Arkansas National Guard Prevent School Desegregation - 1957

Mound Bayou, Mississippi

Isaiah Thornton Montgomery, Founder and Mayor The following is a complete excerpt from 1975 Application for Historic status for I.T. Montgomery House in Mound Bayou. It tells part of the story of the town's founding. The house attained listing on the National Register as a National Historic Landmark in 1976. Located in the Mississippi Delta region of Bolivar County, the town of Mound Bayou was one of a number of black settlements which was established during the post-Reconstruction period. It represents one of many important attempts by blacks of that era to establish independent communities in which they could exercise self-government. The present town of Mound Bayou had its inception in a former settlement. Isaiah Thornton Montgomery and his cousin Benjamin Green were the slaves of the family of the Confederate President Jefferson Davis. As an alternative to the institution of slavery, it was Jefferson Davis' idea that blacks be isolated on their own settlements. At ...

Qualified Immunity--Why is it un-understandable?

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...

Birmingham Alabama

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...

In the Wheel

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