Tag: Slavery

Commentary: No, the Electoral College Is Not a Relic of Slavery

RealClearWire
"Signing of the Declaration of Independence" painting by Howard Chandler Christy

Since the 2000 presidential election, the left has worked to undermine the legitimacy of the Electoral College, labeling it a relic of slavery. No doubt, if Donald Trump returns to the White House while again losing the popular vote, these attacks will be renewed with fervor. In fact, it has already begun as commentators denounce the undemocratic nature of the system. Just last month, the New York Times published a piece trashing the Constitution and asserting that the Electoral College’s only purpose was to protect slavery. These critiques are based on misconceptions and hostility toward the very structure of our Constitution.

The History

Our method of electing the president came about through compromise. The framers agreed upon a system that ensured the states had a say in choosing the president. The Constitution gives each state a share of electors, and the states decide for themselves how to select those electors.

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Commentary: Juneteenth Usurped the Emancipation Proclamation

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Carol Swain

How did Juneteenth, once just a regional celebration, become a federal holiday instead of the far more significant Emancipation Proclamation? The latter freed over 3 million slaves, including the ones in Galveston, Texas that didn’t know of their freedom. Let’s walk through some of the facts of the latter’s superiority over the former before grappling with the politics of our times.

President Abraham Lincoln issued The Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. It never became a federal holiday despite the wishes of some organizations. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), presented a proposal in 2014 seeking to establish “A National Holiday Commemorating Emancipation of the Slaves” for the “history and story” to be “properly researched and archived for the American People. It acknowledged the importance of the document for all Americans and sought for the holiday to be celebrated on January 1 of each year as a Jubilee. The NAACP resolution was presented during the Obama Administration. It was written before the word “slaves” was swapped for “enslaved peoples.”

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Chicago Mayor Launches Black Reparations ‘Task Force’

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Chicago Mayor

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson announced on Monday that he had signed an executive order to create a new “task force” to study reparation payments for black Chicagoans.

The Black Reparations Co-Governance Task Force will study “all policies that have harmed Black Chicagoans from the slavery era to present day and make a series of recommendations that will serve as appropriate remedies,” Johnson said in a press release obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The Chicago Office of Equity and Racial Justice will lead the task force, which has already overseen 25 departments in the city who have submitted “racial equity action plans,” according to their 2024 equity report.

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Ohio Lawmaker Wants State to Return Denied Land to Randolph Freedpeople

The Center Square
Dontavius Jarrells

An Ohio lawmaker is looking for support to return land in western Ohio to formerly enslaved people denied to them during the Civil War.

In a letter to Republican Gov. Mike DeWine and other state agencies and elected officials, Rep. Dontavius Jarrells, D-Columbus, wants the governor to support exploring all options to address what Jarrells calls the historical injustice faced by the Randolph Freedpeople.

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Proposed Minnesota Legislation Would Require Study of Reparations, Formal Apology for Slavery

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Minnesota Capitol

Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation this week to establish an advisory council that would examine a possible reparations program. Introduced in the last days of the legislative session, HF 5456 would also require the State of Minnesota to “issue an apology for the past occurrence of chattel slavery and notable slave owners in Minnesota.”

Known as the “Minnesota Migration Act,” HF 5456 first makes several historical declarations.

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California Legislature Introduces Slavery Reparations Bills

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California Capitol with blowing cash

On Wednesday, lawmakers in the state of California introduced a series of bills aimed at providing reparations for historical slavery, which would include giving out property and financial compensation for alleged descendants of slaves.

As Politico reports, the bills represent the first of their kind in the country, after a rising left-wing movement in favor of reparations first emerged shortly after the 2020 race riots. The California bills had been in the works for the last several years after Governor Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) set up a reparations “task force” to make suggestions, which led to a 111-page report issued last year.

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Commentary: Human Trafficking is Modern Day Slavery

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Human trafficking received increased national attention this month as millions of Americans watched in horror as the abuse that victims face played out on the big screen. Current estimates place the number of human trafficking victims at 28 million, far beyond what most Americans considered possible. While many of our friends and neighbors may perceive human trafficking to be an overblown third-world phenomenon, in reality the modern day slave trade is very real — and very pervasive — right here at home.

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Commentary: Green Energy Has a Dirty Secret

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As with most things espoused in the name of social progress, the left’s aggressive push for EV technology conveniently forgets the lives of those affected by it the most.

“On my watch, the great American road trip is going to be fully electrified…you can get up to $7,500 on a new electric vehicle,” Biden exclaimed during a photo-op in a shiny electric Hummer. I bet that tax credit will come in handy when the average American is forced to buy a $60,000 EV after gas-powered cars are banned outright.

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California’s Reparations Plan Could Cost over $800 Billion

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After economists estimated that California’s reparations plan could spend as much as $800 billion, the leader of the state’s “reparations task force” has refused to commit to such a staggering amount.

According to ABC News, the $800 billion figure would be paid to all black residents in the state in return for past historical circumstances such as slavery and segregation, as well as alleged “racism” in policing, incarceration rates, and housing.

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Commentary: Recognizing Hard Truths About America’s History with Slavery

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Slavery is always and everywhere an unconscionable stain, an egregious error, a monstrous outrage, a mortal sin. Every human possesses a natural right to be his own master, so long as he does not deny that same right to others.

Most people take that truism for granted today but it wasn’t the governing rule of the past. Few people who have ever lived on this planet were truly free; most were either outright slaves or were serfs or subjects who lived in constant fear of tyrants. In world history, freedom is the exception, and mostly a recent one.

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Incoming Minnesota Republican Says Vaccine Mandates Are ‘Like’ Slavery

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Rep.-elect Walter Hudson is doubling down on comments he made comparing COVID-19 vaccine mandates to slavery at a Mask Off Minnesota event in Bloomington earlier this week.

“I’m not saying that vaccine mandates are like slavery. I’m saying they are slavery because it is a claim of ownership over the life and body of another human being,” Hudson told Alpha News over the phone this week.

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Commentary: Biden Administration Must Enforce Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act

RealClearWire

Slavery has been illegal in the United States for nearly 160 years. And yet, over the past two decades, American businesses and consumers have once again begun to benefit from the horrific practice.

It’s an extremely uncomfortable truth, and for most Americans, it likely comes as a surprise. Until recently, they probably had no idea that the clothes they wear, the phones they cannot put down, and the solar panels on their roofs were made, in part, by slaves. The same cannot be said of the companies that eagerly ship jobs overseas to China and source materials from concentration camps.

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Youngkin and Kaine Speak on Juneteenth at Separate Events

Eric Burk

Two Virginia governors gave Juneteenth speeches over the weekend: Governor Glenn Youngkin spoke at Fort Monroe on Sunday, and former governor, current U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) gave the keynote speech at a Loudoun NAACP Juneteenth event Monday. Both men highlighted the role of Virginia as the site where African slaves first arrived in 1619. Youngkin focused more on the contrast between those actions and the U.S.’ ideals, which the country is still striving for, while Kaine focused on the history of slavery and emancipation in America while referring to Governor Glenn Youngkin’s educational policy without directly naming the governor.

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Harvard to Shell Out $100 Million to ‘Redress’ Its ‘Legacies with Slavery’

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Harvard University will allocate $100 million to study and address its history with slavery, according to a Tuesday announcement from the university’s president.

The university released a report from the Committee on Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery and announced a $100 million fund to implement the report’s recommendations, according to an announcement from President Larry Bacow. The report listed numerous recommendations including how Harvard “can redress” its “legacies with slavery” through teaching, research and service.

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Over Half of Americans Don’t Think Schools Need to Teach About the Ongoing Impact of Slavery and Racism

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Over half of Americans don’t think schools have a responsibility to teach students about the ongoing impact of slavery and racism, according to according to a poll released Monday by the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State University in partnership with APM Research Lab.

Two-thirds of Republican respondents and almost half of Independents said educators should only teach the history of slavery, according to the “Mood of the Nation” poll. Only one-fifth of Democratic respondents said exclusively the history of slavery should be taught.

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Commentary: America’s Students Deserve a History and Civics Education Free of Political Agendas

RealClearWire

Across the political spectrum, Americans are recognizing the importance not just of school choice but of what students actually learn in schools. Elected representatives have finally taken notice as well. In Michigan, the state legislature has proposed two bills that seek to address how American history and civics are taught.

Unfortunately, some want teachers to tell students that they should understand American history primarily by looking for racism, injustice, and oppression. The phrase “critical race theory” (CRT) has been used mainly in academia to describe this filter on history and civic instruction.

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Commentary: Descendants of Enslaved People Are Owed Compensation, Kendi Argues

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Recently, Ibram X. Kendi was chosen as a recipient for the 2021 MacArthur Genius Fellowship. This event has been met with resounding applause on the Left as it is presumed to be both a well-justified instance of reparative justice and a logical continuation of the 1960s Civil Rights movement. In truth, this event constitutes neither of these things. 

In recent years, we have seen increasing instances of anti-white rhetoric within America, exemplified in the rise of critical race theory, Black Lives Matter, and the writings of folks like Kendi.

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Commentary: Understanding the 1619 Project

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The cover of the August 18, 2019, issue of the New York Times Magazine was adorned with a photograph of a blackish, foreboding ocean captioned by these words: “In August of 1619, a ship appeared on this horizon, near Point Comfort, a coastal port in the British colony of Virginia. It carried more than 20 enslaved Africans, who were sold to the colonists. America was not yet America, but this was the moment it began. No aspect of the country that would be formed here has been untouched by the 250 years of slavery that followed. On the 400th anniversary of this fateful moment, it is finally time to tell our story truthfully.”

What greeted the reader once he turned past an advertisement for a new, highly revisionist Broadway production of To Kill a Mockingbird was a reiteration of the initial message, boldly announced in giant white type. The number 1619 took up two-thirds of the vertical space against a black background. An introduction by New York Times Magazine editor Jake Silverstein appeared beneath the giant “1619” in the same white print, but much smaller: “It is not a year that most Americans know as a notable date in our country’s history. Those who do are at most a tiny fraction of those who can tell you that 1776 is the year of our nation’s birth.”

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Critical Race Theory Debate Heating Up in Ohio General Assembly

The Center Square
Ohio State House

School districts, teachers unions, student groups and parents lined up at the Ohio House to testify against two bills that would stop schools from teaching what sponsors called “divisive concepts” in the classroom.

The House State and Local Government Committee heard more than three hours of testimony Wednesday during the third hearing for both House Bill 322 and House Bill 327. Each prohibits teaching concepts that are part of the nationwide critical race theory movement critics say purports the U.S. is a fundamentally racist country.

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Minnesota Realtors Dropping ‘Master’ Bedroom Terminology to Be More Inclusive

Peter D'Abrosca

Real estate terminology is not immune to America’s social justice craze, and certain “discriminatory” terms like “master suite,” “man-cave,” and others are on their way out.

“There’s a hidden discriminatory piece that falls when you say ‘master’ bedroom,’” Jackie Berry, a realtor, who is also described as an “educator in racism and real estate continuing education” told The Minnesota Star-Tribune. “I’m a person of color and every time the term ‘master bedroom’ was used, I kept saying to myself, ‘I don’t like how it sounds.’ Now as I’m walking through a property, I’ll just say it’s the owners’ or primary suite.”

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University Refuses to Rehire Math Professor Who Criticized Slavery Reparations

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Saint Joseph’s University will not renew its contract with math Professor Gregory Manco despite the fact that a three-month investigation into his Twitter history found he had not violated any campus policies.

Manco has been a non-tenured assistant professor of math at Saint Joseph’s since 2005 and also a volunteer assistant baseball coach, but tweets in February criticizing slavery reparations and racial bias training had prompted the probe even though he used an anonymous account.

He was put on administrative leave during the probe. Its outcome, announced in May, determined Manco could not be found guilty of violating any policies, citing “insufficient evidence.”

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Commentary: Historians Selling Out for Leftist Star, Nikole Hannah-Jones

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Nikole Hannah-Jones

The University of North Carolina’s decision on June 30 to offer tenure to Nikole Hannah-Jones came about through a torrent of threats (often tweeted), profanities, doxxings, and assaults—tactics that have become increasingly commonplace among professional activists and racial grievance-mongers.

Hannah-Jones, of course, is the Pulitzer Prize-winning opinion writer and architect of the New York Times’ notorious “1619 Project,” which claims that America’s true founding was not in 1776 but rather in 1619, when 20 or so African slaves arrived in Virginia. Hannah-Jones contends, moreover, that the American War of Independence was fought solely to preserve slavery. 

More than two-dozen credible historians, many of them political liberals and leftists, have debunked Hannah-Jones’ claims. Though, as we’ll see, some are less firm in their convictions than others. What’s clear, however, is that peer review is passé in the era of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Forget a stellar record of scholarly accomplishment—that’s a relic of “Eurocentrism.” Far more important these days is a candidate’s enthusiasm for social justice. It was Hannah-Jones’ celebrity activism and her “journalism,” not her scholarship, that formed the basis for the university’s initial offer of tenure earlier in the spring.

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Gov. Bill Lee Launches New Partnership to Combat Human Trafficking

Cooper Moran

The State of Tennessee is partnering with multiple organizations to help combat human trafficking, Governor Bill Lee announced on Thursday.

According to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s project, ItHasToStop.com, this form of modern-day slavery is one of the fastest growing crimes throughout the state and country as a whole. Further, cases of human trafficking have been reported in every county in Tennessee.

“I’m excited to invest in and partner with these remarkable organizations that are at the forefront of this important fight. Human trafficking has no place in our state, and I’m proud to support our law enforcement and non-profit partners,” Governor Lee said.

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Brown University Students Overwhelmingly Vote in Favor of Reparations for Black Students

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Brown University

On Monday, Students at the Ivy League school Brown University voted in favor of two resolutions approving reparations for black students, as reported by the Washington Free Beacon.

Both resolutions seek to identify any black students who are direct descendants of slaves, or “who were entangled with and/or afflicted by the University and Brown family and their associates,” in reference to the university’s founder Nicholas Brown Jr.

One resolution would give priority admission to any such black students, while the other would give direct monetary payments to said students. In the vote amongst all students on campus, the admissions resolution received 89 percent of the vote, while the financial payment resolution received 85 percent. The vote was held after the student government at Brown passed a resolution, introduced by the student government president Jason Carroll, “calling upon Brown to attempt to identify and reparate the descendants of slaves entangled with the university.”

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Georgia Legislators Officially Request Commission on Slavery Reparations

Chris Butler

Six Georgia state representatives put forward a resolution last week asking that members of the U.S. Congress create a formal commission to study whether the government should provide reparations for slavery. “The racial bigotry fed by slavery did not end with slavery or with segregation. And many of the issues that still trouble America have roots in the bitter experience of other times. But however long the journey, our destiny is set: liberty and justice for all,” according to the language of the resolution.

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Black and Hispanic Pastors Form Conservative Clergy of Color Group, Highlight Racism of Democratic Party

Anthony Gockowski

A new group called Conservative Clergy of Color believes the only “systemic racism” that exists in America today is found in the Democratic Party itself.

“Democrats and their foot soldiers on the left insist there is a rot in our country, but the only rot I see is the rot that has festered in the very foundations of the Democratic Party, a party that was built from the ground up on the backs of oppressed blacks,” said Bishop Aubrey Shines, one of four founding members of the group.

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Leahy and Carmichael Talk About the History of Statues Calling for Public Discussion and Not Mob Rule

Julie Carr

  Live from Music Row Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. –  host Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist, Crom Carmichael in the studio. During the third hour, Leahy and Carmichael discussed the history of statues in Tennessee and how some of those well-known figures represent slavery yet later in their lives made amends. The duo agreed that the purpose of statues and public art is there to remind us of our history and that legislative and public discussions would be the best way to convene decisions and not mob rule. (Amazing Grace plays) Leahy: John Newton was a slave trader in 18th century England. He was captain of a slave ship. There is a statue of him in Ireland. Should that statue be torn down because in the 18th century he was a slave trader? Carmichael: Well, according to the left it should absolutely be torn down. Leahy: The thing about John Newton is he had a conversion experience after he was a slave trader. After he was a captain of slave ships and realized that it was absolutely…

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Commentary: Slavery Did Not Make America Richer

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In the past few decades, a new subfield of history has emerged: the history of capitalism. The subfield is widely popular in the media as a result of hugely influential books such as those of Sven Beckert and Edward Baptist. These two particular authors tie the “peculiar institution” of slavery in American history to capitalism. Many media pundits, as witnessed by recent articles in the New York Times and Vox, jumped on the works of these authors to claim that slavery was “the building block of the American economy” and it made America richer.

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ICE Announces Plan to Stop ‘Fake Families’ and Child Smuggling at the Border

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by Jason Hopkins   Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced on Monday that it is shifting its resources to deal with the influx of “fake families” arriving on the U.S-Mexico border. “Fake families are being formed to cross our border and avoid detention. ICE [Homeland Security Investigations] is working with [Customs and Border Protection] to stop individuals, networks and organizations facilitating child smuggling and document fraud to illegally enter the U.S.,” ICE tweeted on Monday. Fake families are being formed to cross our border and avoid detention. ICE #HSI is working with @CBP to stop individuals, networks and organizations facilitating child smuggling and document fraud to illegally enter the U.S. — ICE (@ICEgov) April 29, 2019 The agency went on to write that it is moving experts to the border to investigate child smuggling, and it will be using science data to “dismantle” the child trafficking rings employed by human smugglers working in Central American and Mexico. The announcement came on the same day as a media appearance by the agency’s acting director. “What we’re currently doing is surging resources from ICE’s Homeland Security investigations to the border. We’re sending human trafficking experts, document fraud experts, forensic interviewers, victim assistance specialists, because our first…

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Commentary: Brutal ‘Coyotes’ Are Slave-Trading Criminals

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by Pedro Gonsalez   Migrant women are so likely to be raped by people smugglers (coyotes) on the way to the U.S.-Mexico border that standard procedure is to ingest birth-control before starting the trek. So common is the brutalization of women by coyotes that in smuggling towns along the way pharmacists are at the ready. In one case a woman with a young daughter was left to die in the desert on the way to the U.S. border by coyotes. The reason? She refused to let them have sex with her daughter. The two of them only survived because Customs and Border Patrol agents found them in time. But there are fates worse than death. It is just as easy for coyotes to sell off their human cargo into what essentially amounts to modern-day slavery. In Ohio, for example, four illegal alien minors were found being forced to work on farms under threat of physical violence and without pay – that is, slavery. They were trafficked illegally into the United States from Guatemala. The victimizers of those Guatemalan children were named as follows: Aroldo Castillo-Serrano, Conrado Salgado Soto, Ana Angelica Pedro, Juan Pablo Duran Jr. Not exactly names common to the Midwest. Elsewhere, a 6-year-old illegal alien…

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Tennessee and The U.S. Constitution’s 15th Amendment

Gregory Watson
Celebrating the 15th Amendment

The 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which granted freed former male slaves and any adult male citizen the right to vote,  was ratified by the requisite three-fourths of all states and added to the Constitution in 1870.  At the time there were 37 states, and when the 28th state ratified the amendment in February, 1870, the three-fourths standard was met. Tennessee was not among those 28 states. In fact, Tennessee did not get around to ratifying the 15th Amendment until more than 100 years later, in 1997. Here is that story: During the Reconstruction period in the American South, in the aftermath of the Civil War, three individual amendments were incorporated into the U.S. Constitution – each separated in succession by only a few years – pursuant to that document’s Article V. This trifecta ended a dry spell of more than 60 years of no amendments at all finding their way into the federal Constitution. The 13th Amendment, ending slavery, was adopted in 1865.  The 14th Amendment, defining citizenship status, came along in 1868 (although there is some question as to whether its ratification process was 100 percent strictly by-the-book).  And the 15th Amendment, granting to former male slaves –…

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