I create SO many blogs and never keep up with any of them.
This will most certainly be rectified as I've solidified my writing goals more thoroughly.
I have a goal to write every day. Not just crap, but something substantive. (Maybe some crap, too.)
Just as a warning, this blog may be a little incendiary for some. I enjoy a healthy debate and like conflict a little more than normal. I want you to think. I want you to make ME think. I want you to say, 'Man, that Jen really is a piece of work.'
I named this blog mostly because of the fact I'm a writer, and somewhat by definition a teller of tales. (Though, because I know I'm a tall tale teller, I think it lowers the sociopath rating just a bit.)
This blog will feature a little of everything (except for fashion critiques...I think I MAY be resurrecting 'Shut Up, She Didn't!')
I don't want to be limited on what I can talk about and I have too many ideas and notions and inklings that run through my head on a daily basis to create a separate blog for each.
You say bipolar, I say eclectic.
Any way, I want to feature something different for the 28 days of Black History Month. Some people think we have no reason to care about Black History and that the battles fought over 40 years ago have been won with the election of Barack Obama.
Not so, my friends. Not even close.
We've come so far, yet we have so far to go.
Today's feature to start BHM:
THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS
March 25, 1931- A fight breaks out between a group of white and black men riding the freight lines as hobos. A posse stops the train in Paint Rock, Alabama where nine black men are arrested for assault. To these charges would be added the rape of two white women who were on the train.
The case was heard in Scottsboro, Alabama where in a series of rushed trials, all but one of the nine boys was convicted and sentenced to death. (The only boy not convicted at the time was 12-year-old Roy Wright. Later, 13-year-old Eugene Williams would be granted a new trial as a minor.)
Initially upon the public hearing these allegations, lynch mobs began to form. The Jim Crow south was outraged, and the Ku Klux Klan were justified in their hate.
It was later discovered that the two women completely fabricated the story of their rape and held no remorse about doing so.
This gross miscarriage of justice was the beginning of the "right to a fair trial" for blacks in the United States. This incident is the framework for Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird and the 2010 Scottsboro Boys: The Musical written by Kander and Ebb (here's to hoping that it will one day return to Broadway. It's truly phenomenal music.)
To learn more (and I hope you will) about the Scottsboro Boys and trial, visit these links:
Scottsboro: An American Tragedy (PBS)
"The Scottsboro Boys" Trials 1931-1937
Scottsboro Boys: The Musical (Help it come back to Broadway!)
Tomorrow's black history post will be about my favorite jazz chanteuse: Ella Fitzgerald.
Until then. xo Jen
Well, I have loved all of your blogs...so of course I love this one too. I had to finally take Shut up! She didn't! off of my blogroll because it was too depressing to keep looking at that hideous outfit Diane wore day after day...so you can imagine my shriek of happiness when you said you might be bringing it back! Also, thanks for educating the white folk. Man, that Jen really is a piece of work.
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