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Kelley Williams-B​olar – 2011- Black History


Story of mother sentenced to jail for enrolling a child in different district, in 2011

Your voice is making a huge difference in the case of , the Ohio mother who was convicted of a felony after allegedly misleading authorities and sending her children to a school outside her district:

•Since we wrote to you about Williams-Bolar, you and more than 67,000 ColorOfChange.org members have called on Ohio Governor John Kasich to take a public stand and commit to pardoning Williams-Bolar.

•Last week, Gov. Kasich acknowledged the public outcry about the case and said he’d investigate.1 Also last week, prosecutors dropped the remaining charges in the case (for grand theft) against Williams-Bolar and her father.2

•On Monday, we went to Gov. Kasich’s office to deliver your signatures, along with thousands more from Change.org and MomsRising.org — more than 165,000 signatures in all. The petition delivery was covered by most of the major media in the state capitol.3,4,5

•On Tuesday, Gov. Kasich responded by asking the state’s parole board to review Williams-Bolar’s case.6

This an important step towards justice: before Gov. Kasich can pardon Williams-Bolar he must receive a recommendation from the parole board. To review her case and make a recommendation, the parole board had to receive a request from the governor or Williams-Bolar herself. Now that Gov. Kasich has made that request, the process for pardoning Williams-Bolar or commuting her sentence can begin.

Our voices are also having an impact beyond this particular case. By speaking out for Kelley Williams-Bolar, we’re also helping to focus the country’s attention on the conditions that put her in this situation: the lack of access to safe, quality education that so many of our children face, and the fact that it’s often rooted in economic and racial inequality.

Gov. Kasich acknowledged the public pressure that led him to take action Tuesday, saying “Many people have shared their thoughts with me in letters, email and phone calls, and I appreciate their outreach.”7

We still don’t know if the parole board will do the right thing. And we need to make sure that Gov. Kasich stays involved and committed to doing everything he can to ensure a just outcome for Kelley Williams-Bolar and her family. But we do know that they are a few steps closer to justice now, and it’s thanks in large part to the voices of ColorOfChange members and our friends at Change.org and MomsRising.org.

Thanks for getting involved. We’ll keep you posted on the case, and let you know if there are more ways you can help.

— James, Gabriel, Dani, William, Natasha and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team

February 10th, 2011

Help support our work. ColorOfChange.org is powered by YOU — your energy and dollars. We take no money from lobbyists or large corporations that don’t share our values, and our tiny staff ensures your contributions go a long way. You can contribute here:

http://act.colorofchange.org/go/5?akid=1890.1174326.wUnIwC&t=2

References

1. “Ohio governor weighs in on Kelley Williams-Bolar case,” Akron Beacon Journal, 2-1-11

http://act.colorofchange.org/go/720?akid=1890.1174326.wUnIwC&t=4

2. “Theft dismissed in residency case,” Akron Beacon Journal, 2-1-11

http://act.colorofchange.org/go/721?akid=1890.1174326.wUnIwC&t=6

3. “Petition to Pardon Mom,” ABC 6, 2-7-11

http://act.colorofchange.org/go/722?akid=1890.1174326.wUnIwC&t=8

4. “Kasich asked to pardon mom in school-enrollment fraud,” Columbus Dispatch, 2-8-11

http://act.colorofchange.org/go/723?akid=1890.1174326.wUnIwC&t=10

5. “Groups ask Ohio gov. to pardon district switcher,” Associated Press, 2-7-11 

http://act.colorofchange.org/go/724?akid=1890.1174326.wUnIwC&t=12

6. “Kasich asks parole board to review Williams-Bolar case,” Columbus Dispatch, 2-8-11

http://act.colorofchange.org/go/725?akid=1890.1174326.wUnIwC&t=14

7. Ibid.

~ Culture & History, ~ In the Library

Black History Month: The Need Remains … a repost

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Lonnie Bunch, museum director, historian, lecturer, and author, is proud to present A Page from Our American Story, a regular on-line series for Museum supporters. It will showcase individuals and events in the African American experience, placing these stories in the context of a larger story — our American story.A Page From Our American StoryEditor’s Note: This edition of A Page from Our American Story was originally a speech made by Lonnie Bunch. It is reprinted here in its entirety.Knowing the Past Opens the Door to the Future
The Continuing Importance of Black History Month

Carter Woodson,
father of Black
History Month,
was commemorated
by the United States
Postal Service with
a stamp in his
image on
February 1, 1984.

No one has played a greater role in helping all Americans know the black past than Carter G. Woodson, the individual who created Negro History Week in Washington, D.C., in February 1926.

Woodson was the second black American to receive a PhD in history from Harvard — following W.E.B. DuBois by a few years. To Woodson, the black experience was too important simply to be left to a small group of academics. Woodson believed that his role was to use black history and culture as a weapon in the struggle for racial uplift. By 1916, Woodson had moved to DC and established the “Association for the Study of Negro Life and Culture,” an organization whose goal was to make black history accessible to a wider audience. Woodson was a strange and driven man whose only passion was history, and he expected everyone to share his passion.

This impatience led Woodson to create Negro History Week in 1926, to ensure that school children be exposed to black history. Woodson chose the second week of February in order to celebrate the birthday of Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. It is important to realize that Negro History Week was not born in a vacuum. The 1920s saw the rise in interest in African American culture that was represented by the Harlem Renaissance where writers like Langston Hughes, Georgia Douglass Johnson, Claude McKay — wrote about the joys and sorrows of blackness, and musicians like Louie Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Jimmy Lunceford captured the new rhythms of the cities created in part by the thousands of southern blacks who migrated to urban centers like Chicago. And artists like Aaron Douglass, Richard Barthe, and Lois Jones created images that celebrated blackness and provided more positive images of the African American experience.

Woodson hoped to build upon this creativity and further stimulate interest through Negro History Week. Woodson had two goals. One was to use history to prove to white America that blacks had played important roles in the creation of America and thereby deserve to be treated equally as citizens. In essence, Woodson — by celebrating heroic black figures — be they inventors, entertainers, or soldiers — hoped to prove our worth, and by proving our worth — he believed that equality would soon follow. His other goal was to increase the visibility of black life and history, at a time when few newspapers, books, and universities took notice of the black community, except to dwell upon the negative. Ultimately Woodson believed Negro History Week — which became Black History Month in 1976 — would be a vehicle for racial transformation forever.  Read the full speech now…

All the best,
Lonnie Bunch
Director

 
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1812 – Earthquake cause fluvial tsunami in the Mississippi River


On February 7, 1812, the most violent of a series of earthquakes near Missouri caused a so-called fluvial tsunami in the Mississippi River, actually making the river run backward for several hours. The series of tremors, which took place between December 1811 and March 1812, were the most powerful in the history of the United States.

The unusual seismic activity began at about 2 a.m. on December 16, 1811, when a strong tremor rocked the New Madrid region. The city of New Madrid, located near the Mississippi River in present-day Missouri, had about 1,000 residents at the time, mostly farmers, hunters and fur trappers. At 7:15 a.m., an even more powerful quake erupted, now estimated to have had a magnitude of 8.6. This tremor literally knocked people off their feet and many people experienced nausea from the extensive rolling of the earth. Given that the area was sparsely populated and there weren’t many multi-story structures, the death toll was relatively low. However, the quake did cause landslides that destroyed several communities, including Little Prairie, Missouri.

for the complete article

Source: history.com

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

1795 – The 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified.


The Eleventh Amendment (Amendment XI) to the United States Constitution, which was passed by the Congress on March 4, 1794 and was ratified on February 7, 1795, deals with each state’s sovereign immunity from being sued in federal court by someone of another state or country. This amendment was adopted in response to, and in order to overrule, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. 419 (1793).

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