THE INDOMITABLE GEORGE WASHINGTON FIELDS: FROM SLAVE TO ATTORNEY

Today, I completed the book, THE INDOMITABLE GEORGE WASHINGTON FIELDS: FROM SLAVE TO ATTORNEY, by Kevin M. Clermont (2013). Clermont is a Cornell U. Law School professor, who happened upon this underlying rare and forgotten manuscript, while perusing that Ithaca, New York campus' card catalog. George Washington (Cock Robin) Fields, a former Virginia slave, was in the first graduating class of that law school in 1890, who went on to pursue a successful practice in Hampton, Virginia, his home. His presence in that class and his distinction as the first black graduate was lost to history, until uncovered by Professor Clermont. The book is fascinating in too many ways to iterate in this blurb. I would urge anyone interested in Civil War and post-Civil War history; interested in law and legal history; interested in African American history; interested in trial by jury to read this unforgettable book. You will be glad that you did!

SAINT MAURICE OF THEBES, MARTYRED ROMAN LEGION COMMANDER

http://romanchristendom.blogspot.com/2008/09/saint-maurice-martyr-black-saint-and.html RATHER THAN KILL OTHER CHRISTIANS, THIS BLACK MAN SUFFERED HIMSELF AND HIS ENTIRE 6600 MAN LEGION TO BE MARTYRED IN GERMANY IN THE 3RD CENTURY Photo: http://romanchristendom.blogspot.com/2008/09/saint-maurice-martyr-black-saint-and.html RATHER THAN KILL OTHER CHRISTIANS, THIS BLACK MAN SUFFERED HIMSELF AND HIS ENTIRE 6600 MAN LEGION TO BE MARTYRED IN GERMANY IN THE 3RD CENTURY

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD, EXCERPT...

The Underground Railroad by William Still (1877), p.90-91 “The following are of the Cambridge party, above alluded to. They all left together, but for prudential reasons separated before reaching Philadelphia… we had twenty-eight in one arrival, as hearty-looking, brave, and interesting specimens of Slavery as could be well produced from Maryland. Before setting out, they counted well the cost. Being aware that fifteen had left their neighborhood only a few days ahead of them and that every slave-holder, and slave-catcher were on the alert, and raging furiously against the inroads of the Underground Railroad, they provided themselves with the following weapons of defense: three revolvers, three double-barreled pistols, three single-barreled pistols, three sword-canes, four butcher knives, one bowie-knife, and one paw (A paw is a weapon with iron prongs, four inches long, to be grasped with the hand and used in close encounter.). Thus resolved upon freedom or death, with scarcely enough provisions for a single day, while the rain and storm was piteously descending, fathers and mothers with children in their arms (Aaron Cornish had two)—the entire party started. Of course, their provisions gave out before they were fairly on the way, but not so with the storm. It continued to pour upon them for nearly three days. With nothing to appease the gnawings of hunger but parched corn, and a few dry crackers, wet and cold, with several sick children, some of their feet bare and worn, and one of the mothers with an infant in her arms incapable of partaking of the diet—it is impossible to imagine the ordeal they were passing. It was enough to cause the bravest of hearts to falter. But not for a moment did they allow themselves to look back. It was exceedingly agreeable to hear even the little children testify that in the most trying hour on the road, not for a moment did they want to go back. The following advertisement, taken from the Cambridge Democrat of November 4, tells how the Rev. Levi Traverse felt about Aaron— ‘$300 Reward.—Ran away from the subscriber, from the neighborhood of Town Point, on Saturday night, the 24th inst., my negro man, AARON CORNISH, about 35 years old. He is about five feet ten inches high, black, good looking, rather pleasant countenance, and carries himself with a confident manner. He went off with his wife, DAFFNEY, a negro woman belonging to Reuben E. Phillips. I will give the above reward if taken out of the county, and $200 if taken in the county; in either case to be lodged in Cambridge jail. October 25, 1857. Levi D. Traverse.’”

NUMERACY

NUMERACY: Some folks can't count. Some folks won't count. Some folks don't count! Some folks count continuously... Go figure!

PERFIDY AND CALUMNY: RUEFUL BLACK SCHOLARS AND BOOKER T.

The historical scandal on the name of, and on the honor of, Booker T. Washington, which is falsely attributed to his so-called "Atlanta Compromise" speech of 1895, by certain black scholars, deceitfully ignores several preexisting facts and conditions. First, there was the widespread lynching, murder, voter suppression of freedmen by white terrorists in the South, during which economic peonage was re-imposed upon many blacks. Second, there was the shutting down of the Freedmen's Bureau, before "Reconstruction" was complete, and before the Confederates' "abandoned lands" were redistributed to the newly freed men. Third, the Hayes-Tilden Compromise of 1877, resulted in the withdrawal of the remaining federal troops from the South, enabling and signaling the negation of the blacks' Constitutional rights under the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. Fourth, there was the plunder of, raid upon, and the closing of the Freedmen's Savings Bank that same year by Republican, Wall Street speculators (our then-liberal "friends"), in which Freedmen lost millions in their hard-earned saving, and lost confidence in saving itself; this money never having been recouped! Fifth, there were the negative Supreme Court decisions, starting with The Slaughter-House case, through The Civil Rights Cases of 1881, which overturned the Civil Rights Act of 1875, deeming it unconstitutional. Sixth, there was the "Exodus Movement" in the 1880's, when blacks fled the South en masse forlornly looking for relief in Kansas, Nebraska, anywhere but the South! All of these preceded Washington's 1895 "Atlanta Exposition" address, now sadly suborned! Such calumnies on Washington's great works and enduring legacy are despicable. They besmirch law, history, education, and African American culture. In fact, they are analogous to the parallel, equally wrongful vilification of the character, "Uncle Tom," in Harriet Beecher Stowe's famous, 1852 novel, with whom Washington is too often ignorantly confused and cruelly conflated, by those who have not read, nor analyzed beyond the surface, if indeed, they have ever read anything, of consequence, at all! Such in personam perfidy upon Booker T. Washington is part our continuing plight as a people! Whom we should sanctify, we vilify. Whom we should vilify, we sanctify! Marcus Garvey, a Washington votary, Founder of the UNIA, and Jamaican emigrant's legacy has suffered the same plight as Washington's, at the hands of the same scholars and historians of rueful African descent!

OF BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, JESUS CHRIST AND LOVE

OF BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, JESUS CHRIST AND LOVE By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman 08/29/13 A mother's love, like a mother's milk, is the most wholesome form of nutrition for her baby. I was blessed to have both during my infancy. Love's lactation has never stopped, drizzling, even now, upon my soul, although Mama died in 2004. Mama loved school and learning. But, she dropped out in 1950 to birth me, her matrix-opener. From my earliest days of existence, Mama told me repeatedly of 2 men, over and over again. They were the educator and leader, Booker Taliaferro Washington, and our Saviour and Redeemer, Jesus Christ. She told and retold to me the story of the Tuskegee Institute-founder's life, as much as she knew. She told me how he had started out in slavery, had walked hundreds of miles to college. Then, once there, he earned his fees and tuition, and got his lesson by sweeping the floors, cleaning rooms, and listening. Although Mama never finished high school, nor did Daddy, they made sure that all 8 of their children did complete high school and went on to college. That's where Jesus Christ comes in most critically. Alone and away from home, one meets life frontally and unfiltered. It is then that you need an anchor. A mother's and a father's prayers and efforts are that anchor. Financial crises are overcome thereby, as are personal crises, indecisions and doubts allayed thereby. For me and for my family, constant succor came through the knowledge of, and through the faith in, Jesus Christ, whose light and whose love had shone steadily through both sides of our family, guiding and protecting our lives in Mississippi, in Missouri, and well beyond. Jesus Christ was present in our every day lives as a source of strength, and as a present help! Even the youngest and most common of mothers can love, should love, must love their babies! Love requires no education nor advanced training; it needs no expensive formulas nor implements, either. Even the most basic of mothers has a hero or heroine, that she can inspire and regale her children with. Even the rudest and crudest of mothers have heard of the baby Jesus who was born in a manger; who confounded the scholars, doctors and lawyers, at puberty; and who died on a cross to save mankind. Love, history and spirituality are, to sum up, the most critical factors in child-rearing and development. For us, it was Booker T. Washington and Jesus Christ. For you it may be others. That is your choice. But, either way you go, do recall and never forget that “the greatest of these is love.” 1 Cor. 13:13.

PLATONIC SOLIDS AND UNIVERSAL SYMMETRIES

GOLDEN RATIO: THE STORY OF PHI, THE WORLD’S MOST ASTONISHING NUMBER, by Mario Livio (Broadway Books, NY:2002), PP.67-68, 70 “In Timaeus, Plato takes on the immense task of discussing the origin and workings of the cosmos. In particular, he attempts to explain the structure of matter using the five regular solids (or polyhedra), which had been investigated already to some extent by the Pythagoreans and very thoroughly by Theaetatus. The five Platonic solids are distinguished by the following properties: They are the only existing solids in which all the faces (of a given solid) are identical and equilateral, and each of the solids can be circumscribed by a sphere (with all its vertices lying on the sphere). The Platonic solids are the tetrahedron (with four triangular faces); the cube (with six square faces); the octahedron (with eight triangular faces); the dodecahedron (with twelve pentagonal faces); and the icosahedron (with twenty triangular faces). … “To Plato, the complex phenomena that we observe in the universe are not what really matter; the truly fundamental things are the underlying symmetries, and those are never changing. This view is very much in line with modern thinking about the laws of nature. For example, these laws do not change from place to place in the universe. For this reason, we can use the same laws that we determine from laboratory experiments whether we study the hydrogen atom here on earth or in a galaxy that is a billion light-years away. This symmetry of the laws of nature manifests itself in the fact that the quantity which we call linear momentum (equaling the product of the mass of an object and the speed, and having the direction of the motion) is conserved, namely, has the same value whether we measure it today or a year from now. Similarly, because the laws of nature do not change with the passing of time, the quantity we call energy is conserved. We cannot get energy out of nothing. Modern theories, which are based on symmetries and conservation laws, are thus truly Platonic.” Platonic Solids www.mathsisfun.com