A history lesson leading to a declaration
WHEREAS in the year of our Lord, 1619, the first enslaved Africans were shipped to the English colony of Virginia amidst a brutal and dehumanizing caravan of human trafficking through the Middle Passage called the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, devaluing the lives of approximately 12 and one-half million African natives, and
WHEREAS in 1777, Vermont became the first state to abolish slavery, and after almost a century, the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1863 deemed that slavery was illegal throughout the nation, granting to Congress “the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation,” and
WHEREAS in 1857, Justice Roger B. Toney, in his decision to deny the rights of personal freedom and dignity to the plaintiff Dred Scott, further noted, ” They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the Negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic whenever a profit could be made by it, and
WHEREAS by 1877, Jim Crow Laws began to spring up throughout the country, and according to the Jim Crow Museum website, “African Americans were relegated to the status of second-class citizens. Jim Crow represented the legitimization of anti-black racism. Many Christian ministers and theologians taught that white people were the Chosen people, black people were cursed to be servants, and God supported racial segregation,” and
WHEREAS the U.S. Supreme Court issued most of the pertinent laws that sought to “liberate” enslaved Africans with several rulings, which included Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which said that segregation was unconstitutional, Brown v. Board (1954), saying that the segregation of public schools violated the 14th Amendment, and Heart of Atlanta Motel Inc. v. United States which outlawed discrimination in public accommodations, and
WHEREAS the 1970s ushered in the concept and creation of Affirmative Action laws which produced opportunities for minorities and women to advance in public and private venues where they work and desire to do business which led to increasing workforce diversity, higher labor participation, innovation, and reducing wage gaps, and the largest economy in the known world, and
WHEREAS since 1980 and the Reagan Era, which unleashed the soft subterfuge of racist ideas and ideals that began in Philadelphia, Mississippi, which has taken a darker tone under the racially tinged rhetoric of Pat Buchanon, Rush Limbaugh, The Tea Party, which led to Make America Great Again (MAGA 2.0)
WHEREAS on January 20, 2025, the twice elected, multiple-time convicted felon received the oath of office of Commander-in-Chief of what Poet Laureate Maya Angelou called these “yet to be United States of America” and begin immediately to dismember, dismantle and otherwise disable every civil right and benefit won to eradicate 400 years of cruelty, robbery and oppression.
THEREFORE Be It Resolved: Y’all need to Quit Playin!”
