“John left us so suddenly,” said one Payton admirer who had come to the hall an hour or so before the 1:30 p.m. ceremony began, “it’s as if we didn’t get a chance to finish our conversation.”
To measure the life, work, accomplishments and meaning of John A. Payton is as if one would take a thimble and try to empty an ocean. It would be as if one sought to measure the expanse of the heavens with the span of the human hands. Something vast and noble has passed from among us. It is as if a mighty oak has fallen, leaving an empty and gaping and glaring space against the sky where he stood.
April 22, 1526
The first recorded New World slave revolt occurs in what is now South Carolina.
April 24, 1951
Bessie Blount patents a feeding device for amputees.
April 26, 1892
Sarah Boone patents an improvement to the ironing board.
April 27, 1882
Writer Jessie Faucet is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The Negro question will trouble the American government and the American conscience until a substantial effort is made to settle it upon the principles of justice.
— , Novelist
North Carolina Judge Rules Racial Bias Influences Death Penalty Sentencing
By The Editors
In an historic decision, a North Carolina judge Friday reduced an inmate’s death sentence to life without the possibility of parole because the prosecutor had deliberately excluded black potential jurors during the jury-selection phase of the inmate’s trial.
The Tulsa Shootings: Remembering What Happened to What Used To Be
By Lee A. Daniels
What has caught my attention in equal measure as the victims’ personal tragedies of this crime is the stunning historical event it recalls that 90 years ago destroyed the heart of Tulsa’s black community and from which it has never recovered: the Greenwood race riot of 1921.
One School’s Vibrant Lesson: “Chess for Success”
By Lee A. Daniels
Earlier this month the chess team from a New York City public middle school where the majority of students comes from families with low incomes won the national high school chess championship – the first time any middle school has won the prestigious competition.
Black Voters’ Crucial Role in Mass. Senate Race
By Kenneth J. Cooper
One of the most intense races for the U.S. Senate is unfolding in Massachusetts, where Republican Scott Brown two years ago snatched the seat that Ted Kennedy held for four decades. Although less than seven percent of the state’s residents are African Americans, black voters could very well play a significant role in determining the outcome.
25 Years Later, McCleskey Decision Still Fosters Racism by Ignoring It
By Christina Swarns
Few cases involving the intersection of race, criminal law, and procedure have had the reach and impact of McCleskey v. Kemp, a United States Supreme Court decision decided 25 years ago, on April 22, 1987. This decision set the stage for more than 20 years of dramatically increasing racial disparities within the criminal justice system.
Autumn 2004: For College-Bound Blacks, The Wait List Is Not The Place To Be
Increasingly, America’s highly selective colleges and universities are using wait lists as a kind of enrollment insurance to make sure the schools fill their freshman classes with highly qualified students. But it turns out that for African Americans a notification of receiving wait-list status at most high-ranking colleges and universities is tantamount to a rejection letter.
