again i have to ask, what year is this!?

oh, mississippi… you never cease to amaze me!  sure hope to hear about the rest of the results as soon as they’re in.

Poll: 46 percent of Mississippi Republicans want interracial marriage ban

And more of those who oppose interracial marriage have a favorable view of Sarah Palin, a new poll reports

BY JUSTIN ELLIOTT

The Dem-leaning firm Public Policy Polling has a new survey out that’s sure to raise some eyebrows.

When usual Republican primary voters in the state of Mississippi were asked if they think interracial marriage should be legal or illegal, a whopping 46 percent said it should be illegal, compared to 40 percent who think it should be legal. The remaining 14 percent were unsure.

PPP also breaks down how these voters view the GOP presidential field, with some interesting results. Here’s how those respondents would vote:

As PPP’s Tom Jensen notes, there are some interesting differences between the candidates’ favorability ratings when broken down according to respondents’ views of interracial marriage:

Palin’s net favorability with folks who think interracial marriage should be illegal (+55 at 74/19) is 17 points higher than it is with folks who think interracial marriage should be legal (+38 at 64/26.) Meanwhile Romney’s favorability numbers see the opposite trend. He’s at +23 (53/30) with voters who think interracial marriage should be legal but 19 points worse at +4 (44/40) with those who think it should be illegal

Dustin Ingalls, assistant to the director at PPP, tells me that the firm also asked non-Republican voters the interracial marriage question, and he expects those results will be released sometime in the future. He added that PPP also asked whether respondents believe the right side won the Civil War. Those results should also prove interesting.

 

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jazz’s lasses

I’m freaking out about this right now!  How on earth have I never heard of these women!?  I read the first article and thought “Oh, very cool.”  Then I saw the video…moments ago…currently freaking out.  Anybody wanna make a movie about this with me?  It would be like A League of Their Own kinda.  But with people of color actually doing something other than standing around wishing they could be doing something at which they, too, are really good.  That’s one of my favorite movies of all time, by the way.  I digress.  I wonder if it’s the racism or the sexism that’s kept this a “secret.”  Both I’m sure, but when I watch that video I’m mostly struck by the fact that these are women in positions I don’t think I’ve ever seen held by a woman.  Not then, not now.  And they came out of Mississippi!? O. M. G.

First All-Female Interracial Band Celebrated At Smithsonian

Written by News One

The International Sweethearts of Rhythm, the first all-female interracial band in America, faced down both Jim Crow and sexism in the 1930s and 1940s. Then, they faded into obscurity.

This week the Smithsonian Institution celebrates the Sweethearts’ legacy as part of the launch of the museum’s Jazz Appreciation Month.

The Sweethearts’ exhibit will be on display at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC from March 25 to May 31. Members of the Sweethearts, which included Black, white, Latino and Asian women, will participate in several events on March 29 and 30 at the museum. Radio One founder Cathy Hughes, whose mother Helen Jones Woods was an original band member, will also be a participant [NewsOne is a division of Radio One]:

…Ms. Hughes will facilitate an brief (10 minute) onstage discussion with six of the original Sweethearts who will participate in programming at the Smithsonian:  They are Helen Jones Woods (trombonist), Ms. Hughes’ mother; Willie Mae Wong Scott (saxophonist), the child of a Chinese father and mixed race Native American mother, she grew up on Mississippi in 1920s; Sadye Pankey Moore (trumpeter), African American; Johnnie Mae Rice Graham (pianist), African American; Lillie Keeler Sims (trombone), African American woman who played with the Sweethearts their first year but later served as an educator and administrator in the NYC school system 40 years;  and Roz Cron, one of the first white woman to join the band. On March 30th, the Sweethearts and Cathy Hughes will participate in a 60 minute discussion on the Sweetheart’s legacy that will be webcast via UStream.

 

First integrated, female big band highlighted at Smithsonian

By Sally Holland, CNN

Washington (CNN) — When Rosalind Cron left home in the 1940s to join a teenage girl jazz band called the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, she had no idea what it would be like, as a white girl, traveling with the predominantly black band.

At the time, Cron said she thought “Jim Crow” was a man they were supposed to meet in the South. “I didn’t realize it was a law, and a very strict law — laws, plural,” she said.

State and local ordinances that mandated separate public facilities for blacks and whites made it illegal for Cron to share facilities with her band members.

Cron felt the discrimination because she lived on their tour bus with the other girls, hiding her race. For three years, she said, they were like her sisters.

She spent several hours in jail in El Paso, Texas, in 1944 when authorities didn’t believe the story she had made up that her father was white and her mother was black.

“They went though my wallet and there was a picture of my mother and dad right in front of the house,” she said. She was sprung a few hours later when the band’s manager brought two black girls to the jail who claimed to be Cron’s cousins.

By that time, according to Cron, the authorities that were holding her were glad to get rid of her.

“They just told us never to return. And as far as I know, we didn’t,” she said.

The risks were worth it to play her saxophone with what became known as the nation’s first integrated, female jazz band.

The International Sweethearts of Rhythm were founded at Piney Woods School in Mississippi in 1937, in part as a way for the students to help pay for their education.

They recruited members of different races to help with the “international” part of their image.

Willie Mae Wong had a Chinese father, a mixed-race mother, and no visible musical skills when she was recruited to the group as a 15-year-old. She was out on the street playing stickball when they picked her up.

“The director of the music was named White,” Wong said. “They called me ‘White’s Rabbit’ because he had to spend more time with me to teach me the beat.”

The name “Rabbit” has stuck to this day.

In 1941, the group separated from the school and went professional. They traveled on a bus to gigs across the United States, including venues like the Apollo Theater in New York and the Howard Theater in Washington.

During World War II, the Sweethearts traveled to France and Germany as part of a USO tour in 1945.

Pictures and mementos from the International Sweethearts of Rhythm are on display at the Smithsonian’s American History museum for their 10th annual Jazz Appreciation Month celebration in April.

Six members of the band were in Washington this week to reminisce.

“It was a privilege to come from Mississippi and go and see the other parts of the world,” said Helen Jones, who played the trombone from the band’s founding until it disbanded.

“All I ever wanted to do was play a trumpet,” Sadye Pankey told a group gathered at the museum. And as for music education today, she feels bad for today’s students.

“Some of our schools in our country now have abolished the music, and it’s not fair,” she said.

Cron told the group that if music is your passion, you need to stick with it.

“Don’t let anyone come between you and your horns, or music,” she added.

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no recognition

i think this is just wrong… so wrong!  come on guinness!  i really don’t have anything else to say about it… except that i would love to have the opportunity to talk with mrs. lanier about all that she’s witnessed.

Slave’s daughter has ’119th birthday party’ but Guinness won’t verify her as world’s oldest person

Mrs Rebecca Lanier never had birth certificate, required by Guinness World Records, as she was a black girl born to slave parents

By MARK DUELL

This ‘great-great-great-great grandmother’ claims to have lived through three centuries and her family believe she could be the oldest person in the world.

But Rebecca Lanier, 119, whose secret to long life is to ‘keep on living’, will not be recognised by Guinness World Records because she has no birth certificate.

Mrs Lanier, of Warrensville Heights, Ohio, who was born in March 1892, has seventh-generation grandchildren and outlived her husband and their two daughters.

She was born in a small Mississippi community to parents who had been slaves, at a time when many laws were prejudiced against black people in the South.

Because Mrs Lanier is black she was born with no birth certificate in the 1890s, which was normal in the South even though slavery had ended almost thirty years earlier.

This has caused problems as the Guinness Book of World Records needs that certificate to verify her age, which would make her the oldest living person in the world.

‘It’s quite a rigorous process that you go through because the birth certificate is a crucial matter,’ a Guinness World Records spokesman told MailOnline.

Mrs Lanier does however have a letter from the Social Security Administration that states the year of her birth as 1892, her grandson, Jimmie Shambley, 61, said.

But a Social Security spokesman told MailOnline they do not give verification of age and the burden of evidence is on claimants, who must provide official documents.

These can include birth certificates, citizenship certificates or permanent residence cards, with individuals receiving benefits getting an annual letter with their details on.

She spends her time doing the Chinese martial art tai chi every day and does not need to take any medication for illnesses or ailments.

Mrs Lanier, who now lives with Jimmie Shambley and his family, says she is ‘doing alright’ and had her 119th birthday at Warrensville Heights Senior Center on Tuesday.

When asked ‘How old are you today momma?’ by her great grandson Christopher Shambley, she replied: ‘Don’t worry about how old I am’.

‘She still is in her right mind and has great health,’ grandson Jimmie Shambley (above) told Scripps Media. ‘She makes her bed up every morning as she gets herself dressed.’

Mrs Lanier uses a ‘walker’ to balance herself as she moves, but often travels with the family on aeroplanes to various events around the country, they said.

‘She had two daughters. My mother had seven kids,’ Jimmie Shambley told Fox 4.

‘She has 15 great-great grand kids, 18 great-great-great grand kids and has two great-great-great-great grand kids.’

During her life Mrs Lanier has witnessed more than 20 presidents and lived through major events such as two world wars, the birth of flying and the right for women to vote.

‘She’s amazing – she’s just amazing to know,’ one family friend told Fox 4. ‘By her being 119, my friends and I – we range from 60 to 75 – we’re just youngsters.’

The claims come after Georgia great-great grandmother Besse Cooper was visited by Guinness World Records this month to certify her as the world’s oldest living person. Surrounded by family, 114-year-old Cooper accepted a plaque during a small ceremony at a Monroe nursing home. 

Record holder: Besse Cooper, 114, of Georgia, was verified as the world’s oldest living person this month by Guinness

WHEN SHE (Mrs. Lanier) WAS BORN…

• Mrs Lanier was born in Mississippi in 1892, the year Grover Cleveland was elected to his second term as President
• Wyoming had just been made a state, but Utah still was not and the U.S. population was around 63million
• Most blacks did not vote as Mississippi had a $2 poll tax most could not afford
• Only those who voted could serve on juries
• General Electric was founded in 1892, but the Ford Motor company was still a decade away
• Much of Mississippi depended on the cotton crops, which began to fail due to boll weevil infestation
• She was born barely a year after the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre of Native Americans that saw 150 Indians killed

 

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the black codes

Northern States had them, too.  I think these things are worth examining.  If we want to know more about why and how things got so out of hand in this country (I mean beyond slavery itself), we retrace our steps back to decrees such as these.

One measure of equality suggested by the British sociologist T.H. Marshall is “citizenship” – the “basic human equality associated with  . . . full membership of a community.”  African American history, from bondage through the civil rights movement, is often seen through the political lens as a struggle for citizenship and full membership in American society.

Legislated repression in post-slavery South

…[I]t shall not be lawful for any freedman, free Negro, or mulatto to
intermarry with any white person; nor for any white person to intermarry
with any freedman, free Negro, or mulatto; and any person who shall so
intermarry shall be deemed guilty of felony and, on conviction thereof,
shall be confined in the state penitentiary for life … — from
Mississippi Black Codes, enacted Nov. 22, 1865

As formerly enslaved Blacks would soon learn, freedom was not as they had
anticipated. White southerners were anxious to regain power over them and
used the law in order to achieve that objective. In 1865, southerners
created Black Codes, which served as a way to control and inhibit the
freedom of ex-slaves. Codes controlled almost all aspects of life and
prohibited Blacks from the freedoms that had been won.

Not only did whites want to control ex-slaves, but also they needed
laborers. While things could no longer be exactly the same as in slavery,
they found a way to guarantee that Blacks would serve as their laborers. To
do this, they created Black Codes. While Codes were unique to the
post-Civil War south, they encompassed some of the antebellum restrictions
on free blacks, northern apprenticeship laws, and the Freedmen’s Bureau and
the War Department regulations. Codes regulated civil and legal rights,
from marriage to the right to hold and sell property to the predestined
definition of Blacks as agricultural laborers.

Laws were different in each state but most embodied the same kinds of
restrictions. Commonly, codes compelled freedmen to work. In many states,
if unemployed, Blacks faced the potential of being arrested and charged
with vagrancy. Many of those that did work had their day regulated. Codes
dictated their hours of labor, duties, and the behavior assigned to them as
agricultural workers.

Black Codes left Blacks with little freedom. The choice of the type of work
was often regulated. Many white southerners believed Blacks were
predestined to work in agriculture. In addition, the advantage of
regulating occupations provided them with laborers. In South Carolina, for
example, a special license and certificate from a local judge, attesting to
a freedman’s skill, had to be obtained before a formerly enslaved person
could earn a living in agriculture or indomestic service.

Self-sufficiency was also discouraged. Codes prevented Blacks from raising
their own crops. In Mississippi, for instance, they were restricted from
renting or leasing any land outside of cities or towns and Black ownership
was left up to local authorities.

Almost every aspect of life was regulated, including the freedom to roam.
Often Blacks were prohibited from entering towns without permission. In
Opelousas, Louisiana Blacks needed permission from their employer to enter
the town. A note was required stating the nature and length of the visit.
Any Black found without a note after ten o’clock at night was subject to
imprisonment. Residency within towns and cities was also discouraged. Local
ordinances in Louisiana made it almost impossible for Blacks to live within
the towns or cities. Residency was only possible if a white employer agreed
to take responsibility for his employee’s conduct.

“This Week In Black History: Legislated repression in post-slavery South.” Michigan Citizen. 2001.

Black Codes in Georgia: 1865–1900

W. E. B. DuBois and his students included a comprehensive hand-written list of the Georgia Black Codes (laws affecting blacks 1865–1900) as part of The Georgia Negro exhibit in order to demonstrate how the law had specifically been used as a tool to discriminate against black people. Three hundred pages of legal material were tediously copied out by hand. DuBois had included a similar compilation of laws affecting the slave trade in his classic 1896 work, The Suppression of the African Slave Trade.

Sample pages from DuBois’s list of Black Codes

SOURCE

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civil rights instruction

I’m thrilled to learn that Mississippi is mandating civil rights instruction for al K-12 students.  They’re the first and only state to do so!  Maybe this will lead to the eradication of segregated proms there.  And maybe even to honest, well- rounded history books/classes throughout the country.  Be the change, Mississippi!

JACKSON, Miss. — In Mississippi, where mention of the Civil Rights Movement evokes images of bombings, beatings and the Ku Klux Klan, public schools are preparing to test a program that will ultimately teach students about the subject in every grade from kindergarten through high school.

Many experts believe the effort will make Mississippi the first state to mandate civil rights instruction for all K-12 students.

So far, four school systems have asked to be part of a pilot effort to test the curriculum in high schools. In September, the Mississippi Department of Education will name the systems that have been approved for the pilot. By the 2010-2011 school year, the program should be in place at all grade levels as part of social studies courses.

Advocacy groups such as the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation and Washington-based Teaching for Change are preparing to train Mississippi teachers to tell the “untold story” of the civil rights struggle to the nearly half million students in the state’s public schools.

“Now more than ever we are engaged in national debates about race and so much of those debates are impoverished in their understanding of history,” said Susan Glissen of the Winter Institute. “We want to emphasize the grassroots nature of civil rights and the institution of racism.”

…Education officials looked to other states for a model but couldn’t find one that included anything as comprehensive as what Mississippi has in mind, said Chauncey Spears, who works in the curriculum and instruction office of Mississippi’s education agency.

The Education Commission of the States didn’t know of any other state with a such a program, although it does not specifically track social studies curriculum.

Some states, including Alabama, Georgia and Arkansas, have placed an emphasis on civil rights instruction. New Jersey created an Amistad Commission to ensure the history of slavery is taught in schools. Pennsylvania’s Philadelphia school district requires students to complete an African-American history course before graduation.

“We’re behind time. Students don’t know about what Blacks did. They’re not taught anything about culture, about our history,” said Ollye Shirley, a member of the commission created to research the Mississippi curriculum and a former Jackson Public School board member.

…Deborah Menkart, executive director of Teaching for Change, said it’s important to help students understand that Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. weren’t the only important figures in the Civil Rights Movement.

“The traditional version would be that it started in 1954, thereby leaving out the fact that a lot of groundwork had to be done before that,” Menkart said.

via

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“holler”

This is exciting! Especially on the heels of Prom Night in Mississippi.  As I was watching the documentary, I wondered if there were any biracial students in Charleston, MS.  Actually if there were any biracial people there at all.  It seems as though it would be a miracle.  Anyway, this movie will show us what it might be like if there were a biracial student in that very segregated setting…

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Screen Gems and Jennifer Aniston are teaming up to tell a tale of lingering racial tensions in the Deep South.

The company has acquired “Holler” (aka “Mutt”), written by Dana Adam Shapiro, co-director of the Oscar-nominated documentary “Murderball.”

Inspired by true events, the script centers on a biracial high school student who returns with his white mother to her hometown in Mississippi, where he falls for a white girl. When prom season arrives at the high school, he is shocked to discover that she cannot be his date at the segregated prom. He soon finds himself a catalyst for change, not only for the prom but for the school and entire town.

HBO on Monday aired a documentary on the same subject, “Prom Night in Mississippi.”

The film will be produced by Aniston’s partner at Echo Films, Kristin Hahn, along with Tracey Durning. Aniston will executive produce with Jeff Mandel.

(Editing by Sheri Linden at Reuters)

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