Civil Rights: Melba Beales

Melba Beales and school integration

Melba Patilla Beales at 15 years

The Little Rock Nine was an influential part of the Civil Rights Movement. The Little Rock Nine event took place in Little Rock Arkansas, specifically the Little rock Central High School in September 1957 with nine African American students; Minnijean Brown, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Thelma Mothershed, Carlotta Walls, Gloria Ray, Terrence Roberts, Jefferson Thomas, and Melba Pattillo Beales.  All Nine of these students had been elected by the NAACP (the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), due to their grades and attendance, in order integrate all-white schools in the South. 

Melba Patillo Beales was born December 7, 1941; Beales was only thirteen when she had decided to enroll in Little Rock Central High School and was fifteen during the events of the Little Rock Nine. Violent white mobs and National Guard troops who refused to help, the students eventually entered school after President Dwight Eisenhower ordered Arkansas units who worked with the 101st Airborne Division. Both of these groups escorted the little rock Nine during the school day. 

101 airborne division

Warriors Don't Cry (pub 2008) is a memoir
of the school integration experience

The Arkansas governor, Orval Faubus used military troops to stop the Nine from entering the school. A white senior named Link, helped Melba avoid dangerous areas however the Nine were forced to endure daily hostility and persecution. In her book Warriors Don't Cry, Beals described an extreme incident of racism in her book Warriors Don't Cry where a student threw acid into her eyes, in an attempt to blind her. 

Beales had  planned on returning to Central High for the for the following (1958–1959) school year; however, the governor ceased Little Rock's high schools that resisted integration, making other school districts across the South to do the same.  Not until the fall of 1960 did Central High reopen on an integrated basis.

APPARTS: Little Rock nine excerpt from Eyes on the Prize

A: none in particular from documentary film Eyes on the Prize

P: 1957 Little Rock Arkansas at Little Rock Central high School

P: In 1954 the Supreme Court had ruled that segregating schools was unconstitutional in Brown v. the     Board of Education Topeka, Kansas.

A: The audience of the film is supposed to be people from "modern times" that may not be aware of heaving to endure such a level of discrimination.

R: The video itself was created to bring awareness to the different aspects and problems that members of the Civil Rights Movement had to face. The act of school integration was done so in order to integrate schools under the case ruling of Brown v. the Board of education, Topeka, Kansas

T: The events of School integration were not only challenging but created a ripple in in the education scene during the Civil Rights Movement. 

S:  The events of the Little Rock Nine marked a movement in the desegregation of public schools. The fact that the Brown v. the Board of education had ruled that "separate but equal" was unconstitutional, but still continued to happen was only a continuing contradiction. A student's performance is not based on their race, but solely on their talents. The NAACP wanted to desegregate schools and the Little Rock Nine were the first group of students to try school integration with Ernest Green being the first African American to graduate from a white school. 

Reconstruction blog

Did Reconstruction grant equality?

 Reconstruction was based on the fundamental idea of Reconstructing the nation after the damage that the civil war had marked.Reconstruction brought forth several different topics to the question of what it meant to be America and who was American. For many, however, reconstruction was a matter of an experiment with no one really knowing what the outcome would be.

President Abraham Lincoln  proposed the Ten Percent Plan on December 1863, which stated that a Confederate state could return to the Union when ten percent of the 1860 vote-count from that state had taken the oath of allegiance to the United States and pledge to follow the emancipation. After doing such voters could decide to rewrite their state constitution and even make a new state government, with all Southerners being granted full pardon with the exception of high-ranking Confederate army officers and government officials.  In the Ten Percent Plan Lincoln reassured Southerners their private property but not their slaves. 1864 marked the year that Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arkansas were re-integrated as Unionist governments. The Plan was meant to shorten the Civil War and insist the abolition of slavery at the same time.

President Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865)

After Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865, just weeks after the end of the civil war, Andrew Johnson became president , Johnson believed that “national unity” and ending slavery had dictated that Reconstruction was over. It was only the beginning. Congress being run by Republicans refused to accept that reconstruction was over, they rejected the new Congressional appointees that had been elected by the South.

President Andrew Johnson (in office April 15, 1865 – March 4, 1869)

This lead into the creation of the black codes. Although the lack codes granted new opportunities to African-American Slaves it also asserted many oppressive laws, some of which violated the constitution. The Black codes discriminated against blacks in Southern States at the end of the Civil War to control the labor, migration and other activities of newly-freed slaves. The Mississippi Black Codes were most known for being the harshest Black codes in the nation during Reconstruction. One of the black Codes stated that couples that had been living together before the Civil War would know be considered legally married, white any white person involved in an interracial relationship would be fined or imprisoned betraying the American ideal of the “pursuit of happiness”. Another black code stated that any African-American person that did not have a house would be labeled as a vagrant and fined or imprisoned. Simply for not having a home., while another code stated that any black that would be working for more than a month needed a contract, and could not quit without a “reasonable reason”. If a worker quit and ran away, they would be hunted down and brought back to their employer. Any African American not able to pay the fine or go to jail a white person could pay the fine for them, the African-American would them have to work for that person in order to pay off their debt.

African-Americans in prisons worked in chain gangs under merciless conditions and jobs 

Women, who had been working closely with the Abolition movement grew infuriated when African-American MEN were granted the vote before white women. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was one such woman, in Home Life she stated that “There is no other human slavery that knows such depths of degradation as a wife chained to a man whom she neither loves nor respects, no other slavery so disastrous in its consequences on the race, or to an individual respect growth and development.” Here  Stanton conveys her anger saying that marriage is the worst type of slavery.

Women suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Reconstruction did not grant equality, it helped paved the way for equality. 

Revolutionary Reformers

Dorothea Dix

Dorothea Dix

            I am Dorothea Dix was born 1802. I was a school teacher and used my grandmother’s wealth to teach poor and neglected  students in my one room school house in Baltimore 1821.My book Conversations on Common Things was made in 1824 and was made with the task of encouraging women and girls to pursue their educational goals. It disgusts me to see the deplorable conditions that the mentally disabled are forced to live in, they are chained to beds and are ignored they sit on top of their own defecation. Women are supposed to care for even the most seemingly insignificant of creature but at the same time we are not supposed to be exposed to anything that should “dare be unsightly”! The mere outrage at the conditions that humans are living in, our country is founded on the basis of equality for all, but what of these men and women, the government has done nothing for them the most interest that the government has shown is in the action of rejecting and ignoring these men and women from society.

            Human nature is fundamentally good but the neglect of certain rights to all humans is wrong. Women were barred from voting, could not hold office, and did not present such testimonials themselves before the legislature meaning that a male representative had to read the text aloud. Pamphlets were the only means by which women could participate in the political “scene”. Are women not humans as well? “Moral treatment,” was developed from the work of French psychiatrist Philippe Pinel and from new practices used at hospitals such as England’s York Retreat My tireless work and dramatic testimonials highlighted the appalling conditions in existing institutions and promoted the inherent value of compassionate care.

            Society can be influenced by both active and withdrawal involvement in society. The betterment of education and the mentally challenged both deserve active involvement, both are pressing issues to society. A good society is made when education for all rich and poor, men and women are  made possible. Society has willed itself into believing that the mentally ill cannot be cured. Despite my strong involvement in the feminist movement I was never publicly involved. My vivid interpretations of the grueling circumstances had a powerful effect on politicians they were shamed into taking action on behalf of the “inmates” of mental institutions.

Dix hospital

APPARTS: DIX HOSPITAL

A uthor: none are credited
P lace: 1872 North Carolina
P rior knowledge: Dorothea Dix was an advocate for those who were mentally challenged, blind and death, she sought to better their living conditions.
A udience: citizens in North Carolina
R eason:  to show one of the first "Lunatic Asylum"s
T he main idea: The source illustrates a "Lunatic Asylum"s layout
S ignficance: Dorothea Dix was a devoted advocate for the mentally challenged. She donated land that she had inherited from her rich grandmother.

APPARTS: DIX HOSPITAL

A uthor: Dorothea Dix
P lace: not stated, most likely during an awareness campaign
P rior knowledge: Dorothea Dix was an advocate for those who were mentally challenged, blind and death she was disgusted with society's ignorance of those who were pushed away from public eye.
A udience: Those who supported her or wanted to learn more about Dix.
R eason:  Dix asserts her reasoning fro her fight against the conditions the mentally challenged are forced to live in.
T he main idea: The source states her purpose for advocacy of the "mentally challenged"
S ignficance: During this time women were exposed to be compassionate for all, but should not "witness the impurities of society". Dix challenged this idea, she wanted to give voices to those who were ignored.

Sojouner Truth

Sojouner Truth

            I was born Isabella Baumfree in Ulster County, a Dutch settlement in upstate New York, I was born into slavery and worked in the Hardenbergh plantation.  In 1827 I escaped the plantation owned by John Dumont with my infant daughter and I stated “I did not run off, I thought that wicked, but I walked off, believing that to be alright”. I was "overwhelmed with the greatness of the Divine presence" and inspired to preach. I began to attend the local Methodist church and, in 1829, left Ulster County with a white evangelical teacher named Miss Gear. I quickly became known as a remarkable preacher whose influence "was miraculous." . In 1844, still liking the Utopian cooperative ideal I joined the Northampton Association of Education and Industry in Massachusetts a 210 members  who lived on 500 acres of farmland, raising livestock, running grist and saw mills, and operating a silk factory. The Association was founded by abolitionists to promote cooperative and productive labor. We were strongly anti-slavery, religiously tolerant, women's rights supporters, and pacifist in principles. As a member I met and worked with abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and David Ruggles. Unfortunately, the community was  disbanded in 1846 amid debt.

            Human nature is corrupted by classes that humans are put into: gender, race, economic class. People lie, my slave owner had . Dumont had promised to grant me  freedom a year before the state emancipation, "if [I]  would do well and be faithful." However this promise was proved to be a fallacy, when he  claimed that  a hand injury had made me less productive. I  was enraged ,I had  understood fairness and duty to be the very principle of the master-slave relationship. So I continued working until I felt that I had done enough to satisfy my obligation to him  spinning 100 pounds of wool. I later became involved with the popular Spiritualism religious movement of the time, through a group called the Progressive Friends, an offshoot of the Quakers. The group believed in abolition, women's rights, non-violence, and communicating with spirits. In 1857, I sold my  home in Northampton and bought one in Harmonia, Michigan (just west of Battle Creek), to live with this community.

            The only way that society can be improved is through active involvement. Numerous times I have found myself traveling in order to give speeches on topics that most of the time are not made given importance in “normal society”.  In 1870, I began campaigning for the federal government to provide former slaves with land in the "new West." I  did  this for seven years, with little success.As a slave I was abused for years on end until I was fed up with it, I took my life into my own hands, what would have happened if I did not? Would I have been dead by now?

           

APPARTS: AINT I A WOMAN

A uthor: Soujouner Truth
P lace: Delivered: May 1851 Ohio at the Women's Right's Convention 
 Recorded: June 21, 1851 by Marcus Robinson in an issue of the Anti-Slavery Bugle 
P rior knowledge:Truth was once a slave herself. She was one of the first Black women to go against a white man in court over the recovery of her son.
A udience: People who were in the convention then anyone during that time.
R eason: to motivate people and to support women in their quest for equality
T he main idea:  One of Truth's first speeches (public)
S ignficance: Truth was not formally educated but what she did know she used in her favor to give power to her speeches and appealed to others.

APPARTS: MEETING WITH PRESIDENT LINCOLN

A uthor: none specified

P lace: October 29,1864 

P rior knowledge: After Truth freed herself from slavery she traveled and presented speeches for the abolitionist movement. Lincoln was not always in support of abolition.

A udience: Anyone during the time that was interested in Truth or Lincoln's movements

R eason: To gain people for the Abolitionist movement

T he main idea: During the time abolition was controversial as slavery became the South's source of economic power. The fact that Lincoln met with Truth, who was not only an abolitionist but a female abolitonist gave many hope.

S ignficance: Truth was a very strong woman and extremely educated to her work as both a feminist and abolitionist. 

case blog #2: Fletcher v Peck

In 1795, the Georgia state legislature passed a land grant awarding territory to four private companies. These lands were known as the Yazoo land territory, present day Mississippi and Alabama, the transaction was known as the Yazoo land act. These lands were sparsely populated and named after the Yazoo Tribe of Native Americans. Every member but one in the Georgia Legislature had been bribed into selling the 35 million acres to the private companies at two cents per  acre totaling five-hundred-thousand, this became known as the Yazoo Scandal.

Most of the legislators lost the following election and the new legislature passed a statute in 1796 essentially nullifying the transactions. In 1796 the new Georgia legislature voided the law and declared all rights and claims under it to be invalid. In 1800, John Peck acquired land that was part of the original legislative grant. He then sold 15, 000 acres to Robert Fletcher three years later, in 1803 for the price of three thousand dollars, claiming that past sales of the land had been legitimate. Fletcher sued Peck to establish the constitutionality of the 1796 act; either the act was constitutional and the contract was void, or the act was unconstitutional and Fletcher had clear title to the land.

The Supreme Court in a six to one decision ruled that the state legislature's repeal of the law was void because it was unconstitutional. Marshall held that the sale was a binding contract,  that according to Article I, Section 10, Clause I, the Contract Clause of the Constitution, cannot be nullified. Even if illegally secured and as a result the ruling lends further protection to property rights against pressures. It is the earliest case of the Court asserting its right to invalidate state laws that conflict with the Constitution. Fletcher v. Peck was the first court case in which state law was decreed to be unconstitutional. 

Court case #1 Cohens v. Virginia

Judicial Review was a form of separation of powers where actions by the legislative and executive branches are subject to review and can be invalidated by the Judicial Branch. This power is stated in the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution (Article 4 clause 2) which basically says that state laws are not supposed to violate the Constitution and all state courts must uphold the national law. They also decide the constitutionality of state laws under state constitutions. If state constitutions contradict the Constitution, or any other national law, the state constitution must follow the guidelines of the constitution. The highest state court to decide issues like these is the supreme court. The idea of judicial review was established in the Marbury v. Madison in 1803.

Cohens v Virginia was a court case that took place in Virginia in 1821. The Cohen brothers were illegally selling DC Lottery tickets in Commonwealth in Virginia. The United States Congress had authorized the selling of lottery tickets in the District of Columbia. State authorities tried and convicted the Cohens, and were fined $100. In this case, the Cohens were successfully prosecuted by the state of Virginia for selling lottery tickets from D.C. in Virginia, who were therefore violating Virginia state law. John Marshal chief justice of the Supreme Court maintained the state’s original decision however the larger issue the court had dealt with in their decision making was that of reviewing state court cases.

The Supreme Court under John Marshal practiced judicial nationalism which meant that its decisions favored the federal government at the expense of states. The Supreme Court decided to validate its ruling with Article 3 section 2 of the Constitution along with the Supremacy Clause Article 6 was used to reinforce their decision which made federal law superior to state law. Virginia, however, decided that this was unacceptable and declared the decision the Supreme Court made null and void, even though it had upheld the previous conviction, because Virginia felt the ruling limited its rights as a state.

Founding Fathers: William Paterson

          WILLIAM PATERSON    

                My name is William Paterson I was born December 24, 1745 in County Antrim  and moved to the United States at the age of two. When I was fourteen I entered the College of New Jersey , where I studied law with Richard Stockton. I was admitted into the bar in 17683, a culmination of my perilous efforts I founded the Cliosphic Society along with Aaron Burr.

               I was elected as Somerset County, New Jersey delegate for the three provincial congresses of New Jersey and as secretary I recorded the New Jersey Constitution.  I was appointed as the first Attorney General of New Jersey serving from 1776 to 1783, I established myself as one of New Jersey’s  most prominent lawyers. In 1787 I was sent to the Philadelphia Convention where I proposed the New Jersey Plan. This plan called for a legislative body with equal representation from each state, which was resolved by the Great Compromise:  the Senate had equal representation for each state and the House of Representatives.

Group Presentations: The Great Awakening

Group Presentations: The Great Awakening

            The Great Awakening was a religious revival during the 1730’s to the 1740’s, that created the questioning of the individual within religious society. The Great Awakening started when King Henry forced his subjects to follow his religion. The movement evolved into a personal approach instead of following doctrine. The Great Awakening evolved on the idea that religion should happen at a personal level directly between God and the Individual.  Protestant denominations established their own churches: Quakers, Anglicans, Baptists, and Presbyterians are some of the major denominations. The Great Awakening caused a break in the foundations of the established churches, making followers question otherwise injected ideals from the Mother Country. 

New Light Preacher: George Whitefield