Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 (2007)

In June 2007 the United States Supreme Court issued a narrow five to four ruling invalidating racial integration plans in Seattle, Washington and Louisville, Kentucky.  The Court reasoned that the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause prohibited schools from voluntarily using racial classifications to achieve integration.  … Read MoreParents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 (2007)

Emancipation Proclamation (1863)

Following the Union Army victory at Antietam, Maryland on September 17, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued a preliminary emancipation proclamation.  This document gave the states of the Confederacy until January 1, 1863 to lay down their arms and peaceably reenter the Union; if these states … Read MoreEmancipation Proclamation (1863)

Eyewitness to Terror: The Lynching of a Black Man in Obion County, Tennessee in 1931

In 1931 twelve-year- old Thomas J. Pressly witnessed the lynching of George Smith in Union City, the county seat of Obion County, Tennessee.  Now a University of Washington historian and Professor Emeritus, Dr. Pressley describes that lynching in the article below.   When I was twelve … Read MoreEyewitness to Terror: The Lynching of a Black Man in Obion County, Tennessee in 1931

Jordan Hatcher Case (1852)

Jordan Hatcher was a seventeen-year-old enslaved tobacco worker in Richmond, Virginia, who in 1852 rose from obscurity to notoriety when charged with assaulting and killing white overseer William Jackson.  According to newspaper accounts and trial records, Hatcher was working at the Walker & Harris tobacco … Read MoreJordan Hatcher Case (1852)

(1775) Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation

This historic proclamation, dated November 7, 1775 and issued from on board a British warship lying off Norfolk, Virginia, by royal governor and Scottish aristocrat John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, offered the first large-scale emancipation of slave and servant labor in the history of colonial … Read More(1775) Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation

Leonard “Kip” Rhinelander Trial (1925)

The New Rochelle, New York annulment trial of Leonard “Kip” Rhinelander and his wife, Alice Jones Rhinelander, was a much-publicized issue in the 1920s which highlighted white America’s definitions of race, class, and marriage. Alice Jones was the daughter of working-class English immigrants.  Her mother … Read MoreLeonard “Kip” Rhinelander Trial (1925)