Tag: Stephen Myers

November rambling: Ham Sandwich

Vote for Rebecca Jade!

Can conservatives be allies against climate change?

Electronic waste is a growing problem globally.

Trump Proposes Imprisoning Journalists Who Don’t Name Sources

Political Attack Ads: Bad for You, Bad for America

Borowitz satire: Republicans Blindsided That People Who Vote Believe in Democracy

Cherokee delegate could be seated in the House of Representatives

John Aniston, ‘Days of Our Lives’ Star and Father of Jennifer Aniston, Dies at 89. I started watching DOOL, and the evil Victor, in 1990 for about three years.

KFC apologizes after its German Kristallnacht promotion

Our Kids Can’t Do the Math

The first anti-racists

The Rise of DISCMASTER

Russel Kwong, a student worker at Cornell Program on Applied Demographics, has updated New York State reference maps with names and locations of incorporated villages, cities, towns, and American Indian reservations. They are now based on 2020 Census geographies.

She Spent a Decade Writing Fake Russian History. Wikipedia Just Noticed.

How Do You Cope with Being Ghosted?

John Green: Instantly Debatable

The Hollywood Reporter’s Comedy Star of the Year: Quinta Brunson

Andy Borowitz satire: Elon Musk Accidentally Includes Himself in Latest Round of Mass Layoffs

The Oatmeal comic: Taking  selfies from various angles, and I have firsthand experience with the undead

Jaquandor linkage

Now I Know: The Tale of Monkey Island and The Tiny Lie in Your Pantry and Why You Shouldn’t Piss Off The Architect and The Sugar Cereal Edition of Where’s Waldo and The Ultimate Fortune Teller? and The Original Chicken Dance? and Trick-or-Treating… But on Thanksgiving?

Abolitionists

Myers Banner Sponsors Oliver 10-22-22Descendants and sponsors traveled from a dozen states to participate in the abolition symposia and inductions of three abolitionists to the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum in Peterboro, NY. Mary Liz Stewart and Paul Stewart nominated and presented Stephen Myers on behalf of the Underground Railroad Education Center (UREC) in Albany, NY. The UREC is located in the 19th C home of Stephen and Harriet Myers. Two descendants of the Myers joined the Stewarts on stage for the unveiling of the banner which will be installed in the Hall of Fame.

Also inducted were Rev. Robert Everett and Calvin Fairbank.

Incidentally, UREC is deactivating its Twitter account “in response to irresponsible decisions at its highest level. Tweets supporting unsubstantiated reports, allowing hate speech, and allowing accounts to be held by dangerous individuals are not acceptable.”

MUSIC

Rebecca Jade has just been nominated for Smooth Jazz Network’s 2022 “Breakout Artist of the Year”! You can vote DAILY from now until December 2nd!  Vote HERE. Also, she will be joining Dave Koz and Friends for a very special 25th Anniversary Christmas tour from November 25 to December 23. Tickets HERE.

Drive My Car – Peter Sprague featuring Rebecca Jade

Music from The Story of an Unknown Actor by Alfred Schnittke

Coverville 1419: The Herman’s Hermits Cover Story II

A Big Black Lady Stops the Show – Capathia Jenkins from Fame Becomes Me, with Martin Short

This Must Be The Place – Ham Sandwich

Here’s That Rainy Day – Aubrey Logan

Man Of La Mancha – Richard Kiley and Irving Jacobson

Poet and Peasant Overture by Franz von Suppe on solo piano

Three-fifths of a person

“Representatives… shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.”

three-fifthsWhen I was vamping while waiting for the speaker for an Adult Education class during Black History Month at my church, I preemptively pointed out that the reason we STILL talk about these issues is that they are not always that well known.

Making a very tangential point, I mentioned in passing the Three-Fifth Compromise. I took this on faith that everyone knew what I was talking about. It was in the original US Constitution:

Article 1, Section 2:
“Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other Persons.”

Those “all other persons” were slaves. It was not changed until the Fourteenth Amendment, passed by Congress on June 13, 1866, and ratified on July 9, 1868.

However, there were a couple of people who did not know this piece of Americana. So the conversation inadvertently proved the point.

“Black history IS American history” has become the mantra of both who want to continue Black History Month, and those who think it’s “been done.” The latter say, “We know about George Washington Carver and Martin Luther King already.”

To that end, I recommend checking out Filling In the Gaps in American History, which is “a collection of biographies, experiences, commentaries and behind the scenes looks at events in American History dealing with people of African descent that are generally not recorded in history texts.”

Jacqui C. Williams, FIGAH founding director, writes: “There were artists, inventors, activists, educators, women, and men of faith, cowboys, stagecoach drivers, law enforcement officers, entrepreneurs and more who contributed to the creation and development of this land over and above the labor of those enslaved. I did not read of them in my history classes…”

Speaking of history, All Over Albany did a piece on Stephen Myers for Black History Month.

And I came across Civil Rights: Holding the Hands of History. It’s a Facebook Community Page about Viola Liuzzo by her daughter Mary Liuzzo Lilleboe. Viola Liuzzo was a white Detroit housewife who was shot to death by Ku Klux Klan members following the voting rights march in Alabama, the march depicted in the movie “Selma.”

From there, I found the blog of Tara Ochs, who plays Viola in the movie. Check out, especially, her posts from 2014 forward.

U is for Underground Railroad History Project

Stephen A. Myers
Stephen A. Myers
This being the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War, I figure I should note one of the treasures of the Albany, NY area: the Underground Railroad History Project of the Capital Region. In case you are unaware, the Underground Railroad was the “effort–sometimes spontaneous, sometimes highly organized–to assist persons held in bondage in North America to escape from slavery.” See also information from the PBS site and History.com.

The UGRR History Project started when Mary Liz, an elementary school teacher was interested to see if there was any UGRR history in the Albany area. Most of the experts told her no. Yet she and her husband Paul , who works for a community loan fund, were dissatisfied with the answer, and kept digging for more.

Eventually, they found enough historically significant sites to give walking tours in Albany. The non-profit organization they helped form has held a well-regarded conference on the topic for a dozen years.

Most significantly, they discovered a residence of Stephen and Harriet Myers, “point people in Albany regarding the Underground Railroad in the 1850s, which their organization has helped rebuild. Here’s the Wikipedia page about the structure.

In October, Paul and Mary Liz Stewart bicycled 730 miles across New York State on the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor Trail. They brought attention to the important role the Erie Canal played in the Underground Railroad movement and raised funds for Underground Railroad History Project.
abc15

ABC Wednesday, Round 15

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial