Word: jefferson
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Could I, as a Black man, discount everything Thomas Jefferson ever accomplished because he owned slaves? Of course not. That type of blanket dismissal would prevent me from appreciating one of the greatest figures in history. It is no more accurate to call Powell a propagator of "anti-humanist rhetoric" than it is to call Jefferson nothing more than a famous slaveowner...
...confirmation system that will gorge itself on the blood of whoever decides to accept President Clinton's nomination is not only different from what Jefferson intended, it is also markedly different from the one that produced retiring Justice Byron H. White. Nominated by Kennedy in 1962, some of White's more conservative decisions during his 31 years on the court surprised and maddened the very Kennedy liberals who appointed him. But throughout he was praised for his independent judicial thinking and versatility. Such a independently qualified candidate is not likely to spring forth from the current partisan battleground that...
...Lesson Before Dying is, like Ernest Gaines' best-known novel, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, set in rural Louisiana. The year is 1948, and the particulars have a familiar ring. A young, black male is convicted of murder and sentenced to death on inconclusive evidence. The youth, called Jefferson, had the bad luck to be in a white man's store at the same time that two acquaintances attempted a robbery. They shoot the owner, but not before he fires effectively at them. Left with three dead men on the floor, Jefferson panics and helps himself to a bottle...
...impulsive action ensures Jefferson a date with Gruesome Gerty, the state's portable electric chair, even though his lawyer argues that the accused is incapable of premeditating a murder. "No, gentlemen, this skull here holds no plans," the defense claims. "What you see here is a thing . . . to hold the handle of a plow, a thing to load your bales of cotton, a thing to dig your ditches, to chop your wood, to pull your corn." In effect, Jefferson is not condemned to die like a man but be destroyed like a beast. Worse still, he believes that...
...local schoolteacher, Grant Wiggins, who has seen something of the world before returning south to teach at the black grammar school. Burdened with his own frustrations, not the least of which is downplaying his intelligence and college education when dealing with whites, Wiggins reluctantly undertakes to instruct Jefferson in his humanity. In short, to teach...