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27Mar2011
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27Mar2011
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27Mar2011
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However, after perusing the net I found this video and perhaps the reason why some people don’t observe it is because they have no idea what Memorial Day is all about. Yes, you read that right. Clueless. Idiots.
This video was recorded 2 years ago but I have no doubt that unfortunately, it is still valid today.
Clueless Americans Don’t Know Why We Celebrate Memorial Day
Mark Dice interviews random beach goers over the Memorial Day holiday two years ago in 2012 to see how many of them know the reason behind the holiday.
Dice insinuates absurd reasons for the holiday and finds that most people agree with him and confirm his outlandish statements
Watch the video:
*****
Readers: It’s shocking to watch this…sad and disconcerting.
I know my readers aren’t clueless about the meaning behind today. So whatever you’re doing, whether you are having a BBQ with friends and family, watching a parade, or just sitting at home relaxing, I HOPE that you are honoring the men and women who have given their lives, to ensure that we are safe at home. And although we are remembering and grateful to those whom have died while on duty, I also like to take a moment and appreciate those that are still out there fighting and protecting us, ensuring again that our country is safe.
My heart is full of appreciation.
Peace & Loveto our fallen soldiers and to those still out there – I wish you a safe and quick return home.
What would you like to say about today? Blog me.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog.If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)
Fashion is my thing. What we clothe ourselves with says a lot about us. Supporting women and girls is also my thing. How we treat them says a lot about humanity.
Unfortunately, women and girls aren’t treated so good throughout this planet. (And I am being kind here.) So when my two passions converge into something beautiful and amazing, I take notice, and I give credit where credit is due.
I was perusing Vogue Magazine again, and I came across another write, where another Wonderful Woman Of The World, was featured – this time, using fashion to help young girls.
Phoebe Dahl, through her charitable clothing line “Faircloth & Supply,” helps young girls in Nepal avoid being victims of Sex trafficking by enabling them to be able to get an education. For every item of her clothing line sold, Dahl donates uniforms to young girls where “education is often out of reach for children whose families can’t afford requisite school attire.”
“If girls can’t get an education they’re considered worthless, and their parents often sell them to sex traffickers,” according to Dahl in the May Vogue article ‘One For One’. “We give them two uniforms, so they can go to school and choose a trade – like farming or sewing – and at the end of the course, we give them a microloan to start their business.”
According to tinyhandsinternational.org, “In Nepal an estimated 10,000-15,000 girls are trafficked across the border where they are sold into Indian brothels and forced to become prostitutes.”
For each item sold by Faircloth Supply, one school uniform is donated to a girl in Nepal. Through our partnership with General Welfare Pratisthan (GWP), the girls receiving these uniforms are enabled to attend school and achieve the education they rightfully deserve.
The Faircloth Supply team made its first visit to the GWP headquarters in Nepal’s capital of Kathmandu this past March of 2014. We met with the incredible team behind GWP and their Executive Director, Mahesh Dev Bhattarai, who acted as both our guide and educator, teaching us about the Nepali culture and customs. GWP’s mission is to create an organized, self-reliant society, free of the social and economic disparities symptomatic of gender inequality. In pursuit of this goal, GWP has made providing education opportunities to girls one of its top priorities.There’s a gentle, understated quality of compassion present in the nation’s character. From sublime landscape to humble homes, Nepal is nothing if not welcoming. And yet, given the country’s natural earnestness and beauty, the mistreatment of women throughout Nepali culture is an even more distressing pill to swallow.
When viewing the country’s rich and colorful beauty alongside the extent to which women are mistreated and undervalued in their society, the contrast is stark. There are currently 67 million children who aren’t in school, and over 50% are girls. As a founding member of GWP, Mahesh stresses schooling as a key to empowering Nepali women in the community and breaking a cycle of discrimination that has been endured by generations of women before them.
For a young girl in Nepal, the benefits of education are for more than just academic. Girls who receive education are less vulnerable to HIV infection, human trafficking and other forms of social & economic exploitation. They’re more likely to marry later & raise children who will attend school themselves, and go on to contribute positively to their family’s economic well-being. Long term, GWP’s work aims to build a natural infrastructure that will reduce poverty amongst the marginal population, lower incidents of gender-related violence and the amount of girls taken into sex trafficking, and improve existing health conditions among women. It’s a long and ambitious list, and none of it can be achieved without providing education to girls in even the most impoverished communities throughout Nepal.
GWP programs have impacted over 900 girls and their families, and their reach is growing. The foundation is actively working in 20 districts in Nepal and has reached more than 500,000 beneficiaries through its outreach programs that focus on income generation, health improvement, education, and the environment. Mahesh and his team of teachers and mentors are pioneering programs at women’s health’s clinics as well – implementing STD/HIV/AIDS prevention programs in Kathmandu and the five surrounding districts.
*****
Readers: Dahl has come up with a way to help girls not only get an education but boost their local economies in the process. Awesome. What other solutions can you come up with? Blog me.
Oh…before I go, a big congratulations to Dahl and her partner Ruby Rose on their engagement! Love this sweet picture.
If you’re headed out of town or just stickin’ around, I HOPE you have a fabulous Memorial Day Weekend!
Peace & Love.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog.If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)
At the very end of last year, Shaun Goodman left a bar in Olympia, Washington in his Ferrari and led police on a high speed chase that approached 100 mph at times before crashing into two cars, jumping the curb and eventually careening into the side of a house. An unsuspecting passenger who had accepted a ride from Goodman was forced to leap from the moving car as it slowed down approaching an intersection.
Police arrested Goodman, whose blood alcohol content was twice the legal limit in Washington. He pleaded guilty to felony charges of eluding a police officer and driving under the influence, his seventh DUI conviction. And last week, Judge James Dixon handed down his sentence: no jail time and one year in a work release program.
Members of the community are crying foul, and argue that criminals who have money play by a different set of rules than others who commit similar crimes, drawing comparisons toseveral otherrecent cases of wealthy defendants getting off with minimal punishment. On Friday, protesters gathered in front of the Thurston County courthouse to demand answers.
“The judge has said at some point that he’s an important businessman in the community, and it wouldn’t be fair for him (and) his employees would suffer if he went to real jail,” said Sam Miller in an interview with local station KOMO News. “And my question is, what about the people that might suffer if he kills somebody?”
Ever since his arrest, Goodman has been the recipient of relatively lenient punishment from the court system. His bail was initially set at $75,000, which he paid. Though his request to leave the state for a trip to Las Vegas was denied, Judge Dixon did grant Goodman permission to fly to New York City for the Super Bowl just barely a month after his arrest. Goodman’s lawyer told the judge that his client had “what may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see his hometown team play in the Super Bowl.”
Goodman’s punishment is a far cry from Washington State’s sentencing guidelines for DUI offenders. According to the court system’s most recent DUI sentencing grid, anyone found with a BAC above .15 (Goodman’s was .16) and with two or three prior offenses (Goodman had six), the mandatory minimum jail time is 120 days. The minimum sentence may not be overturned “unless the court finds that imprisonment of this mandatory minimum sentence would impose a substantial risk to the offender’s physical or mental well-being.”
Regard for a defendant’s “mental well-being” is the argument that defense attorneys have used with alarming success in recent months to get their wealthy clients out of jail sentences or any other serious punishment. Last year, a teenager who killed four people and injured two others by driving drunk in Texas avoided jail after the lawyer hired by his wealthy parents claimed their son suffered from “affluenza,” an infliction suffered by the extremely wealthy that prevents them from accepting any responsibility for their own actions. And in March, an heir to chemical magnate Irénée du Pont who raped his own three-year-old daughter accepted a plea bargain that reduced his charges to fourth-degree rape and received probation, avoiding a mandatory jail sentence of 10 years. In her decision, the judge in that case explained that the defendant “will not fare well” in jail.
*****
Readers: Doesn’t this just make you sick? What is the solution? I’ll leave that up to you to figure out. I am done. I have had issues with my blog for most of the evening tonight, (so sorry again that the blog was down.) I am beat and going to bed. HOPEfully when I wake up in the morning there will be no issues and this will post as scheduled at 9:00 AM. I am counting on it.
It’s Friday…you know what to do. Start flapping and blog me.
Thanks for sticking this out with me again. I so appreciate all of you being here with me.
xox
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog.If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)
Or if you would like to send a check via snail mail, please make checks payable to “Michelle Moquin”, and send to:
Michelle Moquin PO Box 29235 San Francisco, Ca. 94129
Real People. Real Stories. Real Solutions For Poverty.
In America, too many of us fall into the trap of thinking: “Poverty is terrible but there’s nothing we can do about it.”
Today, the Half in Ten Education Fund — dedicated to cutting poverty in half in 10 years — introduced a new project called talkpoverty.org dedicated to demonstrating that exactly the opposite is true: we know how to dramatically reduce poverty. The website is a hub where people can learn about poverty in America and what we can do to reduce it.
It also serves to unite and strengthen the antipoverty community, bridging the gap between local and national voices, between grassroots activism and policy work, and between those who are struggling and those who are more economically secure. At the site, you can find basic data and interactive maps about poverty in America; hear from people living in poverty and people dedicated to the fight against poverty; and get involved with local, state and national organizations to take action.
Celebrity chef, food activist, and head judge on Bravo’s Top Chef Tom Colicchio helps kick off the site with one of it’s first posts: “It’s time to #VOTEFOOD.” He traces his history as a chef: from not thinking about hunger and poverty, to attempting to offer food “at a more democratic price point” than his fancy restaurants, to raising money for organizations combating hunger, to finally starting the activist network Food Policy Action. He writes:
As soon as one legislator loses their job over the way they vote on food issues, it will send a clear message to Congress: We’re organized. We’re strong. Yes, we have a food movement, and it’s coming for you.
Former governor Ted Strickland (D-OH), the President of CAP Action, recalls his own personal story of growing up in poverty and always remembering those less fortunate than himself. “It’s un-American, frankly, that you can work and work and work and not get out of poverty,” he concludes.
National figures aren’t the only voices, however. Another featured post is by Sherita Mouzon, a member of Witnesses to Hunger and a Peer Mentor for the Salvation Army in Philadelphia. She writes:
My scars run long and deep—they will always be there. The long lasting effects of trauma stick with you. But I refuse to let my past dictate my future. My memories keep me humble. I’m shaped not by the commonly accepted “fact” that since I grew up in poverty I have to live in poverty now. Instead, I’m shaped by the idea that while you can’t change the past, you can change the future.
Talkpoverty.org melds these activists’ voices with an extensive data set of poverty indicators and demographic data, as well as interactive maps like the one below:
CREDIT: TALKPOVERTY.ORG
In addition to blog content and data, the website will include:
Updates on local, state, and national anti-poverty campaigns and how to get involved
Features on anti-poverty victories and lessons learned
Alerts for anti-poverty actions and events
Synopses and links to the latest research, articles, videos, television programs, and
other media
BOTTOM LINE: 46 million Americans live in poverty, including more than one in five children. We need to have an informed conversation about how to dramatically reduce poverty in this country, and low-income people themselves should play a leading role. By listening to those who are living in poverty and those who are fighting poverty every day, we can grow the movement we truly need to ensure that all Americans have a fair shot at economic prosperity.
*****
Readers: Well, as I am sure you discovered, the full version of Robert Greenwald’s movie, Koch Brothers Exposed: 2014 Edition, was not on the live stream on Tuesday. However, if you haven’t watched it yet, you can watch it on Brave New Films. I think it’s important for all of us to take the time to watch and spread the word in any way we can: Talk about it, blog it, have a party and show the screening of the film. I HOPE that you do.
Thanks to Robert Greenwald for producing this movie. Thanks to Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Bernie Sanders, and Marge Baker for taking the time to speak out against the Koch Brothers in the live stream on Tuesday.
Will, Lilly, Katy et al: Thank you all for supporting me in keeping the Koch Brothers and their greedy ways exposed. This is just the beginning, so I HOPE you’ll continue to keep blogging it here and elsewhere. Thanks.
Christopher*: I am a little surprised to read parts of your comment. Voting Republicans out and retaining control of the Senate, and getting control of the House is the only way for Obama to be successful in anything and any chance of bringing about change for the betterment of all, and we can do it. Thinking for a moment that it won’t produce the desired effect that we are hoping for is not a “can do” attitude. We have no other choice but to vote out the repubs. It is something we must do. By the way, I signed too. Thanks for posting.
Social Butterfly: -Thanks. Done. Oh…/SB: Yes, you read that correctly and my sentence was confusing in my rush to write it. Thanks for noticing. I was out late the night before and didn’t have a chance to proof it until yesterday morning. I scheduled the blog to post at 9:00 AM yesterday, the evening before, as I usually do. I proofed it early yesterday morning and saw where I needed to clarify + a few other things I wanted to change. I tried to update my changes but the server kept scrolling and wouldn’t make them, nor could I put off the scheduled post until a later time so that I could make my changes. So, unfortunately the blog posted and I couldn’t make the few changes until the early afternoon when I could get on.
#PeaceOut.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog.If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)
Or if you would like to send a check via snail mail, please make checks payable to “Michelle Moquin”, and send to:
Michelle Moquin PO Box 29235 San Francisco, Ca. 94129
Michelle Obama hardly ever gets written up enough for what she does as an amazing woman and FLOTUS. So when I find something written about FLOTUS besides her chic fashion sense (Which I do enjoy! But c’mon she has so much more to offer us, if we just can just get the opportunity to read and listen.), I get excited.
Michelle Obama, a Wonderful Woman Of The World, gave a wonderful warm, heartfelt, honest, living-in-the-real-world speech, when she spoke to graduating students on Senior Appreciation Day in Topeka, Kansas, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the landmark Brown v Board of Education Supreme Court decision.
So, just what is the landmark Brown v Board? Here’s the write from the L.A. Times. I was not familiar with all of the details, and perhaps you aren’t either:
Brown vs. Board of Education: Here’s what happened in 1954 courtroom
EDITOR’S NOTE: On May 17, 1954, a hushed crowd of spectators packed the Supreme Court, awaiting word on Brown vs. Board of Education, a combination of five lawsuits brought by the NAACP’s legal arm to challenge racial segregation in public schools. The high court decided unanimously that “separate but equal” education denied black children their constitutional right to equal protection under the law, effectively removing a cornerstone that propped up Jim Crow, or state-sanctioned segregation of the races.
Associated Press reporter Herb Altschull chronicled the decision and what it meant for segregation, which in 1954 permeated many aspects of American life. Using the style and language of journalists of his era, including a reference to Asians as “Orientals,” Altschull captured the uncertainty hanging over a society on the brink of seismic change. Here is Altschull’s compelling report.
The Supreme Court ruled today that the states of the nation do not have the right to separate Negro and white pupils in different public schools.
By a unanimous 9-0 vote, the high court held that such segregation of the races is unconstitutional.
Chief Justice Warren read the historic decision to a packed but hushed gallery of spectators nearly two years after Negro residents of four states and the District of Columbia went before the court to challenge the principle of segregation.
The ruling does not end segregation at once. Further hearings were set for this fall to decide how and when to end the practice of segregation. Thus a lengthy delay is likely before the decision is carried out.
Dean Acheson, secretary of State under former President Harry Truman, was in the courtroom to hear the ruling. He called it “great and statesmanlike.”
Atty. Gen. [Herbert] Brownell was also present. He declined comment immediately. Brownell and the Eisenhower administration, like Truman’s, opposed segregation.
For years 17 Southern and “border” states have imposed compulsory segregation on approximately two-thirds of the nation’s Negroes. Officials of some states already are on record as saying they will close the schools rather than permit them to be operated with Negro and white pupils in the same classrooms.
In its decision, the high court struck down the long-standing “separate but equal” doctrine first laid down by the Supreme Court in 1896 when it maintained that segregation was all right if equal facilities were made available for Negroes and whites.
Here is the heart of today’s decision as it deals with this hotly controverted doctrine:
“We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other ‘tangible’ factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal education opportunities?”
“We believe that it does.”
James C. Hagerty, presidential press secretary, told a news conference the White House would have no comment at this time. He noted that Warren’s opinion said formulation of specific decrees must await later hearings.
Gov. Herman Talmadge, one of the most outspoken supporters of segregation, hit back from Atlanta that the court’s decision had reduced the constitution to “a mere scrap of paper.”
“It has blatantly ignored all law and precedent and usurped from the Congress and the people the power to amend the Constitution and from the Congress the authority to make the laws of the land,” Talmadge said.
Thurgood Marshall, Negro attorney from New York who had argued the case against segregation last December, said he was highly pleased that the decision was unanimous and that the language used was unequivocal.
“Once the decision is made public to the South as well as to the North,” Marshall said, “The people will get together for the first time and work this thing out.”
He said he was not in any way fearful lest the final decree nibble away at the principles in the decision. Marshall said, too, he believes the people of the South will abide by the ruling. “The people of the South are just as law abiding as any other good citizens,” he said.
Marshall is a special counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which has spearheaded the drive against segregation. He said NAACP people will meet this week to discuss “what we are going to do.”
Today’s decision was the first major ruling of the Supreme Court since Warren became chief justice last October, succeeding the late Fred Vinson.
The court confined its ruling to the question of the segregation of Negro public school pupils, but it obviously is applicable to the exclusion from public schools of any minority group — Orientals, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans and so on.
Today’s decision was the latest in a series of court rulings wiping out legal restrictions on Negroes.
In previous cases the Supreme Court had:
1. Ruled that colleges must admit Negroes to study professional courses not open to them in Negro colleges.
2. Ruled that Negroes may not be excluded from train and bus coaches operated in interstate travel.
3. Ruled that Negroes may not be barred from eating in restaurants in the District of Columbia.
The “separate but equal” doctrine was set forth in a 7-1 decision on May 18, 1896, in a case involving Homer Adolph Plessy, who was part Negro.
Plessy boarded a train for a ride from New Orleans to Covington, La., and took a seat in a coach assigned to white passengers in violation of a Louisiana law which required segregation of whites and Negroes on trains.
The conductor asked Plessy to leave the white coach but he refused. A policeman arrested Plessy and took him to jail in New Orleans.
That set off a vigorous legal battle in which the Louisiana Supreme Court eventually upheld the state law. Plessy appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States and the decision went against him.
Justice Henry Billings Brown, who wrote that decision, said the Louisiana law was not in conflict with the U.S. Constitution since Plessy was not refused the right to ride in trains so long as he stayed in a coach restricted to Negroes.
Thus grew up the philosophy of “separate but equal” facilities. Warren, in today’s decision, wrote that the Plessy case involved transportation, not public schools. Inasmuch as he called special attention to the distinction, it is apparent that the court is not now dismissing all forms of segregation.
Warren said that when the 14th Amendment was enacted, “education of Negroes was almost nonexistent, and practically all of the race were illiterate. In fact, any education of Negroes was forbidden by law in some states.”
“Today, in contrast, many Negroes have achieved outstanding success in the arts and sciences as well as in the business and professional world.”
Warren noted that in the early 1870s when cases dealing with segregation first went to the Supreme Court, “compulsory education was virtually unknown” and that for this reason the question of school segregation was unimportant.
After the 1896 decision, Warren wrote, American courts began using it as a basis for decisions on all matters dealing with separation of Negroes and whites.
But it was not until the present cases were brought before the court, Warren said, that the “separate but equal” doctrine was challenged insofar as it might deal with public school education.
Warren noted that the lower courts, in finding against Negro appellants on the basis of the 1896 decision, maintained that the Negro and white schools involved had, in fact, been equalized “with respect to buildings, curricula, qualifications and salaries of teachers and other ‘tangible’ factors.”
But, the Chief Justice said, “our decision. cannot turn on merely a comparison of these tangible factors in the Negro and white schools involved in each of the cases. We must look instead to the effect of segregation itself on public education.”
The Warren opinion recalled that in an earlier decision dealing with the question of whether Negroes should be admitted to graduate courses in segregated universities, the court had said this:
“To separate them (Negroes) from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.”
Reaction from Capitol Hill was swift and in some cases strongly critical.
Sen. [Richard] Russell of Georgia, leader of Southern Democrats in the Senate, termed the decision “a flagrant abuse of judicial power.” He said questions like that of segregation should be decided by the lawmakers, not the courts.
Other Southerners were plainly unhappy, but they did not go so far as Russell. Sen. [Marion Price] Daniel (D-Texas) said the verdict was “disappointing” and that he couldn’t see how the court could arrive at such a decision.
Sen. [Allen J.] Ellender (D-La.) said, “I am of course very much disappointed by this. But I don’t want to criticize the Supreme Court. It is bound to have a very great effect until we readjust ourselves to it.”
He said there would be “violent repercussions” if enforcement were ordered too quickly.
Rep. [Kenneth B.] Keating (R-NY), a strong backer of civil rights legislation, said “There is no doubt about the soundness of the court’s decision.”
Gov. William B. Umstead of North Carolina said in a statement put out by his office that he was “terribly disappointed.”
J.M. Hinton, South Carolina conference president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), said:
“Christianity and democracy have been given a great place in America through the elimination of segregation in public school and communism has lost a talking point.”
The appeals from the four states – Kansas, Delaware, Virginia and South Carolina – challenged the legality of segregation on the ground that it violated the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. The District of Columbia complaint alleged violation of the 5th Amendment.
The 14th Amendment, put through shortly after the end of the Civil War, was designed to reinforce the rights of the newly freed slaves. It said that no state may deprive any person of due process or equal rights under the law.
The 5th Amendment gives all persons involved in court cases dealing with federal matters the right to due process of law.
Actually, the court did not decide the question purely on the basis of these amendments.
Warren wrote that the court “cannot turn the clock back” to the enactment of the 14th Amendment in 1868 or the imposing of the “separate but equal” doctrine in 1896.
“We must consider public education,” Warren wrote, “In the light of its full development and its present place in American life throughout the nation. “
“Only in this way can it be determined if segregation in public schools deprives these plaintiffs of the equal protection of the laws.”
“Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments… It is the very foundation of good citizenship… In these days it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education.”
“Such an opportunity where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.”
The court minced no words in applying the “equal rights” section of the 14th Amendment to the issue of school segregation. It said:
“We hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the action has been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.”
It disposed of the “due process” section in this way:
“This disposition makes unnecessary any discussion whether such segregation also violates the due process clause…”
That was for the cases of the four states. But in the District of Columbia case, the court applied the due process provisions of the 5th Amendment, saying:
“We hold that racial segregation in the public schools of the District of Columbia is a denial of the due process of law guaranteed by the 5th Amendment to the Constitution.”
Warren’s opinion noted that enforcement of the court ruling raised “problems of considerable complexity.”
It was for this reason that the court ordered further arguments in the fall. Brownell and the attorneys general of all states where segregation is now permitted were invited to take part, so that appropriate decrees can be worked out.
Briefs must be filed by Oct. 1.
The decision was made public in a highly unusual manner. Normally, copies of Supreme Court rulings are given to reporters simultaneously with the start of their reading from the bench.
In this case, no copies were given out until after Warren had finished reading the opinion. Thus it was not until he was well into it was the full import of the court’s decision known— that segregation had been ruled unconstitutional.
No reason was announced for this departure from the usual practice.
The court had weighed the issues for a long time. The first arguments on the cases were held in December 1952. Rearguments were heard in December 1953, after the Eisenhower Administration took over.
And...I posted the video, so you could watch her full speech. It is 20 minutes but so worth it. Powerful and moving.
First Lady Michelle Obama Addresses Senior Appreciation Day
Readers: What an awesome speech. I am so moved. I love the way Michelle Obama puts the power into the hands of the young to bring about change. I HOPEthey take it on.
Thoughts? Blog me.
Peace & love…to all.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog.If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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