On this day in 1954, Ellis Island, the gateway to America, shuts it doors after processing more than 12 million immigrants since opening in 1892. Today, an estimated 40 percent of all Americans can trace their roots through Ellis Island, located in New York Harbor off the New Jersey coast and named for merchant Samuel Ellis, who owned the land in the 1770s.

On January 2, 1892, 15-year-old Annie Moore, from Ireland, became the first person to pass through the newly opened Ellis Island, which President Benjamin Harrison designated as America’s first federal immigration center in 1890.

Before that time, the processing of immigrants had been handled by individual states. Not all immigrants who sailed into New York had to go through Ellis Island. First- and second-class passengers submitted to a brief shipboard inspection and then disembarked at the piers in New York or New Jersey, where they passed through customs. People in third class, though, were transported to Ellis Island, where they underwent medical and legal inspections to ensure they didn’t have a contagious disease or some condition that would make them a burden to the government.

Only two percent of all immigrants were denied entrance into the U.S. Immigration to Ellis Island peaked between 1892 and 1924, during which time the 3.3-acre island was enlarged with landfill and additional buildings were constructed to handle the massive influx of immigrants. During the busiest year of operation, 1907, over 1 million people were processed at Ellis Island.

After 1924, Ellis Island switched from a processing center to serving other purposes, such as a detention and deportation center for illegal immigrants, a hospital for wounded soldiers during World War II and a Coast Guard training center.

In November 1954, the last detainee, a Norwegian merchant seaman, was released and Ellis Island officially closed.

On November 7, 1932, the Supreme Court hands down its decision in the matter of Powell v. Alabama. The case arose out of the infamous Scottsboro case. Nine young Black men were arrested and accused of raping two white women on train in Alabama. The boys were fortunate to barely have escaped a lynch mob sent to kill them, but were railroaded into convictions and death sentences. The Supreme Court overturned the convictions on the basis that they did not have effective representation.

Victoria Price and Ruby Bates, the alleged victims, had concocted the charges out of thin air. Bates eventually recanted her testimony. The accused boys were not given lawyers until the morning of the trial and these attorneys made almost no effort to defend their clients. On the same day that the case began, the defendants were convicted and received death sentences.

The blatant unfairness of the case attracted the attention of liberals across the country. The transcript of the trial left the Supreme Court with no other choice but to throw out the convictions. Still, Alabama insisted on retrying the defendants. This time, Samuel Leibowitz, one of the premier defense attorneys of the day, came to represent the Scottsboro nine. It didn’t matter.

The jury, all white men because Black men were systematically excluded, convicted once again. In fact, there would be many more trials of the Scottsboro defendants over the years and each time the jury convicted and was later reversed on appeal. When the saga finally ended, all of the defendants were finally released. But not until after they had served an average of ten years for the phantom crime.

Source: history.com

By Stefanie Kunze

Other articles in Laws and Proposed Laws, Pre-First Amendment

This 1774 print shows Boston colonists pouring tea down the throat of a loyalist official whom they have tarred and feathered. Tax commissioners were commonly threatened with tarring and feathering when they tried to enforce the Stamp Act of 1765, which imposed a tax on all papers and official documents in the American colonies. The aftermath of the Stamp Act influenced constitutional safeguards and the First Amendment. (Print by Philip Dawe via Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

The Stamp Act of 1765 was ratified by the British parliament under King George III. It imposed a tax on all papers and official documents in the American colonies, though not in England.

King George III imposed a tax on official documents in the American colonies

Included under the act were bonds, licenses, certificates, and other official documents as well as more mundane items such as plain parchment and playing cards. Parliament reasoned that the American colonies needed to offset the sums necessary for their maintenance. It intended to use the additional tax money to pay for war expenses incurred in Great Britain’s struggles with France and Spain.

Many American colonists refused to pay Stamp Act tax

For the complete article go to the link below

mtsu.edu

Nine American colonies sent a total of 28 delegates to New York City for the Stamp Act Congress. The delegates adopted the “Declaration of Rights and Grievances.”