Wall

Beauford Delaney, Marian Anderson, 1965, oil on canvas, 162.4 x 130.33 x 3.81 cm (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts)

Learn more at Smarthistory

First Nations, Metis Indian and Inuit children were removed from their families and sent to Residential Schools.

Brother and sisters were separated in segregation and forbidden contact. Forbidden to speak their native language they were schooled in English. The Government reports that this was intended as a Policy of Assimilation.

Separated from their culture, their families back home, the children were subjected to violence and abuse, both physical and sexual.

The schools began operating in the 40s but the last one was shut down only in 1996.

Prime Minister Harper issued an offical apology and financial compensation for the victims. It's not enough. A whole generation has been scarred for life.

Some other issues of the Protest include: pipelines, pollution and fish farms.

Here above a shaming ceremony is directed at the Canadian Government at the Centre Block of Parliament on Parliament Hill.

I'm just a white guy. Sure wish I had a First Nations Guide who could explain to me what I am seeing. Oh, well.

Here's my photoset of the event HERE: www.flickr.com/photos/mikeygottawa/sets/72157646024468431

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The Art Deco style Strand Theatre was opened in 1939. The theatre operated into the 1960s. It later closed and reopened several times. The building was restored in 1993 to house a community theater group and host special events. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

A Side Note. The theater was built when many public use spaces in southern states were designed to accommodated racial segregation. The facade of the theater reflects this practice. The facade is symmetrical in every aspect except for the ground floor corners. On the left side there is a recessed panel with a playbill display case. The right side has double doors. The doors provided access to the balcony that was reserved for black patrons.

by gender..

Two years after District of Columbia schools integrated, black and white children play together October 11, 1956 at the formerly all-white West Elementary School at 13th and Farragut streets NW.

The students were identified as Patricia Smith (facing camera) and Debbie (jumping).

The District’s integration took place following the Supreme Court’s Bolling v. Sharpe decision in May 1954 that was brought about by the Consolidated Parents Group.

Consolidated represented parents and students living in Northeast quadrant of the city and led a seven year fight that began with a boycott of deplorable conditions at the all black Browne Junior High on Benning Road in 1947.

White students, aided by some parents, staged a student strike October 4-5, 1954 at a few District of Columbia high schools and junior highs when the schools were desegregated, but overall went fairly smoothly

However after integration, the school system quickly implemented a track system where black students were placed in the lowest tracks that included no college preparation courses and effectively segregated most black students within the schools.

The June 1967 Hobson v. Hansen court decision broke up the track system, but by then white flight to the suburbs had effectively re-segregated District of Columbia public schools.

For a background post on the fight to break up D.C.’s Jim Crow schools and obtain better education for black students, see washingtonareaspark.com/2015/08/20/dcs-fighting-barber-th...

For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHskivJu7g

The photographer is unknown. The image is Washington Daily News photograph courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.

Walk to the Balcony, a colorization of a 1939 black and white photo by Marion Post Wolcott. Here's a link to the source image: www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3c15416/

Beauford Delaney, Marian Anderson, 1965, oil on canvas, 162.4 x 130.33 x 3.81 cm (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts)

Learn more at Smarthistory

In the fall of 1947, Martin Luther King delivered his first sermon at the pulpit of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Ebenezer’s congregation voted to license King as a minister soon afterward, and he was ordained in February 1948. King went on to serve as Ebenezer’s associate minister during his breaks from Crozer Theological Seminary and from his doctoral studies at Boston University School of Theology through early 1954. He returned as co-pastor with his father, Martin Luther King, Sr., serving from 1960 until his assassination in 1968.

The church was founded in 1886 by its first minister, John Andrew Parker. In 1894 Alfred Daniel Williams, King, Jr.’s maternal grandfather, became Ebenezer’s second pastor. Under Williams the church grew from 13 members to nearly 750 members by 1913. Williams moved the church twice before purchasing a lot on the corner of Auburn Avenue and Jackson Street and, announced plans to raise $25,000 for a new building that would include an auditorium and gallery seating for 1,250 people. In March 1914 the Ebenezer congregation celebrated the groundbreaking for its new building. After the death of Williams in 1931, King, Sr., who had married Williams’ daughter Alberta in 1926, became pastor.

With King, Sr. as pastor and his wife, Alberta Williams King, serving as musical director, the King family spent much of their time at Ebenezer. King, Jr. later described how his earliest relationships were formed at church: ‘‘My best friends were in Sunday School, and it was the Sunday School that helped me to build the capacity for getting along with people’’ (Papers 1:359). While in seminary, King often preached at Ebenezer. He delivered some of his most enduring sermons for the first time at Ebenezer, including ‘‘The Dimensions of a Complete Life,’’ ‘‘What Is Man?’’ and ‘‘Loving Your Enemies.’’

After King accepted the pastorate at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, members of Ebenezer’s congregation attended his October 1954 installation service, prompting King to express his gratitude: ‘‘Your prayers and words of encouragement have meant a great deal to me in my ministry; and you can never know what your presence in such large numbers meant to me at the beginning of my pastorate. I want you to know Ebenezer, that I feel greatly indebted to you; and that whatever success I might achieve in my life’s work you will have helped to make it possible’’ (Papers 2:314).

In November 1959, King accepted Ebenezer’s call to join his father as co-pastor, a move that brought him closer to the headquarters of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. His first sermon as copastor at Ebenezer was ‘‘The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life.’’ After King’s assassination in 1968, his brother, A. D. Williams King, was installed as Ebenezer’s co-pastor. King, Sr. continued as pastor until 1975, and Coretta Scott King continued to attend services at Ebenezer until her death.

Picket signs protesting Jim Crow at the Uline Arena at 1140 3rd Street NE are stacked against the doors of the building circa 1947.

The facility had been the subject of an active three-year picket, petition and boycott campaign demanding that the arena desegregate until owner Mike Uline gave in February 1948.

When Uline desegregated, it was perhaps the largest performing facility in the city to desegregate that had been formerly run Jim Crow up to that point in time.

A year before his capitulation, Uline was frank in his racial views. “Other people don’t want to mix with them, so why should I admit them? I want to do what the majority does.”

When questioned in 1945 about his refusal to admit black people to his Ice Capade shows while permitting them to attend professional boxing, Uline said “Boxing is savagery and Negroes can appreciate anything savage, but the ice shows are too educational and Negroes cannot understand educational sports.”

The first attempts at a boycott began in 1941 under the leadership of Dr. C. Herbert Marshall, president of the local NAACP.

Marshall denounced Uline’s cynical promotion of black professional fights while barring black Americans from other area events and called for a boycott.

Said Marshall, Uline’s policies are “an attempt to exploit the colored population of Washington on special occasions and still subject them to humiliation and discrimination when they attempt to attend other events” held at the arena.

Uline briefly desegregated in 1941 when Paul Robeson was permitted to hold a concert that benefited the National Negro Congress and the Washington Committee for Aid to China and both black and white patrons were admitted.

However Uline immediately went back to barring black patrons except at professional boxing events.

With the onset of World War II, the campaign against Uline took the back burner, but was revived after the war ended and was led by Dr. Edwin B Henderson, the superintendent of black physical education in the D.C. school system and NAACP activist.

The boycott campaign built slowly, but the NAACP, the Committee for Racial Democracy, the People’s Action Committee and the Committee Against Segregation in Recreation organized the picket lines and petition campaigns.

They were also supported by the YMCA and the Police Boys Club No. 2 who provided pickets.

The pickets concentrated the boycott on professional fights to which black people were admitted, urging them to boycott the events.

When the AAU desegregated amateur boxing in 1947, Uline began permitting mixed amateur fights, but still barred black people from attending the amateur fights.

Two events buoyed the protesters cause. It was announced that the D.C. National Guard Armory would begin hosting integrated events. While at 5,000 seats it was not quite as large as the Uline’s 8,000 seats, but it was in the same ballpark. The small Turner’s Arena at 2,000 seats was integrated, but had been too small to host premier events.

The integrated events at the Armory would cut into Uline’s business. At the same time the AAU pressured Uline to drop the ban on black patrons at AAU events.

On January 21, 1948, Uline threw in the towel and opened the gates to black people for the St. Louis-Washington Cap basketball game.

“The trend of the times affected my decision,” Uline said. He added that poor attendance at his arena was also a major factor.

“Negroes will be as welcome as anyone else,” Uline said. “There will be no segregation and they will receive the same attention as other spectators.”

Under pressure from pickets, Lisner Auditorium at George Washington University desegregated, in part, the same year. Private groups renting Lisner could still discriminate.

While efforts continued elsewhere, it would take the Mary Church Terrell’s Coordinating Committee for the Enforcement of the District of Columbia Anti-Discrimination Laws to finally break the barriers during a campaign 1950-53.

The Terrell-led group used a sit-in to seek to enforce the D.C. anti-discrimination laws of 1872 and 1873. They staged pickets and boycotts of downtown restaurants and other public facilities, winning many battles before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1953 that the so-called “lost laws” banning discrimination in public accommodations were still valid in the city.

Uline sold the arena in 1959. It was renamed the Washington Coliseum. During its life as an arena, it hosted professional boxing, hockey, basketball and wrestling, ice shows, the circus, one of President Eisenhower’s inaugural balls, a Nation of Islam rally, the Beatles first U.S. concert and a Bob Dylan concert, among dozens of other prominent events.

After closing, it was used as a detention facility during the 1971 Mayday protests and later as a trash transfer station. It was renovated in 2016 and partially occupied by an REI store.

For a history of the effort to desegregate performing arts venues in Washington, D.C., see washingtonareaspark.com/2013/03/14/dcs-old-jim-crow-rocke...

For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHsmJWczcL

The photographer is unknown. The original source is unknown. The image was obtained via an Internet sale.

This antique city is the site of what is thought to have been the first capital of the island with origins dating back to 2000 BCE.

Enkomi, also referred to as Alasiya, is located near to the present-day village of Tuzla, north of Famagusta.

Excavations have revealed that the city was initially under the influence of Egypt and later of Mycenae – a large orderly city with a prosperous trade, surrounded by fortified walls.

The original settlement was on a rocky plateau west of Tuzla, on the north bank of the river Pedieos, the longest waterway in Cyprus. Copper ore was transported to Enkomi, where it was smelted and shipped for export. At this time, the river was navigable and Enkomi had an inland harbour.

Metallurgical techniques continued into the Late Bronze Age, during which time correspondence between the Pharaoh and the King of Alasiya is recorded. It is unclear whether Alasiya refers to Enkomi, the region or to Cyprus as a whole – however the exchange reveals that Alasiya was a major supplier of copper to Syria and Anatolia, and excavations here have discovered several areas of the city where metallurgy took place. Furthermore, the name is found on texts written in Egyptian, Hittite, Akkadian, Mycenean and Ugaritic.

Much of what can be seen today is the remains of reconstruction of the town after it was devastated by the “Sea People” in around 1200 BCE, aggressive seafarers who invaded eastern Anatolia, Syria, Palestine, Cyprus, and Egypt toward the end of the Bronze Age.

The earlier town had been built on an ad hoc basis, but after the invasion the new town was rebuilt on a grid system, with long east-west avenues and a perpendicular main street. Older structures and tombs were covered over or removed.

It continued to be inhabited until around 1000 BCE, when it was hit by the silting up of its inland harbour on the Pedieos River, and previously by an earthquake in 1075 BCE. As Enkomi declined, the nearby city of Salamis began gradually to thrive, and the last inhabitants of Enkomi migrated there.

Most of the surviving ruins today are from the rebuilt city, which never really recovered its ancient grandeur. Several objects have been since discovered from the site, the majority in 1896 as part of the Turner Bequest expedition to Cyprus, the first excavations on the island conducted by the British Museum.

Two solid bronze statues of gods have been found in the remains of what are thought to be ceremonial buildings on the west side of the main north-south street in the town. The so-called “horned god”, a bronze statuette which reveals the influence of Hittite art, depicting a deity possibly that of Apollo, wearing a horned helmet – and the “ingot god”, a statue wearing a horned conical hat and greaves, armed with shield and spear, and standing on a miniature hide-shaped ingot.

Other notable finds include the decorated “Enkomi Cup” which has been controversially claimed to use niello decoration, which would make it one of the earliest uses of this technique – a black mixture, usually of sulphur, copper, silver, and lead, used as an inlay on engraved or etched metal, especially silver.

Most discoveries have been brought together as a collection of 1,800 objects or fragments in the British Museum in London, from this important Late Bronze Age town of Enkomi in North Cyprus.

Definitely worthy of a stop over if visiting the other major sites in the vicinity.

Northern Cyprus, officially the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), is a de facto state that comprises the northeastern portion of the island of Cyprus. It is recognised only by Turkey, and its territory is considered by all other states to be part of the Republic of Cyprus.

Northern Cyprus extends from the tip of the Karpass Peninsula in the northeast to Morphou Bay, Cape Kormakitis and its westernmost point, the Kokkina exclave in the west. Its southernmost point is the village of Louroujina. A buffer zone under the control of the United Nations stretches between Northern Cyprus and the rest of the island and divides Nicosia, the island's largest city and capital of both sides.

A coup d'état in 1974, performed as part of an attempt to annex the island to Greece, prompted the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. This resulted in the eviction of much of the north's Greek Cypriot population, the flight of Turkish Cypriots from the south, and the partitioning of the island, leading to a unilateral declaration of independence by the north in 1983. Due to its lack of recognition, Northern Cyprus is heavily dependent on Turkey for economic, political and military support.

Attempts to reach a solution to the Cyprus dispute have been unsuccessful. The Turkish Army maintains a large force in Northern Cyprus with the support and approval of the TRNC government, while the Republic of Cyprus, the European Union as a whole, and the international community regard it as an occupation force. This military presence has been denounced in several United Nations Security Council resolutions.

Northern Cyprus is a semi-presidential, democratic republic with a cultural heritage incorporating various influences and an economy that is dominated by the services sector. The economy has seen growth through the 2000s and 2010s, with the GNP per capita more than tripling in the 2000s, but is held back by an international embargo due to the official closure of the ports in Northern Cyprus by the Republic of Cyprus. The official language is Turkish, with a distinct local dialect being spoken. The vast majority of the population consists of Sunni Muslims, while religious attitudes are mostly moderate and secular. Northern Cyprus is an observer state of ECO and OIC under the name "Turkish Cypriot State", PACE under the name "Turkish Cypriot Community", and Organization of Turkic States with its own name.

Several distinct periods of Cypriot intercommunal violence involving the two main ethnic communities, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, marked mid-20th century Cyprus. These included the Cyprus Emergency of 1955–59 during British rule, the post-independence Cyprus crisis of 1963–64, and the Cyprus crisis of 1967. Hostilities culminated in the 1974 de facto division of the island along the Green Line following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. The region has been relatively peaceful since then, but the Cyprus dispute has continued, with various attempts to solve it diplomatically having been generally unsuccessful.

Cyprus, an island lying in the eastern Mediterranean, hosted a population of Greeks and Turks (four-fifths and one-fifth, respectively), who lived under British rule in the late nineteenth-century and the first half of the twentieth-century. Christian Orthodox Church of Cyprus played a prominent political role among the Greek Cypriot community, a privilege that it acquired during the Ottoman Empire with the employment of the millet system, which gave the archbishop an unofficial ethnarch status.

The repeated rejections by the British of Greek Cypriot demands for enosis, union with Greece, led to armed resistance, organised by the National Organization of Cypriot Struggle, or EOKA. EOKA, led by the Greek-Cypriot commander George Grivas, systematically targeted British colonial authorities. One of the effects of EOKA's campaign was to alter the Turkish position from demanding full reincorporation into Turkey to a demand for taksim (partition). EOKA's mission and activities caused a "Cretan syndrome" (see Turkish Resistance Organisation) within the Turkish Cypriot community, as its members feared that they would be forced to leave the island in such a case as had been the case with Cretan Turks. As such, they preferred the continuation of British colonial rule and then taksim, the division of the island. Due to the Turkish Cypriots' support for the British, EOKA's leader, Georgios Grivas, declared them to be enemies. The fact that the Turks were a minority was, according to Nihat Erim, to be addressed by the transfer of thousands of Turks from mainland Turkey so that Greek Cypriots would cease to be the majority. When Erim visited Cyprus as the Turkish representative, he was advised by Field Marshal Sir John Harding, the then Governor of Cyprus, that Turkey should send educated Turks to settle in Cyprus.

Turkey actively promoted the idea that on the island of Cyprus two distinctive communities existed, and sidestepped its former claim that "the people of Cyprus were all Turkish subjects". In doing so, Turkey's aim to have self-determination of two to-be equal communities in effect led to de jure partition of the island.[citation needed] This could be justified to the international community against the will of the majority Greek population of the island. Dr. Fazil Küçük in 1954 had already proposed Cyprus be divided in two at the 35° parallel.

Lindley Dan, from Notre Dame University, spotted the roots of intercommunal violence to different visions among the two communities of Cyprus (enosis for Greek Cypriots, taksim for Turkish Cypriots). Also, Lindlay wrote that "the merging of church, schools/education, and politics in divisive and nationalistic ways" had played a crucial role in creation of havoc in Cyprus' history. Attalides Michael also pointed to the opposing nationalisms as the cause of the Cyprus problem.

By the mid-1950's, the "Cyprus is Turkish" party, movement, and slogan gained force in both Cyprus and Turkey. In a 1954 editorial, Turkish Cypriot leader Dr. Fazil Kuchuk expressed the sentiment that the Turkish youth had grown up with the idea that "as soon as Great Britain leaves the island, it will be taken over by the Turks", and that "Turkey cannot tolerate otherwise". This perspective contributed to the willingness of Turkish Cypriots to align themselves with the British, who started recruiting Turkish Cypriots into the police force that patrolled Cyprus to fight EOKA, a Greek Cypriot nationalist organisation that sought to rid the island of British rule.

EOKA targeted colonial authorities, including police, but Georgios Grivas, the leader of EOKA, did not initially wish to open up a new front by fighting Turkish Cypriots and reassured them that EOKA would not harm their people. In 1956, some Turkish Cypriot policemen were killed by EOKA members and this provoked some intercommunal violence in the spring and summer, but these attacks on policemen were not motivated by the fact that they were Turkish Cypriots.

However, in January 1957, Grivas changed his policy as his forces in the mountains became increasingly pressured by the British Crown forces. In order to divert the attention of the Crown forces, EOKA members started to target Turkish Cypriot policemen intentionally in the towns, so that Turkish Cypriots would riot against the Greek Cypriots and the security forces would have to be diverted to the towns to restore order. The killing of a Turkish Cypriot policeman on 19 January, when a power station was bombed, and the injury of three others, provoked three days of intercommunal violence in Nicosia. The two communities targeted each other in reprisals, at least one Greek Cypriot was killed and the British Army was deployed in the streets. Greek Cypriot stores were burned and their neighbourhoods attacked. Following the events, the Greek Cypriot leadership spread the propaganda that the riots had merely been an act of Turkish Cypriot aggression. Such events created chaos and drove the communities apart both in Cyprus and in Turkey.

On 22 October 1957 Sir Hugh Mackintosh Foot replaced Sir John Harding as the British Governor of Cyprus. Foot suggested five to seven years of self-government before any final decision. His plan rejected both enosis and taksim. The Turkish Cypriot response to this plan was a series of anti-British demonstrations in Nicosia on 27 and 28 January 1958 rejecting the proposed plan because the plan did not include partition. The British then withdrew the plan.

In 1957, Black Gang, a Turkish Cypriot pro-taksim paramilitary organisation, was formed to patrol a Turkish Cypriot enclave, the Tahtakale district of Nicosia, against activities of EOKA. The organisation later attempted to grow into a national scale, but failed to gain public support.

By 1958, signs of dissatisfaction with the British increased on both sides, with a group of Turkish Cypriots forming Volkan (later renamed to the Turkish Resistance Organisation) paramilitary group to promote partition and the annexation of Cyprus to Turkey as dictated by the Menderes plan. Volkan initially consisted of roughly 100 members, with the stated aim of raising awareness in Turkey of the Cyprus issue and courting military training and support for Turkish Cypriot fighters from the Turkish government.

In June 1958, the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, was expected to propose a plan to resolve the Cyprus issue. In light of the new development, the Turks rioted in Nicosia to promote the idea that Greek and Turkish Cypriots could not live together and therefore any plan that did not include partition would not be viable. This violence was soon followed by bombing, Greek Cypriot deaths and looting of Greek Cypriot-owned shops and houses. Greek and Turkish Cypriots started to flee mixed population villages where they were a minority in search of safety. This was effectively the beginning of the segregation of the two communities. On 7 June 1958, a bomb exploded at the entrance of the Turkish Embassy in Cyprus. Following the bombing, Turkish Cypriots looted Greek Cypriot properties. On 26 June 1984, the Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktaş, admitted on British channel ITV that the bomb was placed by the Turks themselves in order to create tension. On 9 January 1995, Rauf Denktaş repeated his claim to the famous Turkish newspaper Milliyet in Turkey.

The crisis reached a climax on 12 June 1958, when eight Greeks, out of an armed group of thirty five arrested by soldiers of the Royal Horse Guards on suspicion of preparing an attack on the Turkish quarter of Skylloura, were killed in a suspected attack by Turkish Cypriot locals, near the village of Geunyeli, having been ordered to walk back to their village of Kondemenos.

After the EOKA campaign had begun, the British government successfully began to turn the Cyprus issue from a British colonial problem into a Greek-Turkish issue. British diplomacy exerted backstage influence on the Adnan Menderes government, with the aim of making Turkey active in Cyprus. For the British, the attempt had a twofold objective. The EOKA campaign would be silenced as quickly as possible, and Turkish Cypriots would not side with Greek Cypriots against the British colonial claims over the island, which would thus remain under the British. The Turkish Cypriot leadership visited Menderes to discuss the Cyprus issue. When asked how the Turkish Cypriots should respond to the Greek Cypriot claim of enosis, Menderes replied: "You should go to the British foreign minister and request the status quo be prolonged, Cyprus to remain as a British colony". When the Turkish Cypriots visited the British Foreign Secretary and requested for Cyprus to remain a colony, he replied: "You should not be asking for colonialism at this day and age, you should be asking for Cyprus be returned to Turkey, its former owner".

As Turkish Cypriots began to look to Turkey for protection, Greek Cypriots soon understood that enosis was extremely unlikely. The Greek Cypriot leader, Archbishop Makarios III, now set independence for the island as his objective.

Britain resolved to solve the dispute by creating an independent Cyprus. In 1959, all involved parties signed the Zurich Agreements: Britain, Turkey, Greece, and the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders, Makarios and Dr. Fazil Kucuk, respectively. The new constitution drew heavily on the ethnic composition of the island. The President would be a Greek Cypriot, and the Vice-President a Turkish Cypriot with an equal veto. The contribution to the public service would be set at a ratio of 70:30, and the Supreme Court would consist of an equal number of judges from both communities as well as an independent judge who was not Greek, Turkish or British. The Zurich Agreements were supplemented by a number of treaties. The Treaty of Guarantee stated that secession or union with any state was forbidden, and that Greece, Turkey and Britain would be given guarantor status to intervene if that was violated. The Treaty of Alliance allowed for two small Greek and Turkish military contingents to be stationed on the island, and the Treaty of Establishment gave Britain sovereignty over two bases in Akrotiri and Dhekelia.

On 15 August 1960, the Colony of Cyprus became fully independent as the Republic of Cyprus. The new republic remained within the Commonwealth of Nations.

The new constitution brought dissatisfaction to Greek Cypriots, who felt it to be highly unjust for them for historical, demographic and contributional reasons. Although 80% of the island's population were Greek Cypriots and these indigenous people had lived on the island for thousands of years and paid 94% of taxes, the new constitution was giving the 17% of the population that was Turkish Cypriots, who paid 6% of taxes, around 30% of government jobs and 40% of national security jobs.

Within three years tensions between the two communities in administrative affairs began to show. In particular disputes over separate municipalities and taxation created a deadlock in government. A constitutional court ruled in 1963 Makarios had failed to uphold article 173 of the constitution which called for the establishment of separate municipalities for Turkish Cypriots. Makarios subsequently declared his intention to ignore the judgement, resulting in the West German judge resigning from his position. Makarios proposed thirteen amendments to the constitution, which would have had the effect of resolving most of the issues in the Greek Cypriot favour. Under the proposals, the President and Vice-President would lose their veto, the separate municipalities as sought after by the Turkish Cypriots would be abandoned, the need for separate majorities by both communities in passing legislation would be discarded and the civil service contribution would be set at actual population ratios (82:18) instead of the slightly higher figure for Turkish Cypriots.

The intention behind the amendments has long been called into question. The Akritas plan, written in the height of the constitutional dispute by the Greek Cypriot interior minister Polycarpos Georkadjis, called for the removal of undesirable elements of the constitution so as to allow power-sharing to work. The plan envisaged a swift retaliatory attack on Turkish Cypriot strongholds should Turkish Cypriots resort to violence to resist the measures, stating "In the event of a planned or staged Turkish attack, it is imperative to overcome it by force in the shortest possible time, because if we succeed in gaining command of the situation (in one or two days), no outside, intervention would be either justified or possible." Whether Makarios's proposals were part of the Akritas plan is unclear, however it remains that sentiment towards enosis had not completely disappeared with independence. Makarios described independence as "a step on the road to enosis".[31] Preparations for conflict were not entirely absent from Turkish Cypriots either, with right wing elements still believing taksim (partition) the best safeguard against enosis.

Greek Cypriots however believe the amendments were a necessity stemming from a perceived attempt by Turkish Cypriots to frustrate the working of government. Turkish Cypriots saw it as a means to reduce their status within the state from one of co-founder to that of minority, seeing it as a first step towards enosis. The security situation deteriorated rapidly.

Main articles: Bloody Christmas (1963) and Battle of Tillyria

An armed conflict was triggered after December 21, 1963, a period remembered by Turkish Cypriots as Bloody Christmas, when a Greek Cypriot policemen that had been called to help deal with a taxi driver refusing officers already on the scene access to check the identification documents of his customers, took out his gun upon arrival and shot and killed the taxi driver and his partner. Eric Solsten summarised the events as follows: "a Greek Cypriot police patrol, ostensibly checking identification documents, stopped a Turkish Cypriot couple on the edge of the Turkish quarter. A hostile crowd gathered, shots were fired, and two Turkish Cypriots were killed."

In the morning after the shooting, crowds gathered in protest in Northern Nicosia, likely encouraged by the TMT, without incident. On the evening of the 22nd, gunfire broke out, communication lines to the Turkish neighbourhoods were cut, and the Greek Cypriot police occupied the nearby airport. On the 23rd, a ceasefire was negotiated, but did not hold. Fighting, including automatic weapons fire, between Greek and Turkish Cypriots and militias increased in Nicosia and Larnaca. A force of Greek Cypriot irregulars led by Nikos Sampson entered the Nicosia suburb of Omorphita and engaged in heavy firing on armed, as well as by some accounts unarmed, Turkish Cypriots. The Omorphita clash has been described by Turkish Cypriots as a massacre, while this view has generally not been acknowledged by Greek Cypriots.

Further ceasefires were arranged between the two sides, but also failed. By Christmas Eve, the 24th, Britain, Greece, and Turkey had joined talks, with all sides calling for a truce. On Christmas day, Turkish fighter jets overflew Nicosia in a show of support. Finally it was agreed to allow a force of 2,700 British soldiers to help enforce a ceasefire. In the next days, a "buffer zone" was created in Nicosia, and a British officer marked a line on a map with green ink, separating the two sides of the city, which was the beginning of the "Green Line". Fighting continued across the island for the next several weeks.

In total 364 Turkish Cypriots and 174 Greek Cypriots were killed during the violence. 25,000 Turkish Cypriots from 103-109 villages fled and were displaced into enclaves and thousands of Turkish Cypriot houses were ransacked or completely destroyed.

Contemporary newspapers also reported on the forceful exodus of the Turkish Cypriots from their homes. According to The Times in 1964, threats, shootings and attempts of arson were committed against the Turkish Cypriots to force them out of their homes. The Daily Express wrote that "25,000 Turks have already been forced to leave their homes". The Guardian reported a massacre of Turks at Limassol on 16 February 1964.

Turkey had by now readied its fleet and its fighter jets appeared over Nicosia. Turkey was dissuaded from direct involvement by the creation of a United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) in 1964. Despite the negotiated ceasefire in Nicosia, attacks on the Turkish Cypriot persisted, particularly in Limassol. Concerned about the possibility of a Turkish invasion, Makarios undertook the creation of a Greek Cypriot conscript-based army called the "National Guard". A general from Greece took charge of the army, whilst a further 20,000 well-equipped officers and men were smuggled from Greece into Cyprus. Turkey threatened to intervene once more, but was prevented by a strongly worded letter from the American President Lyndon B. Johnson, anxious to avoid a conflict between NATO allies Greece and Turkey at the height of the Cold War.

Turkish Cypriots had by now established an important bridgehead at Kokkina, provided with arms, volunteers and materials from Turkey and abroad. Seeing this incursion of foreign weapons and troops as a major threat, the Cypriot government invited George Grivas to return from Greece as commander of the Greek troops on the island and launch a major attack on the bridgehead. Turkey retaliated by dispatching its fighter jets to bomb Greek positions, causing Makarios to threaten an attack on every Turkish Cypriot village on the island if the bombings did not cease. The conflict had now drawn in Greece and Turkey, with both countries amassing troops on their Thracian borders. Efforts at mediation by Dean Acheson, a former U.S. Secretary of State, and UN-appointed mediator Galo Plaza had failed, all the while the division of the two communities becoming more apparent. Greek Cypriot forces were estimated at some 30,000, including the National Guard and the large contingent from Greece. Defending the Turkish Cypriot enclaves was a force of approximately 5,000 irregulars, led by a Turkish colonel, but lacking the equipment and organisation of the Greek forces.

The Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1964, U Thant, reported the damage during the conflicts:

UNFICYP carried out a detailed survey of all damage to properties throughout the island during the disturbances; it shows that in 109 villages, most of them Turkish-Cypriot or mixed villages, 527 houses have been destroyed while 2,000 others have suffered damage from looting.

The situation worsened in 1967, when a military junta overthrew the democratically elected government of Greece, and began applying pressure on Makarios to achieve enosis. Makarios, not wishing to become part of a military dictatorship or trigger a Turkish invasion, began to distance himself from the goal of enosis. This caused tensions with the junta in Greece as well as George Grivas in Cyprus. Grivas's control over the National Guard and Greek contingent was seen as a threat to Makarios's position, who now feared a possible coup.[citation needed] The National Guard and Cyprus Police began patrolling the Turkish Cypriot enclaves of Ayios Theodoros and Kophinou, and on November 15 engaged in heavy fighting with the Turkish Cypriots.

By the time of his withdrawal 26 Turkish Cypriots had been killed. Turkey replied with an ultimatum demanding that Grivas be removed from the island, that the troops smuggled from Greece in excess of the limits of the Treaty of Alliance be removed, and that the economic blockades on the Turkish Cypriot enclaves be lifted. Grivas was recalled by the Athens Junta and the 12,000 Greek troops were withdrawn. Makarios now attempted to consolidate his position by reducing the number of National Guard troops, and by creating a paramilitary force loyal to Cypriot independence. In 1968, acknowledging that enosis was now all but impossible, Makarios stated, "A solution by necessity must be sought within the limits of what is feasible which does not always coincide with the limits of what is desirable."

After 1967 tensions between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots subsided. Instead, the main source of tension on the island came from factions within the Greek Cypriot community. Although Makarios had effectively abandoned enosis in favour of an 'attainable solution', many others continued to believe that the only legitimate political aspiration for Greek Cypriots was union with Greece.

On his arrival, Grivas began by establishing a nationalist paramilitary group known as the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston B or EOKA-B), drawing comparisons with the EOKA struggle for enosis under the British colonial administration of the 1950s.

The military junta in Athens saw Makarios as an obstacle. Makarios's failure to disband the National Guard, whose officer class was dominated by mainland Greeks, had meant the junta had practical control over the Cypriot military establishment, leaving Makarios isolated and a vulnerable target.

During the first Turkish invasion, Turkish troops invaded Cyprus territory on 20 July 1974, invoking its rights under the Treaty of Guarantee. This expansion of Turkish-occupied zone violated International Law as well as the Charter of the United Nations. Turkish troops managed to capture 3% of the island which was accompanied by the burning of the Turkish Cypriot quarter, as well as the raping and killing of women and children. A temporary cease-fire followed which was mitigated by the UN Security Council. Subsequently, the Greek military Junta collapsed on July 23, 1974, and peace talks commenced in which a democratic government was installed. The Resolution 353 was broken after Turkey attacked a second time and managed to get a hold of 37% of Cyprus territory. The Island of Cyprus was appointed a Buffer Zone by the United Nations, which divided the island into two zones through the 'Green Line' and put an end to the Turkish invasion. Although Turkey announced that the occupied areas of Cyprus to be called the Federated Turkish State in 1975, it is not legitimised on a worldwide political scale. The United Nations called for the international recognition of independence for the Republic of Cyprus in the Security Council Resolution 367.

In the years after the Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus one can observe a history of failed talks between the two parties. The 1983 declaration of the independent Turkish Republic of Cyprus resulted in a rise of inter-communal tensions and made it increasingly hard to find mutual understanding. With Cyprus' interest of a possible EU membership and a new UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 1997 new hopes arose for a fresh start. International involvement from sides of the US and UK, wanting a solution to the Cyprus dispute prior to the EU accession led to political pressures for new talks. The believe that an accession without a solution would threaten Greek-Turkish relations and acknowledge the partition of the island would direct the coming negotiations.

Over the course of two years a concrete plan, the Annan plan was formulated. In 2004 the fifth version agreed upon from both sides and with the endorsement of Turkey, US, UK and EU then was presented to the public and was given a referendum in both Cypriot communities to assure the legitimisation of the resolution. The Turkish Cypriots voted with 65% for the plan, however the Greek Cypriots voted with a 76% majority against. The Annan plan contained multiple important topics. Firstly it established a confederation of two separate states called the United Cyprus Republic. Both communities would have autonomous states combined under one unified government. The members of parliament would be chosen according to the percentage in population numbers to ensure a just involvement from both communities. The paper proposed a demilitarisation of the island over the next years. Furthermore it agreed upon a number of 45000 Turkish settlers that could remain on the island. These settlers became a very important issue concerning peace talks. Originally the Turkish government encouraged Turks to settle in Cyprus providing transfer and property, to establish a counterpart to the Greek Cypriot population due to their 1 to 5 minority. With the economic situation many Turkish-Cypriot decided to leave the island, however their departure is made up by incoming Turkish settlers leaving the population ratio between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots stable. However all these points where criticised and as seen in the vote rejected mainly by the Greek Cypriots. These name the dissolution of the „Republic of Cyprus", economic consequences of a reunion and the remaining Turkish settlers as reason. Many claim that the plan was indeed drawing more from Turkish-Cypriot demands then Greek-Cypriot interests. Taking in consideration that the US wanted to keep Turkey as a strategic partner in future Middle Eastern conflicts.

A week after the failed referendum the Republic of Cyprus joined the EU. In multiple instances the EU tried to promote trade with Northern Cyprus but without internationally recognised ports this spiked a grand debate. Both side endure their intention of negotiations, however without the prospect of any new compromises or agreements the UN is unwilling to start the process again. Since 2004 negotiations took place in numbers but without any results, both sides are strongly holding on to their position without an agreeable solution in sight that would suit both parties.

Exposition : The color line

Du mardi 04 octobre 2016 au dimanche 15 janvier 2017

Quel rôle a joué l’art dans la quête d’égalité et d’affirmation de l’identité noire dans l’Amérique de la Ségrégation ? L'exposition rend hommage aux artistes et penseurs africains-américains qui ont contribué, durant près d’un siècle et demi de luttes, à estomper cette "ligne de couleur" discriminatoire.

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« Le problème du 20e siècle est le problème de la ligne de partage des couleurs ».

Si la fin de la Guerre de Sécession en 1865 a bien sonné l’abolition de l'esclavage, la ligne de démarcation raciale va encore marquer durablement la société américaine, comme le pressent le militant W.E.B. Du Bois en 1903 dans The Soul of Black Folks. L’exposition The Color Line revient sur cette période sombre des États-Unis à travers l’histoire culturelle de ses artistes noirs, premières cibles de ces discriminations.

Des thématiques racistes du vaudeville américain et des spectacles de Minstrels du 19e siècle à l’effervescence culturelle et littéraire de la Harlem Renaissance du début du 20e siècle, des pionniers de l’activisme noir (Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington) au réquisitoire de la chanteuse Billie Holiday (Strange Fruit), ce sont près de 150 ans de production artistique – peinture, sculpture, photographie, cinéma, musique, littérature… – qui témoignent de la richesse créative de la contestation noire.

Arrested Civil Rights protesters charged with trespass for protesting segregated lunch counters at Woolworth's, Cameron Village at Raleigh jail, February 12, 1960.

Rapid stratification in soft sand

Rapid strata formation in soft sand (field evidence).

Stratified, soft sand deposit. demonstrates the rapid stratification principle.

Photos of strata formation in soft sand on a beach, created by tidal action of the sea.

Formed in a single, tidal event of turbulent, high tide.

See other examples: www.flickr.com/photos/101536517@N06/sets/72157635944904973/

Rapid stratification. Field evidence.

This natural example of rapid, simultaneous stratification refutes the Superposition Principle, the Principle of Original Horizontality and the Principle of Lateral Continuity.

Superposition only applies on a rare occasion of sedimentary deposits in perfectly, still water. Superposition is required for the long evolutionary timescale, but the evidence shows it is not the general rule, as was once believed. Most sediment is laid down in moving water, where particle segregation is the rule, resulting in the simultaneous deposition of strata/layers as shown in the photo.

Where the water movement is very turbulent, violent, or catastrophic, great depths of stratified sediment can be laid down in a short time. Certainly not the many millions of years assumed by evolutionists.

The composition of strata formed in any deposition event. is related to whatever materials are in the sediment mix. Whatever is in the mix will be automatically sorted into strata/layers. It could be sand, or material added from mud slides, erosion of chalk deposits, volcanic ash etc. Any organic material (potential fossils) will also be sorted and buried within the rapidly, formed strata.

Location: Sandown beach, Isle of Wight. Formed 07/12/2017, This field evidence demonstrates that multiple strata in sedimentary deposits do not need millions of years to form and can be formed rapidly. This natural example confirms the principle demonstrated by the sedimentation experiments carried out by Dr Guy Berthault and other sedimentologists. It calls into question the standard, multi-million year dating of sedimentary rocks, and the dating of fossils by depth of burial or position in the strata.

Strata lines/layers and folding and faulting are clearly visible in these photos.

Dr Berthault's experiments (www.sedimentology.fr/) and other experiments (www.ianjuby.org/sedimentation/) and field studies of floods and volcanic action show that, rather than being formed by gradual, slow deposition of sucessive layers superimposed upon previous layers, with the strata or layers representing a timescale or even a particular, environmental epoch, particle segregation in moving water or airborne particles can form strata or layers very quickly, frequently, in a single event. Such field studies and the experiments show that there is no longer any reason to conclude that strata in sedimentary rocks relate to different geological eras and/or a multi-million year timescale. www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PVnBaqqQw8&feature=share&amp.... It also shows that the relative position of fossils in rocks is not indicative of an order of evolutionary succession. Obviously, the uniformitarian principle, on which the geologic column is based, can no longer be considered valid. And the multi-million, year dating of sedimentary rocks and fossils needs to be reassessed. Rapid deposition of stratified sediments also explains the enigma of polystrate fossils, i.e. large fossils that intersect several strata. In some cases, tree trunk fossils are found which intersect the strata of sedimentary rock up to forty feet in depth. upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/08/Lycopsi... They must have been buried in stratified sediment in a short time (certainly not millions or even thousands of years), or they would have rotted away. youtu.be/vnzHU9VsliQ

In fact, the vast majority of fossils are found in good, intact condition, which is testament to their rapid burial. You don't get good fossils from gradual burial, because they would be damaged or destroyed by decay, predation or erosion. The existence of so many fossils in sedimentary rock on a global scale is stunning evidence for the rapid depostion of sedimentary rock as the general rule. It is obvious that all rock containing good intact fossils was formed from sediment laid down in a very short time, not millions, or even thousands of years.

See set of photos of other examples of rapid stratification: www.flickr.com/photos/101536517@N06/sets/72157635944904973/

Carbon dating of coal should not be possible if it is millions of years old, yet significant amounts of Carbon 14 have been detected in coal and other fossil material, which indicates that it is less than 50,000 years old. www.ldolphin.org/sewell/c14dating.html

www.grisda.org/origins/51006.htm

Evolutionists confidently cite multi-million year ages for rocks and fossils, but what most people don't realise is that no one actually knows the age of sedimentary rocks or the fossils found within them. So how are evolutionists so sure of the ages they so confidently quote? The astonishing thing is they aren't. Sedimentary rocks cannot be dated by radiometric methods*, and fossils can only be dated to less than 50,000 years with Carbon 14 dating. The method evolutionists use is based entirely on assumptions. Unbelievably, fossils are dated by the assumed age of rocks, and rocks are dated by the assumed age of fossils, that's right ... it is known as circular reasoning.

* Regarding the radiometric dating of igneous rocks, which is claimed to be relevant to the dating of sedimentary rocks, in an occasional instance there is an igneous intrusion associated with a sedimentary deposit -

Prof. Aubouin says in his Précis de Géologie: "Each radioactive element disintegrates in a characteristic and constant manner, which depends neither on the physical state (no variation with pressure or temperature or any other external constraint) nor on the chemical state (identical for an oxide or a phosphate)."

"Rocks form when magma crystallizes. Crystallisation depends on pressure and temperature, from which radioactivity is independent. So, there is no relationship between radioactivity and crystallisation.

Consequently, radioactivity doesn't date the formation of rocks. Moreover, daughter elements contained in rocks result mainly from radioactivity in magma where gravity separates the heavier parent element, from the lighter daughter element. Thus radiometric dating has no chronological signification." Dr. Guy Berthault www.sciencevsevolution.org/Berthault.htm

Visit the fossil museum:

www.flickr.com/photos/101536517@N06/sets/72157641367196613/

Just how good are peer reviews of scientific papers?

www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/60.full

www.examiner.com/article/want-to-publish-science-paper-ju...

The neo-Darwinian idea that the human genome consists entirely of an accumulation of billions of mutations is, quite obviously, completely bonkers. Nevertheless, it is compulsorily taught in schools and universities as 'science'.

www.flickr.com/photos/truth-in-science/35505679183

Kapstadt - Bo-Kaap

Circle of Kramat's

The Bo-Kaap is an area of Cape Town, South Africa formerly known as the Malay Quarter. It is a former township, situated on the slopes of Signal Hill above the city centre and is an historical centre of Cape Malay culture in Cape Town. The Nurul Islam Mosque, established in 1844, is located in the area.

Bo-Kaap is traditionally a multicultural area. The area is known for its brightly coloured homes and cobble stoned streets.

As a result of Cape Town's economic development and expansion, and after the demise of forced racial segregation under apartheid, property in the Bo-Kaap has become very sought after, not only for its location but also for its picturesque cobble-streets and unique architecture. Increasingly, this close-knit community is "facing a slow dissolution of its distinctive character as wealthy outsiders move into the suburb to snap up homes in the City Bowl at cut-rate prices". Inter-community conflict has also arisen as some residents object to the sale of buildings and the resultant eviction of long-term residents.

(Wikipedia)

The circle of Kramats in Cape Town is a shrine to Muslim holy men buried in Cape Town. Legend goes that it is this circle that protects Cape Town from earthquakes and National disasters.

Kramats or Mazaars, the holy shrines of Islam, mark the graves of Holy Men of the Muslim faith who have died at the Cape. There are more than 20 recognized kramats in the Peninsula area, with at least another three in the outlying districts of Faure, Caledon, Rawsonville and Bains Kloof.

The history of the Mazaars starts with the Dutch invasion of places such as India, Ceylon and Java. Local communities resisted the tyranny but their leaders were banished to the Cape. Citizens of Malay, Indian, Javanese, Bengalese and Arabian origins were also sold into slavery during this time, and these slaves and sultans started the first Muslim communities in the Cape. It was only during the British occupation that the first Mosque was permitted.

The graves of Sheikh Abdurahman Matebe Shah, at the gateway to Klein Constantia and Sayed Mahmud, in Constantia, are probably the oldest known sites of deceased Auliyah, ('known as,'Friends of Allah'), both having arrived at the Cape in 1667.

Sheikh Abdurahman was the last of the Malaccan Sultans, whose ancestors established the first Malaysian Empire. Sheikh Yusuf, buried at Faure, is probably the most famous Auliyah at the Cape. Of noble birth, he lived in exile due to the Dutch occupation of his hometown Macassar, where he had spearheaded resistance. He was eventually persuaded to surrender. On a broken promise the Dutch transferred him to the Cape in 1693 and accommodated him on the farm "Zandvliet" on the Cape Flats. He provided refuge for fugitive slaves, and it was through his teachings that the first true Muslim community developed in the Cape as early as the late 1690's.

The kramat situated on Lion's Head mountain is probably the easiest kramat to visit whilst on a visit to the "Lion's rump" area view point, it lies just above the road about half way, where the jeep track is visible. Visitors must pay respect when visiting these sites, remove your shoes when entering, no leaning or sitting on the graves and no loud voices, please!

Tuan Guru, whose Kramat is in the Muslim cemetery in the Bo Kaap, was a Prince from the Trinate Islands. His "crime" is not known but he arrived in the Cape in 1780 as a State prisoner. After 12 years imprisonment, Tuan Guru became active in the Muslim community around Dorp Street and was instrumental in the first madrasah (Muslim School) to be built in 1793, and in 1795, the first Mosque. Another Auliyah who served a 12-year sentence was Tuan Sayed Alawie who originated from Yemen. After his release he became a policeman, to have contact with slaves and spread the word of Islam. He died in 1803 and was also buried in the Bo Kaap.

The positioning of the kramats is said to fulfil a 250-year-old prophecy that a "circle of Islam" will be formed around Cape Town. This circle starts at Signal Hill with four separate kramats, continues to the site at Oude Kraal, then Constantia, and further to the famous kramat of Sheikh Yusuf at Faure (Macassar). The old tomb on Robben Island completes the circle.

Etiquette on visiting a Kramat: Please maintain utmost respect when visiting the tombs of Auliyah. Shoes should be removed. Do not sit or lean on, or put your feet on the grave, and please avoid loud conversation. Sit or stand respectfully facing the grave and have no intention other than to derive spiritual benefit from the shrine.

To find local speciality Halaal food while you are in Cape Town on holiday, or to visit the Kramats with a local specialist tour guide, please contact: Tana Baru Tours & the Noon Gun Tea Room

* KRAMAT OF SAYED ABDURAHMAN MOTURA- CO-ORDINATES:-33.798,18.371

Robben Island first gained notoriety as a prison for eastern political exiles, sultans, spiritualists, convicts and slaves. It is a reminder of the injustices and the ill-treatment afforded these prisoners that a Kramat is to be found on the island. The eastern political exiles and convicts are truly the pioneers of Islam in this country; and thus Robben Island becomes very much a part of history of the Muslims in South Africa.

The shrine on Robben Island, is a symbol of the struggle for the establishment of Islam.

It is an expression of Islam’s power, having survived all kinds of restrictions, prejudices, imprisonment and oppression in the land called ‘the fairest Cape on the circumference of the earth.’ Ironically, this shrine was constructed by the Apartheid Prison authorities in the 1960s.

Tuan Matarah also known as Sayed Abduraghman Motura was reputed to have been a very learned and religious man. He spread the message of Islam and consoled those experiencing difficulties. He was known for his wonder cures and the comfort be brought to is fellow prisoners when they were ill.

Tuan Matarah died on Robben Island. Upon his death, his grave soon became a respected shrine. Here those who knew him came to meditate and seek consolation for their suffering. Their example was followed by other prisoners who arrived after his death. On their release, they talked extensively about the holy man who lies buried on Robben Island

* KRAMAT OF SHEIK NOORAL MUBEEN - CO-ORDINATES:-33.98, 18.34

Sheikh Noorul Mubeen was banished to the Cape in 1716. He was incarcerated on Robben Island from where he escaped. There are several legends surrounding the details of his escape. It has been narrated that he escaped by walking across the Atlantic Ocean from Robben Island to the mainland. Another version of his escape is that he swam across from Robben Island where he was helped by fishermen to the spot in the mountain, where his kramat now lies. He taught the fishermen Islam and became their Imam. It has also been related that he escaped by ‘unknown means’ and found this safe site to live. This was a good site helping him to keep watch over the area which included the peaks of the Twelve Apostles and Lion’s head. He began to teach the local slave Islam mostly at night.

(sahistory.org.za)

Bo-Kaap (Afrikaans; deutsch etwa: „Über dem Kap“), auch Malay Quarter („Malaienviertel“) oder Slamsebuurt („Islamviertel“), offiziell Schotschekloof, ist ein Stadtteil von Kapstadt in der südafrikanischen Provinz Westkap (Western Cape). Er entstand als Siedlung von Kapmalaien, die bis heute die Mehrheit der Bewohner stellen.

Bo-Kaap liegt zwischen dem Stadtzentrum und dem Hang des Signal Hill im Westen des Kapstädter Zentrums, etwa einen Kilometer vom Bahnhof Cape Town entfernt. Nördlich liegt der Stadtteil De Waterkant.

Bo-Kaap ist – historisch gesehen – etwa einen Quadratkilometer groß; über 6000 Menschen leben dort. Über 90 Prozent von ihnen sind Muslime, darunter wiederum 90 Prozent Schāfiʿiten. Insgesamt gibt es zehn Moscheen im Bo-Kaap. Der Stadtteil zeichnet sich durch enge, steile Gassen und in unterschiedlichen grellen Farben gestrichene Fassaden aus. Der Baustil ist eine Synthese aus kapholländischer und Edwardianischer Architektur.

Offiziell wird der Stadtteil als Sub Place Schotschekloof geführt und liegt zwischen Signal Hill und Buitengracht Street, dem Motorway M62. 2011 hatte er 3203 Bewohner.

Bo-Kaap wurde im 18. Jahrhundert von Kapmalaien besiedelt, nachdem sie aus der Sklaverei entlassen worden waren. Ältestes erhaltenes Haus im Originalzustand ist das heutige Bo-Kaap Museum aus den 1760er Jahren. Tuan Guru gab von hieraus der Islamisierung der Sklaven und freigelassenen schwarzen Bevölkerung wichtige Impulse. In der Folge wurden mehrere Moscheen errichtet, 1794 die Auwal Mosque in der Dorp Street – die erste Moschee Südafrikas –, ab 1811 die Palm Tree Mosque in der Long Street, die historisch zu Bo-Kaap gehört, und 1844 die Nural Islam Mosque. 1886 sollte auf Anordnung der Behörden die 1805 eingerichtete muslimische Begräbnisstätte Tana Baru Cemetery geschlossen werden; der – letztlich erfolglose – Widerstand tausender Bewohner gilt als bedeutendste Aktion der Kapmalaien gegen die Obrigkeit.

Nach dem Ende der Apartheid und der Aufhebung des Group Areas Act wurden viele Häuser instandgesetzt. Es setzte aber auch mit dem Zuzug reicher Bewohner und der Kündigung bestehender Mietverträge eine Gentrifizierung ein. 2016 wurden Planungen für ein 17-stöckiges Hochhaus mit Luxusapartments bekannt.

Bo-Kaap gilt mit seinen grellbunt gestrichenen Häusern, den Moscheen, dem Bo-Kaap Museum und Straßen mit Kopfsteinpflaster als touristische Sehenswürdigkeit. Die Straße M62 führt durch Bo-Kaap.

(Wikipedia)

Magliana Camp, Rom Settlement, Suburbs of Rome

April 2011

Italy’s Roma still segregated and without prospects

Discriminatory laws, policies and practices which marginalize Italy’s Roma must be urgently changed, Amnesty international said in a briefing published today.

On the edge: Roma, forced evictions and segregation in Italy, exposes the continuing systematic failure of Italian authorities to uphold Roma rights.

In the 10 months since Italy’s highest administrative court ruled the emergency laws targeting the Roma, the “Nomad Emergency”, unlawful, neither reparation nor effective remedy has been given to Roma whose rights were violated because of the three-and-a-half-years long state of emergency.

“The Italian government is not living up to its international obligations and to its commitments to the European Commission. Children, women and men living in camps continue to be evicted without adequate consultation, notice and alternative housing. Inhabitants of informal camps are the worst affected and continue to be kicked out at every opportunity,” said John Dalhuisen, Director of the Europe and Central Asia Programme.

“The recent opening of a new segregated camp, La Barbuta, outside Rome, is a very obvious example of the authorities’ failure to change.”

“Monti’s cabinet does not use the derogatory language of their predecessors. But when it comes to a transition from words to deeds, no real difference can be detected.”

Regardless of promises to promote equal treatment and improve Roma’s living conditions, included in the National Strategy for Roma Inclusion that the Italian government presented to the EU in February 2012, hundreds of Romani people in Rome and Milan have been forcibly evicted and left homeless this year.

Plans to close authorized or ‘tolerated’ camps continue despite a lack of genuine consultation, and adequate legal safeguards. Living conditions in most authorized camps remain very poor; conditions in informal camps are even worse, with little access to water, sanitation and energy. Ethnic segregation is perpetuated; and Roma remain largely excluded from social housing.

In many cases repeated forced evictions have led Roma to set up shacks in locations where they are exposed to extremely precarious conditions, with very poor access to water, sanitation and other services, and little if any protection from the weather, and infestations of rats and mice.

“I am mighty upset. I lived in an authorized camp, I worked, my children were going to school, and now I have nothing,” said Daniel who has lived in Italy for 12 years and was a resident of the authorized camp of Via Triboniano in Milan until he and his family were forcibly evicted from it in May 2010. He is currently living in an informal camp in Milan.

According to local authority sources in Rome, in the first six months of 2012, more than 850 people were evicted from informal camps. Emergency shelter was offered only in 209 cases –all of them mothers and children. Only five mothers and their nine children accepted the offers, as the majority refused to be separated from their families.

“Roma in Italy remain trapped in bureaucratic hurdles ensuring they won’t qualify for the scarce social housing,” said Dalhuisen.

“Only last week, the Italian government co-hosted the sixth World Urban Forum which highlighted a need to improve quality of life. It’s high time for Italian authorities to stop flouting their international obligations and improve the quality of life for the Roma living in authorized and informal camps by providing them with adequate housing, which is their right. Romani families must be enabled to integrate and become equal members of society.”

Amnesty International also recommends that the European Commission starts an infringement procedure against Italy under the Race Equality Directive for its discriminatory treatment of the Roma in relation to their right to adequate housing.

Judicial developments

Some hope for the rights of Roma in Italy comes from two recent court decisions related to forced evictions and segregation of Roma.

On 31 July 2012 the mayor of Rome ordered the closure of the camp of Tor de’ Cenci, home to Roma from Bosnia and Macedonia since 1996, officially because of the lack of hygiene and related risks to the health of the inhabitants.

The only alternative housing offered was in the segregated camps of La Barbuta and Castel Romano, both located at a great distance from the city and isolated from services.

Following a request by some of Tor de’ Cenci camp’s remaining families, on 27 August the Lazio administrative tribunal temporarily suspended the mayor’s eviction order and reminded the authorities that they are responsible for maintaining adequate health and safety conditions in the camp until the court can take a definitive decision on the eviction.

In the meantime, between the end of July and the beginning of August 2012, approximately 200 people were transferred from Tor de’ Cenci to La Barbuta, an isolated stretch of land sandwiched between railway tracks, Rome’s orbital road and the runway of Ciampino airport.

Then on 4 August 2012, Rome’s Civil Court accepted a request by local NGOs to stop new transfers of Roma to La Barbuta as a precautionary measure, while it considers claims about the discriminatory nature of the housing provided at the new camp.

www.amnesty.org/en/news/italy-s-roma-still-segregated-and...

Exposition : The color line

Du mardi 04 octobre 2016 au dimanche 15 janvier 2017

Quel rôle a joué l’art dans la quête d’égalité et d’affirmation de l’identité noire dans l’Amérique de la Ségrégation ? L'exposition rend hommage aux artistes et penseurs africains-américains qui ont contribué, durant près d’un siècle et demi de luttes, à estomper cette "ligne de couleur" discriminatoire.

—————

« Le problème du 20e siècle est le problème de la ligne de partage des couleurs ».

Si la fin de la Guerre de Sécession en 1865 a bien sonné l’abolition de l'esclavage, la ligne de démarcation raciale va encore marquer durablement la société américaine, comme le pressent le militant W.E.B. Du Bois en 1903 dans The Soul of Black Folks. L’exposition The Color Line revient sur cette période sombre des États-Unis à travers l’histoire culturelle de ses artistes noirs, premières cibles de ces discriminations.

Des thématiques racistes du vaudeville américain et des spectacles de Minstrels du 19e siècle à l’effervescence culturelle et littéraire de la Harlem Renaissance du début du 20e siècle, des pionniers de l’activisme noir (Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington) au réquisitoire de la chanteuse Billie Holiday (Strange Fruit), ce sont près de 150 ans de production artistique – peinture, sculpture, photographie, cinéma, musique, littérature… – qui témoignent de la richesse créative de la contestation noire.

Rapid strata formation in soft sand (field evidence).

Photos of strata formation in soft sand on a beach, created by tidal action of the sea.

Formed in a single, tidal event of turbulent, high tide.

See many other examples of rapid stratification with geological features: www.flickr.com/photos/101536517@N06/sets/72157635944904973/

This natural example of rapid, simultaneous stratification refutes the Superposition Principle, the Principle of Original Horizontality and the Principle of Lateral Continuity.

Superposition only applies on a rare occasion of sedimentary deposits in perfectly, still water. Superposition is required for the long evolutionary timescale, but the evidence shows it is not the general rule, as was once believed. Most sediment is laid down in moving water, where particle segregation is the rule, resulting in the simultaneous deposition of strata/layers as shown in the photo.

Where the water movement is very turbulent, violent, or catastrophic, great depths of stratified sediment can be laid down in a short time. Certainly not the many millions of years assumed by evolutionists.

The composition of strata formed in any deposition event. is related to whatever materials are in the sediment mix. Whatever is in the mix will be automatically sorted into strata/layers. It could be sand, or material added from mud slides, erosion of chalk deposits, volcanic ash etc. Any organic material (potential fossils) will also be sorted and buried within the rapidly, formed strata.

Stratified, soft sand deposit. demonstrates the rapid, stratification principle.

Important, field evidence which supports the work of the eminent, sedimentologist Dr Guy Berthault.

(Dr Berthault's experiments (www.sedimentology.fr/)

And also the experimental work of Dr M.E. Clark (Professor Emeritus, U of Illinois @ Urbana), Andrew Rodenbeck and Dr. Henry Voss, (www.ianjuby.org/sedimentation/)

Location: Sandown beach, Isle of Wight. Formed 17/11/2016, This field evidence demonstrates that multiple strata in sedimentary deposits do not need millions of years to form and can be formed rapidly. This natural example confirms the principle demonstrated by the sedimentation experiments carried out by Dr Guy Berthault and other sedimentologists. It calls into question the standard, multi-million year dating of sedimentary rocks, and the dating of fossils by depth of burial or position in the strata.

Strata lines/layers and cross bedding is present in this example.

Dr Berthault's experiments (www.sedimentology.fr/) and other experiments (www.ianjuby.org/sedimentation/) and field studies of floods and volcanic action show that, rather than being formed by gradual, slow deposition of sucessive layers superimposed upon previous layers, with the strata or layers representing a timescale or even a particular, environmental epoch, particle segregation in moving water or airborne particles can form strata or layers very quickly, frequently, in a single event. Such field studies and the experiments show that there is no longer any reason to conclude that strata in sedimentary rocks relate to different geological eras and/or a multi-million year timescale. www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PVnBaqqQw8&feature=share&amp.... It also shows that the relative position of fossils in rocks is not indicative of an order of evolutionary succession. Obviously, the uniformitarian principle, on which the geologic column is based, can no longer be considered valid. And the multi-million, year dating of sedimentary rocks and fossils needs to be reassessed. Rapid deposition of stratified sediments also explains the enigma of polystrate fossils, i.e. large fossils that intersect several strata. In some cases, tree trunk fossils are found which intersect the strata of sedimentary rock up to forty feet in depth. upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/08/Lycopsi... They must have been buried in stratified sediment in a short time (certainly not millions or even thousands of years), or they would have rotted away. youtu.be/vnzHU9VsliQ

In fact, the vast majority of fossils are found in good, intact condition, which is testament to their rapid burial. You don't get good fossils from gradual burial, because they would be damaged or destroyed by decay, predation or erosion. The existence of so many fossils in sedimentary rock on a global scale is stunning evidence for the rapid depostion of sedimentary rock as the general rule. It is obvious that all rock containing good intact fossils was formed from sediment laid down in a very short time, not millions, or even thousands of years.

See set of photos of other examples of rapid stratification: www.flickr.com/photos/101536517@N06/sets/72157635944904973/

Carbon dating of coal should not be possible if it is millions of years old, yet significant amounts of Carbon 14 have been detected in coal and other fossil material, which indicates that it is less than 50,000 years old. www.ldolphin.org/sewell/c14dating.html

www.grisda.org/origins/51006.htm

Evolutionists confidently cite multi-million year ages for rocks and fossils, but what most people don't realise is that no one actually knows the age of sedimentary rocks or the fossils found within them. So how are evolutionists so sure of the ages they so confidently quote? The astonishing thing is they aren't. Sedimentary rocks cannot be dated by radiometric methods*, and fossils can only be dated to less than 50,000 years with Carbon 14 dating. The method evolutionists use is based entirely on assumptions. Unbelievably, fossils are dated by the assumed age of rocks, and rocks are dated by the assumed age of fossils, that's right ... it is known as circular reasoning.

* Regarding the radiometric dating of igneous rocks, which is claimed to be relevant to the dating of sedimentary rocks, in an occasional instance there is an igneous intrusion associated with a sedimentary deposit -

Prof. Aubouin says in his Précis de Géologie: "Each radioactive element disintegrates in a characteristic and constant manner, which depends neither on the physical state (no variation with pressure or temperature or any other external constraint) nor on the chemical state (identical for an oxide or a phosphate)."

"Rocks form when magma crystallizes. Crystallisation depends on pressure and temperature, from which radioactivity is independent. So, there is no relationship between radioactivity and crystallisation.

Consequently, radioactivity doesn't date the formation of rocks. Moreover, daughter elements contained in rocks result mainly from radioactivity in magma where gravity separates the heavier parent element, from the lighter daughter element. Thus radiometric dating has no chronological signification." Dr. Guy Berthault www.sciencevsevolution.org/Berthault.htm

Visit the fossil museum:

www.flickr.com/photos/101536517@N06/sets/72157641367196613/

Just how good are peer reviews of scientific papers?

www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/60.full

www.examiner.com/article/want-to-publish-science-paper-ju...

The neo-Darwinian idea that the human genome consists entirely of an accumulation of billions of mutations is, quite obviously, completely bonkers. Nevertheless, it is compulsorily taught in schools and universities as 'science'.

www.flickr.com/photos/truth-in-science/35505679183

Persistent URL: floridamemory.com/items/show/267341

Local call number: TD01484M

Title: Civil rights activist Priscilla Stephens being arrested - Tallahassee

Date: June 16, 1961

Physical descrip: 1 photonegative - b&w - 60 mm.

Series Title: Tallahassee Democrat Collection

Repository: State Library and Archives of Florida

500 S. Bronough St., Tallahassee, FL, 32399-0250 USA, Contact: 850.245.6700, Archives@dos.myflorida.com

Persistent URL: floridamemory.com/items/show/266474

Local call number: TD00773A

Title: Sit-in at Woolworth's lunch counter - Tallahassee

Date: February 13, 1960

Physical descrip: 1 photonegative - b&w - 4 x 5 in.

Series Title: Tallahassee Democrat Collection

Repository: State Library and Archives of Florida

500 S. Bronough St., Tallahassee, FL, 32399-0250 USA, Contact: 850.245.6700, Archives@dos.myflorida.com

Julius Hobson (left) reads a landmark decision on his civil rights suit against Washington, D.C. public schools along with attorney Bill Higgs June 20, 1967.

Hobson, a long-time school and civil rights activist, filed the suit charging that the District of Columbia had failed to desegregate under the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision of Bolling v. Sharpe by segregating teachers, putting black students in lower “tracks” that denied them the ability to go to college and left black schools overcrowded while white schools were underutilized.

U.S. Court of Appeals Judge James Skelly Wright ruled that the city practiced “criminal” discrimination against poor black children and that any discrimination by intent or by “accident” are equally unconstitutional.

Wright outlawed the track system that placed students in one of four tracks: vocational, general, college-bound and honors. The overwhelming majority of black students were placed in vocational and general.

The court also ordered the school system to “substantially integrate” faculties. White teachers had been assigned to schools west of Rock Creek Park while black teachers were assigned in black neighborhoods.

Further Wright ordered the school system to file a plan with the court to increase student integration.

Mainstream civil rights leaders and groups had distanced themselves from Hobson whom they regarded as a radical and he financed the $13,000 cost of the suit by soliciting small donations.

At one point he had to file for relief from the court because he didn’t have the money to print 40 copies of an appeal as required by law.

Prior to the decision, Hobson attempted to organize a boycott of the city’s schools on May 1st, attempting to reprise the 1947 boycott in Northeast Washington by Gardner Bishop that ultimately led to the Bolling v. Sharpe decision.

Mainstream civil rights leaders roundly condemned the planned boycott and fewer than 1,000 students boycotted school that day.

Biography:

Julius Wilson Hobson was a crusading civil rights activist and self-described socialist in the District of Columbia who was later elected to the D.C. school board and city council.

Hobson was born in Birmingham, Alabama where as a child he cleaned floors in a public library, but was unable to borrow books due to race laws in the Jim Crow south.

After graduation from high school, he attended Tuskegee Institute but was called away from his studies due to World War II. During the war, he served in the United States Army in Europe where was awarded three bronze stars for his many piloting missions for artillery observers.

After returning from the war, Hobson graduated from Tuskegee Institute and briefly attended Columbia University before moving to Washington, D.C. to attend graduate school in economics at Howard University.

In the early 1950s, he walked his son past the all-white neighborhood school to Slowe elementary in the Brookland area and became increasingly angry.

“That was just about the first fight I got involved in,” Hobson said years later. He became president of the local PTA arguing that students at overcrowded black schools should be permitted to go to under-utilized white schools.

This was the era of pickets, demonstrations and a student strike that was organized by Consolidated Parents over the same issue in another part of Northeast Washington that resulted in the Bolling v. Sharpe U.S. Supreme Court decision of 1954 that ordered desegregation of D.C. schools.

Hobson became increasingly active—first in his local civic association and rising to become vice president of the Federation of Civil Associations and also becoming a member of the executive committee of the local NAACP.

In 1961, the local chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) asked Hobson to be its president. For three years he led pickets—primarily directed at businesses that failed to hire black personnel. When the picketing was over, 120 businesses had hired black workers.

While Washington’s transit system first opened the operator job to African Americans in 1955, the company dragged its feet on hiring any substantial number of black drivers. After Hobson threatened a boycott, the D.C. Transit Company hired 44 black operators and clerks.

CORE conducted a sit in at the Washington Hospital Center and not long afterward, the facility desegregated its wards.

He led a march of 4,500 people to the District Building (now John Wilson) demanding an end to segregated housing in the city. Shortly afterward the appointed commissioners outlawed segregation in housing rental units.

Hobson’s confrontational style made enemies not only of white supremacists, but within the civil rights movement itself. In 1964 the national leadership of CORE expelled him for running a dictatorship in the Washington, D.C. chapter.

Hobson formed his own group and, if anything, engaged in even wilder theatrics. To dramatize the rat problem in the city’s poorer neighborhoods, Hobson drove around the city with possum-sized rats in cages and threatened to release them in Georgetown unless the city focused on eradicating rats in poor and working class neighborhoods.

His greatest accomplishment though came through meticulous research into the school system’s expenditure of resources.

Despite the Bolling v. Sharpe decision in 1954, the city schools spent far more proportionately on white students than on black students.

Hobson took aim with a lawsuit at the city’s tracking system where black students were channeled into vocational education while white students were targeted for academics.

On June 19, 1967, U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge James Skelly Wright agreed with Hobson and abolished the track system and ordered schools integrated even if it meant busing students from overcrowded black schools to white schools west of Rock Creek Park.

Hobson was an outspoken foe of freeway construction and supporter of building the Washington Metro system. He was a leader of a bus boycott in 1968 protesting an increase in the fare.

Hobson turned his attention to the District’s newly created elected positions, running for and winning an at-large seat on the school board in 1968. The following year he ran for a ward seat and lost.

Next he ran for D.C. Delegate to Congress in 1971 under the Statehood Party banner, but lost to Democrat Walter Fauntroy.

He was the People’s Party, a loose-knit left wing party, candidate for Vice President in 1972 with pediatrician Benjamin Spock as the Presidential candidate.

He was elected as an at-large councilmember in the District in 1974 again under the Statehood Party banner and served until his death in 1977 after a long bout with spinal cancer.

His reputation was tarnished after his death in 1981 when the Washington Post obtained his FBI file under a Freedom of Information request that revealed he had been a source of information for the government for more than five years.

The Post article reported that FBI Agent Elmer Lee Todd "said he met regularly with Hobson — sometimes as often as twice a month — from about 1961 to late 1964, mostly to discuss and assess potentially violent or disruptive demonstrations, organizations and individuals in the civil rights movement."

Specifically, Hobson apparently was paid $100 to $300 in expenses to monitor and report on civil rights demonstration plans at the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City.

On another occasion, he reported on a 1965 meeting in Detroit involving the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM)—a short lived black liberation group that advocated armed self-defense; and, on still another, he warned agents of possible violence at a Philadelphia demonstration that same year, according to the file.

Friends defended him saying that he often joked about telling the FBI stories but others condemned the incongruous behavior as a stain on his otherwise exemplary record.

Many of those who knew him preferred to ignore the FBI allegations and remember him more fondly.

Longtime friend and ally Sam Smith quoted Hobson on the black church:

"I was asked to speak at his church one Sunday. I went over there and when I went there I looked over the congregation.”

“I would say the average person in there had on a pair of Thom McAn shoes, that their suits cost an average $35 a piece, that their shirts were from Hecht’s basements and that they were very poor and very illiterate - almost illiterate - people who were emotionally shocked just came to the church to let out this scream.”

“[The minister] took up a love offering, he took up a minister's travel offering and then he took up a regular - he took up five or six offerings.”

“So when he got to me to speak, I got up and said, 'God damn it, if this is Christianity, I want no part of it.' And 'this son of a bitch is stealing from you and the thing is, he's not just stealing your money, he's stealing your minds. And I refuse to be a part of this.' And I walked off.”

For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHskSX8PSt

Photo by Joseph Silverman. The image is courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.

On December 1, 1955, 42-year old African-American seamstress Rosa Parks was returning home when she boarded this bus on the Montgomery, Alabama public bus system. She sat in the middle, the furthest forward after the ten seats reserved for white people under Montgomery's racist Jim Crow Laws of segregation. Under those laws, the middle seats were to be given up to a white person if they chose to sat there. When the front seats were filled, and a white person headed back, the driver told the black riders to move to the back of the bus. Four blacks did move back, but Rosa Parks refused. She was eventually pulled off of the bus, arrested, and convicted of violating the laws of segregation.

The spontaneous act was stunning. Rosa Parks was a motherly-looking, well respected middle-class figure in the African-American community. Just as importantly, she had experience working with Civil Rights movements in the 1940s and a strong sense of right and wrong. While African-American Civil Rights leaders were building up to a wholesale confrontation of the system of segregation throughout the 1940s, here was a blatantly obvious case of the fundamental unfairness of the system. The Black community immediately moved in solidarity to Parks and in Montgomery local activists launched a boycott of the bus system. The Montgomery Improvement Association was formed, led by Martin Luther King, Jr., new to Montgomery and so said to be unable to be intimidated by government pressure.

The boycott quickly showed its effects. Electrified by the incident, almost the entire African-American community walked or shared rides, and the bus system, which had a ridership of 75% black, quickly began losing revenue. Black churches throughout the country contributed funds to support the boycott, holding back the city's attempts to force its failure. White Citizens Councils formed and began attacking boycotters and firebombing homes of leaders. King and other leaders were arrested for violating city ordinances, which became a PR disaster for the city when they immediately turned themselves in. As the country turned its focus on Montgomery, things began to change. Browder v. Gayle (1956) passed the United States Supreme Court, stating that segregation of buses were illegal, which quickly followed an order for Alabama to desegregate its buses. After 381 days, the boycott officially ended with the end of the racial divide in municipal transportation.

Still the victory was a bit Pyhrric. The Montgomery City Council quickly emphasized greater segregation laws throughout the city to compensate for the defeat, and Citizen's Councils continued to harass blacks and firebomb homes. Rosa Parks left Montgomery due to death threats and blacklisting. Still, with this victory, people throughout the country were inspired to act out against the racist laws that had governed their communities for so long. The Civil Rights Movement would move into full gear.

In 2001, the bus, long since forgotten and abandoned in a field in Alabama, was traced to be the one where Rosa Parks was forcibly evicted from so long ago (2857 as stated in a newspaper). It was bought at auction and restored in 2003.

The Henry Ford, Dearborn, Michigan

Jackson, MS (est. 1821, pop. 165,000)

Marker:

front

"On May 28, 1961, a Greyhound bus with nine Freedom Riders aboard arrived here, the third group of Riders into Jackson. The first two came on Trailways buses May 24. That summer 329 people were arrested in Jackson for integrating public transportation facilities. Convicted on "breach of peace" and jailed, most refused bail and were sent to the state penitentiary. Their protest worked. In September 1961, the federal government mandated that segregation in interstate transportation end."

back

"Greyhound Bus Station This former Greyhound bus station was the scene of many historic arrests in 1961, when Freedom Riders challenged racial segregation in Jackson’s bus and train stations and airport. The Freedom Riders, part of a campaign created by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), pressured the federal government to enforce the law regarding illegal racially separate waiting rooms, rest rooms, and restaurants—common in public transportation facilities across the South.

"On May 4, 1961, thirteen Riders—blacks and whites, men and women—left Washington, D.C., on two buses. Trained in nonviolent direct action, they planned to desegregate bus stations throughout the South. They integrated stations in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia with few incidents but were attacked by vicious mobs in Anniston, Birmingham, and Montgomery, Alabama. The Kennedy administration implored them to stop, a call echoed by the media and some civil rights leaders. The Riders, however, reinforced with new volunteers from the Nashville Student Movement, were determined to continue.

"On May 24, two buses of Freedom Riders left Montgomery bound for Jackson, with highway patrolmen and National Guardsmen as armed guards. Instead of a protest mob, policemen met them in Jackson, urging them to “move on” when the Riders tried to use facilities denied them. When the Riders refused, they were arrested, charged with “breach of peace,” and quickly convicted.

"Embracing the "jail-no bail" tactic, they invited new Riders from around the country to join them in Jackson. Within three weeks the city’s jails were full, and the Riders were transferred to the state penitentiary at Parchman, where most served six weeks, suffering indignities and injustices with fortitude and resolve. Between May 24 and September 13, 329 people were arrested in Jackson—half black, half white, and a quarter of them women. Most were between the ages of eighteen and thirty. They came from thirty-nine states and ten other countries; forty-three were from Mississippi.

"On September 23, the Interstate Commerce Commission mandated an end to segregation in all bus and train stations and airports. The victorious Freedom Riders left a legacy of historic changes, proving the value of nonviolent direct action, providing a template for future campaigns, and helping jump-start the movement in Mississippi."

Old Greyhound Station History

• in the mid-1930s, as America struggled through Great Depression, Greyhound Lines adopted a Streamline Moderne design for their buses & terminals, echoing the speed lines of their Super Coaches which, like the Greyhound logo, promised a swift, state of the art ride • brought in engineer Dwight Austin (1897-1960) to create the new Super Coach design & Louisville architect William Strudwick Arrasmith (1898-1965) to reimagine Greyhound terminal design

• in 1937, Greyhound Lines contracted for a Streamline Moderne style terminal in Jackson, topped by a vertical, illuminated "Greyhound" sign • the bldg. was faced with blue Vitrolux structural glass panels and ivory Vitrolite trim • included a coffee shop with a horseshoe-shaped counter & bathing facilities for women (a bath tub) and men (a shower)

• the design is widely believed to be one of the ~60 Moderne Greyhound stations credited to Arrasmith, although photographic evidence suggests that Memphis architect William Nowland Van Powell (1904-1977) — working with George Mahan Jr. (1887-1967) — was responsible for the design, with or without Arrasmith as the consulting architect

• restoration architect Robert Parker Adams acquired the then threatened bldg. in 1988, moved in after restoration, retaining the original neon sign —Wikipedia

The Farish Street Historic District

“but out of the bitterness we wrought an ancient past here in this separate place and made our village here.” —African Village by Margaret Walker (1915-1998)

• during the Reconstruction era that followed the American Civil War, white Southerners struggled to reclaim their lives as millions of black Southerners sought new ones • with the stroke of a pen, the Emancipation Proclamation had transformed African slaves into African Americans & released them into hostile, vengeful & well-armed white communities amid the ruins of a once flourishing society

• the antebellum South had been home to over 262,000 rights-restricted "free blacks" • post-emancipation, the free black population soared to 4.1 million • given that the South had sacrificed 20% of it's white males to the war, blacks now comprised over half the total population of some southern states • uneducated & penniless, most of the new black Americans depended on the Freedman's Bureau for food & clothing

• the social & political implications of this disruptive shift in demographics fueled a violence-laced strain of American racism • in this toxic environment, de facto racial segregation was a given, ordained as Mississippi law in 1890 • with Yankees (the U.S. Army) patrolling Jackson & Maine-born Republican Adelbert Ames installed in the Governor's Mansion, the Farish Street neighborhood was safe haven for freedmen

• as homeless African American refugees poured into Jackson from all reaches of the devastated state, a black economy flickered to life in the form of a few Farish Street mom-and-pops • unwelcome at white churches, the liberated slaves built their own, together with an entire neighborhood's worth of buildings, most erected between 1890 & 1930

• by 1908 1/3 of the district was black-owned, & half of the black families were homeowners • the 1913-1914 business directory listed 11 African American attorneys, 4 doctors, 3 dentists, 2 jewelers, 2 loan companies & a bank, all in the Farish St. neighborhood • the community also had 2 hospitals & numerous retail & service stores —City Data

• by mid-20th c. Farish Street, the state's largest economically independent African American community, had become the cultural, political & business hub for central Mississippi's black citizens [photos] • on Saturdays, countryfolk would come to town on special busses to sell produce & enjoy BBQ while they listened to live street music • vendors sold catfish fried in large black kettles over open fires • hot tamales, a Mississippi staple, were also a popular street food —The Farish District, Its Architecture and Cultural Heritage

“I’ve seen pictures. You couldn’t even get up the street. It was a two-way street back then, and it was wall-to-wall folks. It was just jam-packed: people shopping, people going to clubs, people eating, people dancing.” — Geno Lee, owner of the Big Apple Inn

• as Jackson's black economy grew, Farish Street entertainment venues prospered, drawing crowds with live & juke blues music • the musicians found or first recorded in the Neighborhood include Robert Johnson, Sonny Boy Williamson II & Elmore James

• Farish Street was also home to talent scouts & record labels like H.C. Speir, & Trumpet Records, Ace Records • both Speir & Trumpet founder Lillian McMurry were white Farish St. business owners whose furniture stores also housed recording studios • both discovered & promoted local Blues musicians —The Mississippi Encyclopedia

• Richard Henry Beadle (1884-1971), a prominent Jackson photographer, had a studio at 199-1/2 N. Farish • he was the son of Samuel Alfred Beadle (1857-1932), African-American poet & attorney • born the son of a slave, he was the author of 3 published books of poetry & stories

• The Alamo Theatre was mainly a movie theater but periodically presented musical acts such as Nat King Cole, Elmore James & Otis Spann • Wednesday was talent show night • 12 year old Jackson native Dorothy Moore entered the contest, won & went on to a successful recording career, highlighted by her 1976 no. 1 R&B hit, "Misty Blue" [listen] (3:34)

• in their heyday, Farish Street venues featured African American star performers such as Bessie Smith & the Rabbit Foot Minstrels, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Duke Ellington & Dinah Washington —Farish Street Records

• on 28 May, 1963, John Salter, a mixed race (white/Am. Indian) professor at historically black Tougaloo College, staged a sit-in with 3 African American students at the "Whites Only" Woolworth's lunch counter in downtown Jackson • they were refused service • an estimated 300 white onlookers & reporters filled the store

• police officers arrived but did not intercede as, in the words of student Anne Moody, "all hell broke loose" while she and the other black students at the counter prayed • "A man rushed forward, threw [student] Memphis from his seat and slapped my face. Then another man who worked in the store threw me against an adjoining counter." • this act of civil disobedience is remembered as the the signature event of Jackson's protest movement —L.A. Times

"This was the most violently attacked sit-in during the 1960s and is the most publicized. A huge mob gathered, with open police support while the three of us sat there for three hours. I was attacked with fists, brass knuckles and the broken portions of glass sugar containers, and was burned with cigarettes. I'm covered with blood and we were all covered by salt, sugar, mustard, and various other things." —John Salter

• the Woolworth Sit-in was one of many non-violent protests by blacks against racial segregation in the South • in 1969 integration of Jackson's public schools began • this new era in Jackson history also marked the beginning of Farish Street's decline —The Farish Street Project

"Integration was a great thing for black people, but it was not a great thing for black business... Before integration, Farish Street was the black mecca of Mississippi.” — Geno Lee, Big Apple Inn

• for African Americans, integration offered the possibility to shop outside of the neighborhood at white owned stores • as increasing numbers of black shoppers did so, Farish Street traffic declined, businesses closed & the vacated buildings fell into disrepair

• in 1983, a Farish St. redevelopment plan was presented

• in 1995 the street was designated an endangered historic place by the National Trust for Historic Preservation

• in the 1990s, having redeveloped Memphis' Beale Street, Performa Entertainment Real Estate was selected to redevelop Farish St

• in 2008, The Farish Street Group took over the project with plans for a B.B. King's Blues Club to anchor the entertainment district

• in 2012, having spent $21 million, the redevelopment — limited to repaving of the street, stabilizating some abandoned buildings & demolishing many of the rest — was stuck in limbo —Michael Minn

• 2017 update:

"Six mayors and 20 years after the City of Jackson became involved in efforts to develop the Farish Street Historic District, in hopes of bringing it back to the bustling state of its heyday, the project sits at a standstill. Recent Mayor Tony Yarber has referred to the district as “an albatross.” In September of 2014, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development sanctioned the City of Jackson, the Jackson Redevelopment Authority, and developers for misspending federal funds directed toward the development of the Farish Street Historic District. Work is at a halt and "not scheduled to resume until December 2018, when the City of Jackson repays HUD $1.5 million." —Mississippi Dept. of Archives & History

• Farish Street Neighborhood Historic District, National Register # 80002245, 1980

Formerly Cinema Manuel Rodrigues, completed in 1948. Appears to be closed but once seated 1500 patrons. During the colonial period it was subject to segregation.

From Wikipedia:

As the city grew, African Americans developed a small business district slightly west of the city's core, around the intersection of 25th Avenue with 4th and 5th streets. Black travelers often visited this area when coming to the city, as they were prevented by racial segregation laws from using most other public facilities. Black-owned businesses included a hotel, two restaurants, and a movie theater.

Many businesses were started in this area, including one owned by E. F. Young, Jr., a local barber and taxi driver. Young opened a hotel and barber shop in 1931, and he also began selling hair care products made especially for African Americans. Some products he made himself. Eventually Young's operations included a beauty shop, two barber shops, a shoe shine parlor, and a manufacturing shop for the personal products.

While operating the barber shops out of the hotel, Young sold customers some hair care products he made in his own kitchen. Demand became so great that he opened a manufacturing company in 1933. The hotel also prospered, as it was one of the only hotels in the city to serve black travelers. The company did so well that by the end of World War II, Young's hair products were sold at locations around the state, including a pharmacy in Clarksdale and a barber shop in Cleveland. Later, he opened a second manufacturing site for his products in Chicago, a major destination in the 20th-century Great Migration for many African Americans from Mississippi.

After Young died in 1950, his wife Velma took over the business. In 1969 their son Charles became president. In 1985, Charles Young moved the business offices from the Young Hotel to a new building. By then he had expanded markets for the manufactured products to Canada and the Caribbean islands. In 2007, the Young Hotel was listed as a contributing property to the Meridian Downtown Historic District.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotels_in_Meridian,_Mississippi

bewilderment at 21st century lifestyle - technology, pace of life, relationships, insular segregation, lack of community and distrust.

Protesting white parents and students gather outside Poolesville Elementary school September 5, 1956 to call for a boycott on the first day of integration of Montgomery County’s Poolesville school.

Two years after the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation of public schools by race, Montgomery County, Md. began a phased integration of its schools. In the upper county area this meant sending 14 select, upper grade black students to the K-12 school in Poolesville.

The integration effort went on without organized opposition throughout the rest of the county, but staunch segregationists organized a school boycott and a series of demonstrations and protest meetings in an attempt to halt black students from attending the all-white school in Poolesville.

On that first day of classes about 150 parents gathered outside the school to encourage the students and other parents to keep their children out of school. About 300 children were held out on the first day.

One woman in the crowd shouted out, “We oughta make so much noise that they can’t teach.”

School principal Robert T. Crawford estimated that about 173 of 340 elementary students were absent and 125 of the 260 pupils in the high school were not in class.

The 14 black students, all assigned to the seventh, eighth and ninth grades, were escorted into the school by police and teachers.

One of the organizers of the boycott was Everette Severe of the Maryland Petition Committee, a white supremacist group seeking a referendum vote to block integration of schools throughout the state.

Severe a well-known white supremacist having written letters to newspapers opposing integration and speaking at pro-segregation rallies. He lived in Kensington, Md. and did not have children.

Severe told the crowd outside the school, “We’re not supposed to send our kids to school until we have a hearing. Keep your kids out of school every day this week.”

Severe circulated a petition to demand a hearing on the issue. It said in part that the admission of the black students placed “in serious jeopardy” the “security and welfare” of their children.

Severe also helped organize a meeting of the segregationists at a Poolesville hall that night where they vowed to continue the fight.

Previous to the Poolesville boycott Severe on September 3rd told a Charlottesville, Va. rally opposed to integration that the people “are the law of the land, not the Supreme court.”

The day before Montgomery County schools opened, Severe attended a white supremacist meeting in Wayson’s Corner to urge a boycott of Anne Arundel County schools telling the crowd that the U.S. Supreme Court decision was invalid because, “Their total legal background hardly adds up to one good country lawyer.”

He called for an organization to halt integration adding, “God grant that it will happen quickly.”

The Poolesville group attempted to keep pressure on the school board to hold a hearing by staging a march on the county seat in Rockville.

On September 7, 1956, county police disbanded a gathering of about 60 people at 10:30 p.m. assembled at Jefferson Street beside the county courthouse. The march was called in an attempt to spread the school boycott beyond Poolesville.

The white supremacists kept up picketing at the school through the week, but attendance began to rise and by Friday had reached 70 percent. School superintendent Edward Norris warned that school officials' patience with the protesters was wearing thin and that Maryland law may be used against the parents.

The law called for a $20 fine, a 30-day jail term or both for disturbing public school sessions. Another section carried a $50 fine for inducing or trying to induce absenteeism.

By September 12th, attendance at the school had reached 582 students or about 90 percent when normal absenteeism was accounted for.

The county announced that three road workers had been suspended 10 days without pay for participating in the protests during working hours.

The school board, which had been resisting any meeting with the segregationists, agreed to grant an audience to hear specific objections to the integration policy, but not a challenge to the overall plan.

Meanwhile at a meeting at the Poolesville town hall that evening, 100 adults met and agreed to send their children back to school while they organized private schooling for their children.

Severe had problems of his own. He was suspended from his job by NBC radio over his public role in the protests and had his contract for part-time work for the Voice of America terminated.

There were more meetings of the dwindling number of parents participating in the boycott where calls were made to challenge the integration in court, but the boycott and organized opposition had largely dissipated.

The die-hards views were adequately expressed by parent Katherine Mills who wrote a letter to the Washington Post published October 3, 1956. Some excerpts follow.

Mills began by explaining that the segregationists “bitterly resent the treatment received at the hands of school and county authorities.”

“We resent the fact that our elected county school board not only permits Negroes to enter white schools, but actually encourages them to enter white schools.”

“I have no doubt that in the minds of some people we are pictured as a bunch of poor, ignorant yokels who’ve been carefully taught by “outside agitators” to fear and hate racial integration.”

“As a matter of fact, we do fear and hate racial integration, but our fear stems from our knowledge of local Negroes…”

“Negro parents as a whole are not so careful as their white neighbors in looking after the cleanliness and health of their children. We do not favor the joint use of school washrooms by colored and white. We just don’t want to take risks of any kind with our children.”

“The marital habits of some of our Maryland Negroes are, to say the least, very casual. They are like the marital habits of the often-divorced white persons in northern café society.”

“Of course some colored couples don’t bother with divorce, because there was no actual marriage in the first place.”

“We believe the morals of our own race are lax enough as it is without exposing our children to an even more primitive view of sex habits. Furthermore, we abhor any steps that might encourage interracial mating.”

“Until the cultural gaps between them are completely filled in, the white and colored races should not be mixed in the public schools of Montgomery County.”

For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHskquzhMu

The photographer is unknown. The image is courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.

Well we think it's Needle Ice, awaiting confirmation. It's another first for us which also means another tick off the lifetime bucket list. Found on the South Downs in West Sussex near a small stream which had overflowed and flooded the area, then it froze overnight, possibly over two nights or more given they all seem to look of being two tiered. This phenomena is known as Ice Segregation, when we found Frost Flowers back in 2017 in Decatur Alabama we made contact with Dr. Carter and he sent us this article which he had published a few years prior, it's probably the best explanation we've found for all the forms of Ice Segregation.

link to Dr. Carter's article

www.jrcarter.net/ice/segregation/?fbclid=IwAR2Xy8AShWF9Pc...

on the South Downs, South Downs National Park, West Sussex England

Well we think it's Needle Ice, awaiting confirmation. It's another first for us which also means another tick off the lifetime bucket list. Found on the South Downs in West Sussex near a small stream which had overflowed and flooded the area, then it froze overnight, possibly over two nights or more given they all seem to look of being two tiered. This phenomena is known as Ice Segregation, when we found Frost Flowers back in 2017 in Decatur Alabama we made contact with Dr. Carter and he sent us this article which he had published a few years prior, it's probably the best explanation we've found for all the forms of Ice Segregation.

link to Dr. Carter's article

www.jrcarter.net/ice/segregation/?fbclid=IwAR2Xy8AShWF9Pc...

on the South Downs, South Downs National Park, West Sussex England

Curtis Lucas - Forbidden Fruit

Beacon Books B-119, 1953

Cover Artist: Warren King

"She was white – he was not!"

"A daring discussion of today's most explosive problem—love breaking the color barrier."

Columbia, South Carolina

Listed 1/14/2021

Reference Number: 100006020

Leevy’s Funeral Home built in 1951, was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2020 for its significance in black history and the system of segregation in Columbia, South Carolina. The funeral home was part of a community effort by the city’s Black citizens, to create alternative spaces to gather and provide one another with essential services, including funerary services. The building’s significance expands beyond funeral services as it was also a site for politics as it assisted in African American voter registration and education. The funeral home was owned and operated by Isaac Samuel (I. S.) Leevy, a prominent local political activist and community leader. The funeral home was Leevy’s home, place of business, and the center of his political actions. Leevy was heavily involved in South Carolina politics as a registered Republican who advocated for the two-party system and voter registration.

Black-owned funeral homes like Leevy’s that emerged in the early twentieth century did so out of both necessity and a desire for the African American dead to be afforded the same respect as whites. Around the turn of the twentieth century, few American communities had a Black-owned funeral home. African Americans who sought out mortuary services therefore had to seek the services of white undertakers. Some simply refused to serve African Americans altogether. Black funeral homes offered African Americans the full range of services associated with caring for the dead, including embalming, burial, and, in some cases, even casket manufacturing. Leevy’s itself was ultimately among the Black funeral homes that placed emphasis on the ambulance services they offered to the local community and the respectful services they deserved.

National Register of Historic Places Homepage

Leevy's Funeral Home Columbia, South Carolina

National Register of Historic Places on Facebook