Tag Archives: slavery

More Progress on Repeals of Penal Slavery Exceptions

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Since Utah and Nebraska’s legislatures succeeded in putting bills on the 2020 ballot, more states have introduced bills have been introduced to repeal penal exceptions from state constitutional bans on slavery and involuntary servitude:

A similar bill to SJR0159 passed the Tennessee House unanimously a few years ago but died in the Tennessee Senate before the end of the session.

Proposals to Repeal Penal Exceptions from Slavery Bans Move Forward

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I’m reading about how this year’s bills to repeal penal exceptions from state constitutional bans on slavery and involuntary servitude moved forward in both Utah and Nebraska.

In Utah, Rep. Sandra Hollins’ bill was unanimously passed by Utah’s House Judiciary Committee and moved to the floor for a vote. The entire Nebraska Legislature made a similar unanimous decision for Nebraska Sen. Justin Wayne’s bill on first reading (with 5 abstentions). Utah’s bill would need to be passed by two-thirds of both houses before being placed on the 2020 ballot, and Nebraska’s would have to pass the full Legislature two more times before being placed on the 2020 ballot.

This is good news. We could be on the edge of a full-fledged movement for fully-abolishing slavery in this country. I’m wondering when California will catch up to this.

Factoid: Barbados Has Quite the Calendar

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#Barbados celebrates an entire annual “Season of Emancipation” running from April 14 to August 23:

  • the anniversary of the Bussa’s rebellion, a major slave rebellion in 1816, April 14
  • National Heroes Day, April 28;
  • Crop Over festival, which includes May, June and the first week of August
  • Africa Day, May 25
  • Day of National Significance, which commemorates the Labour
  • Rebellion of 1937, July 26
  • Emancipation Day, August 1
  • birthday of Marcus Garvey, August 17
  • International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition, August 23

 

I reject the premise for that video of the rainbow person hugging the confederate person.

If I were that rainbow person (and I am), I’d have to tell the confederate person that the “Lost Cause” is a damn lie of rich white Southerners to the poor white Southerners.

I would ask them why they would brandish the legacy of that lie.

I would ask them why their ancestors allowed themselves to be played like a damn fiddle.

Then we’d probably fight in the street.

I’ll be honest. The trailer for Nate Parker’s vehicle “The Birth of a Nation” feels too much like Mel Gibson’s vehicle “Braveheart”, which is considered one of the most cringe-inducing films to win an Oscar for Best Picture.

I mean, yes, both films have received almost the same generally-positive Rotten Tomatoes (78%), but Braveheart is mocked to this day for that one-liner from William Wallace.

I wonder if there are any books on, or books set in, the African-American community in Boston prior to the Civil War. When slavery was abolished in Massachusetts in 1783 by the Supreme Judicial Court, it took effect immediately rather than the gradual, generational abolition which had been authorized in Pennsylvania and other surrounding states. The Boston African-American community was the largest in the United States to enter the 19th century entirely as legal free people.

Of course Boston is known for being a center of abolitionist sentiment before New York City became the primary metropolitan community of free Africans in North America after 1827. But I’m pretty sure that there is a lot more to the history of the Boston community in the period between 1783 and 1827 beyond the abolition movement. What were the relationships, the cultural expressions, the institutions, the social class structures, the political advancements which developed so early among this early-free community?