In the Wheel

Qualified immunity isn't an easy concept to grasp. There isn't an elevator pitch. It's pretty involved. But let's start with this: Every person in the United States has rights that are protected. Also true is the fact that governments have made themselves and their 'agents' somewhat invincible when it comes to lawsuits.  Recall that this country supposedly wanted to break up with King George III, in part because he was unaccountable; he was immune from prosecution. Our bewigged forebears didn't like that. It's known as  sovereign immunity , and it's part of why they dumped him. However, when the chips were down and the quill pens were out, the ancestral legislators of the so-called Land of the Free decided that well, maybe a little immunity wasn't such a bad thing for them, as a government. And so, they put sovereign immunity into the Constitution. There's a little YouTube  primer here .  Then the states put sovereign immunity into their stat...

Here is just one case that shows some of what's involved in seeking restitution for a violation of constitutional 'rights'. It's life-changing and frightening, and it can happen to anyone.  Hamdi Mohamud Hamdi Mohamud, Credit: Institute for Justice Rights violation took place in 2011 Ms. Mohamud was wrongly incarcerated for two years at age 16. One of those years was spent in federal prison. Still waiting for her case to be heard in 2022 Hamdi Mohamud was arrested at the age of 16 and incarcerated for 2 years without a trial based solely on false information provided by a police officer. Eleven years after her initial arrest and eventual release, the case against the officer that provided bogus evidence against her still has not been allowed to go to trial. In June 2011, 16 year old Hamdi Mohamud and a friend were innocent bystanders during a fight involving three older girls. St. Paul police officers responded when Muna, one of the older girls, attacked the others wit...

  May 17-21 On the banks of the Arkansas River, at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, is the Selma Memorial  that commemorates "Bloody Sunday". In the scant teachings our country doles out about the civil rights struggle, you may have seen the shocking footage of that day. You may know less about the organization leading up to it, the reason for the march, and what happened afterwards.  As author Gay Talese points out in this video, most of the moments we see are "isolated examples of atrociousness. We told the world that this quarter of a mile is the story, and it has remained the story for over fifty years. . . but really, Selma hasn't changed that much. . ." Talese is confirming my own experience that many of us have seen these few vignettes of outrageous racist violence against non-violent protestors, but we never get to see the whole picture. We usually have to look for it, which was my intent with this trip. I was at the riverside memorial in Selma on...

May 13-15 Birmingham, AL A.G. Gaston (right) in front of his motel with R.A. Hester. City of Birmingham Archives Arthur George Gaston died in 1996 with a net worth of $130 million. He was an innovator from the beginning, first earning some cash by letting the neighborhood kids ride his tire swing in exchange for their buttons, which the children's parents would buy back from him. As a young adult, he was a miner in Birmingham and provided lunches and burial insurance to his coworkers. Gaston opened a business school, a funeral home, a savings and loan, and the A.G. Gaston Motel, which was listed in the Green Book. While he generally laid low to keep out of conflict with white society, he did provide financial assistance to the Civil Rights movement, and opened his motel to activists in the early 60's. Dr. King stayed there during the Children's Crusade in 1963, a march in which children left school to walk downtown and talk with the mayor about segregation in Birmingham. Bu...

May 13-15, Birmingham I'm doing this trip backwards--that is, I'm doing it the opposite way the arrows show in the guide book. I suppose there's no real wrong way to do this, but it's working for me this way. Starting off with Little Rock was chronologically correct, but of course next I went to Memphis, and the assassination of Dr. King (1968). What Memphis gave me, though, was some familiarity with the leaders and activists I was to meet over and over as I went from Birmingham to Montgomery, to Selma, and finally Jackson, MS, and the Delta. In Birmingham, a few things came together for me: a prominent part of Green Book, the Freedom Rides (1960-1961), and Dr. King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963).   If you haven't ever read King's Letter , set aside a few minutes for it.  He was jailed in Birmingham for ' parading without a permit '.  He wrote the letter on scraps of paper that were smuggled in to him. Most of us know that Dr. King's stra...

A note about pictures throughout this blog: not all of these will be great!   That's because my main focus is hearing from the people who are sharing their stories. In most cases, I take these to capture the information on plaques, or to help me remember all I've seen. May 21, 2021 Canton Freedom House is about ten miles outside of Jackson, MS. It's a civil rights museum that shrinks the decades between the Freedom Summer and today. This is a place that was the headquarters for the Congress of Racial Equality  (CORE), and was also used by the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced "snick").  George and Rembert Washington  George and Rembert Washington are pictured above in front of the store they owned and ran. They also owned the building across the street, which became the Freedom House. Like many who were active in the civil rights movement across the south, the Washingtons' business and buildings were attacked, and Mr. Washington was ...