Thomas N. DeWolf: What’s the Point of the U.S. Senate Apology for Slavery?

Thomas N. DeWolf is the author of Inheriting the Trade: A Northern Family Confronts Its Legacy as the Largest Slave-Trading Dynasty in U.S. History, published by Beacon Press. Tom speaks regularly at schools, conferences, and other events around the country. For further information go to: www.inheritingthetrade.com, where you can also read find his Inheriting the Trade blog.

Does anyone out there know Chris Matthews, host of Hardball on MSNBC? I'd like to send him a copy of my book, Inheriting the Trade. My impression is that, like my own, his education lacked some aspects of our nation's history that have been kept hidden from students.

Most of you know that last week the United States Senate unanimously passed S. Con. Res. 26 apologizing for the enslavement and racial segregation of African-Americans.

I wrote about this–so won't repeat myself–on June 15. Read my post here. Also read my cousin James DeWolf Perry's excellent post here about why apologies are both important and troublesome.

My focus today is on the mixed reaction the apology has received. Chris Matthews certainly had a strong reaction. Watch as he interviews Reps. Steve Cohen and Jim Clyburn, embedded after the jump.

Kate Clinton: Stonewall 40

Today's post is from Kate Clinton, author of I Told You So. Clinton is a faith-based, tax-paying, America-loving political humorist and family entertainer. With a career spanning over 25 years, Kate Clinton has worked through economic booms and busts, Disneyfication and Walmartization, gay movements and gay markets, lesbian chic and queer eyes, and ten presidential inaugurals. She still believes that humor gets us through peacetime, wartime and scoundrel time. This post originally appeared on Clinton's CommuniKate blog.

On an early morning flight from Orlando, after appearing at the 19th Annual Gay Days at Disneyworld, I was “sirred” twice by a cab driver and flight attendant. All before 7 a.m. I would have thought the brand new faux leopard Croc flats I was sporting would have thrown them off. Or that the “Gay Day” banners everywhere would have heightened their threat levels to rainbow.

Usually I find mistaken identification an embarrassment or irritant. In past years I would correct quickly with "That's Ma'am not Sir," and then try to lessen their discomfort. But this 40th anniversary of Stonewall, I wear the gaffe as a badge of pride. I stare them down. Even if they seem remorseful, I don't help them through their moment. In solidarity with the unsung butch lesbians who were with the fags and drag queens at the Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village in 1969, I have been doing my own version of butching it up.

It used to be hard to find a NY gay person of a certain age who did not claim to have been at the Stonewall Riots. I am a New Yorker of that certain age, but I most certainly was not at the Stonewall Riots. In 1969 I had just graduated from a small Jesuit college in upstate New York. Insert "Class of 69" joke here.

I was a member of the Gay Resistance. I was trying not to come out. Because of that resistance, I could not and then would not hear the news of gay liberation spreading upstate from Greenwich Village. Though pre-internet, the Stonewall message quickly reached upstate gays in the anti-Vietnam war, women’s liberation and civil rights movement. Before long even my little town in upstate New York had out gay activists organizing, educating and agitating.

Nancy Polikoff: Israel, Civil Marriage, and Valuing All Families

Today's post is from Nancy Polikoff, author of Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage: Valuing All Families under the Law. Polikoff is a Professor of Law at American University Washington College of Law, where she teaches Sexuality and the Law and has taught Family Law for more than 20 years. This post originally appeared at her Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage blog.

Earlier this week, Tel Aviv University was the site of the 9th annual queer studies conference An Other Sex. I was honored to deliver a keynote on my book, Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage.

Israel has a distinctive legal regime within which to consider same-sex relationships. There is no civil marriage in Israel, only religious marriage. This keeps many straight couples from marrying because, for example, a Jew cannot marry a non-Jew. So there has been pressure for years for different-sex couples to not make marriage the dividing line between relationships that count and those that don't.

Israel recognizes the legal status of those "known in public" as spouses. It also allows couples to register foreign marriages (they say Cyprus does a thriving business marrying different-sex couples who can't marry in Israel). Because of this (after much litigation), Israel will register the marriages of same-sex couples who marry elsewhere and will recognize same-sex unmarried couples in ways that are similar to those accorded unmarried different-sex couples.

There is a push for civil marriage here -- but it would be for different-sex couples only. So this is not a good thing for lesbian and gay families.

Carlos A. Ball: The Silver Lining in the California Supreme Court’s Same-Sex Marriage Ruling Upholding Proposition 8

Today's post is from Carlos A. Ball, Professor of Law at the Rutgers University School of Law (Newark). He has written extensively on gay rights issues and is the author of The Morality of Gay Rights: An Exploration in Political Philosophy. He lives with his family in Brooklyn, New York.

Now that it has been a week since the California Supreme Court's decision upholding Proposition 8, it is a good time to take stock of what is happening with same-sex marriage not only in California, but also in other parts of the country. For those of us who support LGBT rights, the California court's decision was disappointing and frustrating. But in the long run, I think that the LGBT rights movement will benefit politically as a result of the court's ruling.

I say this because if the court had struck down Proposition 8 as unconstitutional, that would have created a political firestorm in California and elsewhere. Although there is a solid legal argument to be made that Proposition 8 should have been struck down because it was inconsistent with core principles contained in the state constitution, the politics behind the case are more complicated. If the court had sided with the plaintiffs, many would have seen the ruling as an affront to basic democratic values. The court, after all, would have overturned the expressed preference of a majority of Californians who voted in the November election.

There can be no doubt that if the court had struck down the Amendment, conservative political activists would have used the ruling to fire up their supporters by attacking the court for its supposed activism and lack of accountability. That kind of anti-judicial rhetoric has unfortunately proven quite effective in convincing voters in more than half the states to approve constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage.

From the Director: Beacon Press and The King Legacy

The following is an excerpt of remarks made by Helene Atwan, Director of Beacon Press, at an event held Wednesday to celebrate The King Legacy, a new partnership between the Estate of Martin Luther King Jr. and Beacon Press. Beacon will print new editions of previously published King titles and compile Dr. King's writings, sermons, orations, lectures, and prayers into entirely new editions, including significant new introductions by leading scholars.

Beacon Press traces its origins to the 1820s when the American Unitarian Association was founded and immediately began publishing books that reflected the Unitarian mission. By 1854, Ralph Waldo Emerson's cousin George had collected money to start a formal publishing program, and the AUA Press began that year, initially largely with collections of sermons, but volumes which included, to quote historian Susan Wilson, "eloquent writings on such topic as temperance, women's rights…, and the abolition of slavery." By the time it was renamed Beacon Press in 1902, the legacy of enlightened, liberal religious thought that informs the list today, and which you'll see reflected in the sampling of books on display here, was firmly engrained.

Which is why we were so convinced that Beacon would be the perfect publishing home for the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I have been rereading and listening to Dr. King a lot of late (as you might imagine) and what surprises me most is how current his thinking is, how he seems to be speaking not from the 1950s or 60s but from the post 9/11 era, even from the Obama era. What he has to say to us in an age of globalization, in a so-called "post-racial" age, is as valid and in some respects more urgent in a world where 25,000 children die in poverty every day; in a world where American soldiers are killing and dying in an unjust war, in a world where too many people are judged daily by the color of their skin, or the name they give their God, rather than the content of their character.

As Senator Edward Kennedy has remarked, "Much of Dr. King's broad and powerful message is in danger of being left behind, as new generations come to know him only through history and see him more as myth than man. His life and great works are still relevant to the complex realities of today's social problems and if we allow the richness of his example to recede, we lose the opportunity to learn from him. There is still so much to learn from walking in his path."

Helene Atwan speaking at Wednesday's event announcing The King Legacy.

It's our plan to illuminate that path with brilliant books. This agreement is brand new, obviously, and we've just begun to dig into the archives, so to speak, so I can't give you the exhaustive list of books we hope to publish over the years. But I can tell you that we will start by bringing back into print three books that Dr. King saw published in his lifetime and which have been unavailable for over a decade. The first is Stride Toward Freedom, Dr. King's account of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a book which should be read not only for it's historic value, but for what it teaches us about community activism.  Like all of the books in the King Legacy, Stride will have a new introduction, which will not only place the book in its historic perspective, but will describe how the book speaks to the 21st century. Acclaimed King scholar Clayborne Carson will edit and introduce this volume. And I'm delighted to say that Dr. Carson has agreed to be General Advisory Editor for the entire series. We will also bring back into print Where Do We Go From Here, which was first published in paperback by Beacon Press in 1968, and are thrilled to announce that we will have an introduction by Dr. Vincent Harding for that volume. Dr. Harding was a close associate of Dr. King and is the author of many works about him. Finally, we have a new edition of Trumpet of Conscience, Dr. King's stirring orations originally delivered just 6 months before his death. All these books, along with a new hardcover edition of Strength to Love, will be published on Dr. King's birthday next January.

After that, many new volumes will follow. Books that will collect Dr. Kings writings and orations on the subjects of peace and nonviolence; on poverty and global economic justice; on God and the role of religion in society; on all of the subjects which were so central to his work. And in issuing these new volumes, we hope to keep the message fresh and accessible for new generations, so that they, too, can learn from walking in his path.

Beacon Broadside: Beacon Press Announces The King Legacy

The King Legacy on Beacon.org

The King Legacy announcement at UUA.org

Beacon Press Announces The King Legacy Series

At an event held yesterday afternoon at the Unitarian Universalist Association headquarters in Boston, Beacon Press announced its new partnership with the Estate of Martin Luther King Jr., "The King Legacy." Beacon will print new editions of previously published King titles and compile Dr. King's writings, sermons, orations, lectures, and prayers into entirely new editions, including significant new introductions by leading scholars. This partnership brings together the legacy of one of the most important civil rights and social justice leaders in the world with one of the oldest and most respected independent publishing houses in America.

The event featured former chair of the Civil Rights Commission Mary Frances Berry, Unitarian-Universalist Association President William Sinkford, poet Sonia Sanchez, literary agent Michele Rubin (who through Writers House facilitated the agreement with the King Estate), and Beacon Press director Helene Atwan. You can read more about the announcement on the websites of Beacon Press and the Unitarian Universalist Association.

The first three titles in the King Legacy series will be published on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in 2010:

Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story. The classic story of nonviolent resistance in America, the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955–1956.

The Trumpet of Conscience. Five lectures delivered by Marting Luther King Jr. in 1967 that reveal his most introspective reflections and last impressions of the movement.

Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community. King's analysis of the state of American race relations and the movement after a decade of U.S. civil rights struggles.

Karen Kahn: Five by Five and Counting

Today's post is from Karen Kahn, the co-author, with her spouse Pat Gozemba, of Courting Equality: A Documentary History of America's First Legal Same-Sex Marriages.

As we approach the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, New England feels like a roller coaster hurtling toward equality. On April 6, two more states-- Maine and New Hampshire-- passed marriage equality legislation. The Maine bill has been signed into law by Governor Baldacci; New Hampshire awaits the governor's signature. In addition, this year Connecticut and Vermont joined Massachusetts in recognizing same-sex marriage. Thus, at the five-year anniversary of marriage equality, five New England states have at the very least expressed strong support for a vision of inclusiveness. In addition, Iowa-- smack in the heartland-- allows same-sex couples to marry.

Will we have all five New England states with marriage equality on May 17? No, not yet. New Hampshire's Governor Lynch may yet veto the bill, though there is a strong chance that he will let the bill become law without his signature. In Maine, we face a dreaded referendum. Twice the voters of Maine turned back a gay civil rights law. Those opposed to the same-sex marriage law now have 90 days to collect signatures to put it before the voters. They may fail, as they did at their third attempt to overturn the gay civil rights law. But we can't count on it. When same-sex marriage goes to the ballot it is tough to win, as we saw in California last November.

Admittedly California didn't have New England's secret weapon-- GLAD. GLAD (Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders) set out last year to bring marriage equality to the six New England states in a campaign called "6 x '12"-- six New England states by 2012. Let's face it: they are way ahead of schedule. And I don't doubt that they have a plan for securing our rights in Maine.

The galloping pace of progress in New England, however, isn't matched by the rest of the country. I got to see this firsthand this winter when I made my annual move from cold New England to tropical Hawaii. Hawaii jumpstarted the marriage equality movement in 1993, when its Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to exclude same-sex couples from civil marriage. Unfortunately, that ruling was followed by the passage of a state constitutional amendment giving the legislature the right to define marriage as the union of opposite-sex couples. In 1998, Hawaii passed a reciprocal beneficiaries law that gives any two unmarried adults, including same-sex couples, a few limited rights primarily associated with joint property ownership.

Jeremy Adam Smith: Same-Sex Marriage in Iowa and Vermont

Today's post is from Jeremy Adam Smith, senior editor of Greater Good magazine and author of The Daddy Shift, forthcoming from Beacon Press in spring 2009. He blogs about the politics of parenting at Daddy Dialectic.

On April 3, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that the state's same-sex marriage ban violates the constitutional rights of gay and lesbian couples. Just four days later, Vermont's legislature voted to legalize same-sex marriages.

Predictably, opponents have been predicting that the sky will fall. Chuck Hurley of the Iowa Family Policy Center, for example, claims that heterosexual marriage is the "seabed and cradle of civilization," and that same-sex marriage "is a battle of good versus evil, truth versus lies."

I'm not gay. I am a married, heterosexual father. I am also raising a child on the border between Noe Valley, a notoriously child-friendly enclave in San Francisco, and the Castro, one of the world's gayest neighborhoods. In San Francisco, one doesn't have to imagine a dystopian time when homosexuality is an integral part of American life. In my neighborhood especially, that particular "apocalypse" is now, and it apparently involves a great deal of diaper changing. Gay and lesbian families are a daily reality in the place where I live-- in particular, they are very much a part of my family's daily life, my son's life.

I expect Iowans and Vermonters-- along with residents of Maine and New Hampshire and, indeed, everyone in America-- might be interested in hearing how it's going, since those states are about to join Connecticut and Massachusetts in becoming popular destinations for same-sex weddings. Have the gay and lesbian couples around us undermined my marriage or threatened my son in some way? In neighborhoods like ours, have the Christian Right's apocalyptic predictions of social collapse come to pass?

The Gathering Norm: Marriage Equality

Today's post is from Patricia A. Gozemba, co-author (with Karen Kahn) of Courting Equality: A Documentary History of America's First Legal Same-Sex Marriages. The Beacon Press book documents the first year of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts and includes 110 photos by photographer Marilyn Humphries.

The marriage equality victory in Iowa was greeted with heartfelt cheers on our side and an attempt to rain on our parade with a 60 second homophobic commercial, "The Gathering Storm," from a Mormon front group, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM). They want all Americans to be afraid—like them. NOM claims to have spent $1.5 million to produce and air what looks like a bad high school production. I'm afraid they got taken.

On YouTube it's now more difficult to find "The Gathering Storm" than it is to find the responses to it and the wildly comic knock-offs.

In case you can't find the original, think of a cross breeding of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and The Weather Channel's "Severe Weather Watch." Frank Rich suggests that it reminds him of a cross between "The Village of the Damned" and "A Chorus Line."

As a member of Colbert Nation, I have a particular fondness for The Colbert Report ad. (Watch after the jump.)

Right and Wrong in American Racial Politics: Is Our Civil Rights Tradition Now Obsolete?

Today's post is from Sherrilyn A. Ifill, a civil rights lawyer and law professor at the University of Maryland School of Law in Baltimore, Maryland. Ifill is the author of On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-first Century.

Conservative commentator Bill Bennett famously (and arrogantly) summed up the significance of Barack Obama's win last November as the end of "excuses" for blacks. Although Bennett, as a white right-wing talking head prone to inflammatory racial commentary may have been an inappropriate and certainly ill-timed messenger of this bromide, his statement was not far off from what many black people have been saying among our family members, and in our community centers and churches since November. Days after the election a black analyst in the Washington Post seemed to unconsciously parrot Bennett when she declared that, "African-Americans just entered the 'no-excuses' zone." Black comics joked that blacks could no longer claim that we are being held back by "the man," when with a black man in the White House we technically are "the man." The widely accepted understanding of this sentiment is that traditional black civil rights thinking--which focuses on dismantling systematic racial inequity as the principal means of improving the economic, educational and social condition of African Americans--has been rendered obsolete by Obama's presidency.

But in the months since Obama's election, little attention has been directed at the possibility that Obama's ascension has thrown another traditional black school of thought into potential obsolescence: black conservatism. I've been fascinated by the dearth of statements by black conservatives (and the directionless rambling of the few that have offered some reflections) on the meaning of the Obama presidency. I speak of course of Ward Connerly, Justice Clarence Thomas and Shelby Steele, among others--those who, as Chris Rock bitingly put it years ago, have "devoted their lives to making sure the white man gets a break." I began thinking of Obama's presidency as a blow to black conservatives when I was on the Mall on Inauguration Day. I was surprised that when Justice Thomas appeared on the screen of the jumbotron, taking his place along with other Supreme Court justices on the dais, he elicited nary a boo, a hiss or even a sarcastic comment from the normally vocal liberal crowd around me. It was as though Obama's inauguration was, in and of itself, answer to all of Thomas' tirades against affirmative action.

Because whatever you think of the merits going forward of affirmative action, and other traditional civil rights strategies, there can be no doubt that Obama's presidency would not have been possible without the successes and groundwork laid by those earlier efforts.

A New President and New Hope for Healing Old Wounds

Today's post is from Thomas N. DeWolf, the author of Inheriting the Trade: A Northern Family Confronts Its Legacy as the Largest Slave-Trading Dynasty in U.S. History, published by Beacon Press. Tom speaks regularly at schools, conferences, and other events around the country. For further information go to: www.inheritingthetrade.com, where you can also read find his Inheriting the Trade blog.

The inauguration of Barack Obama represents hope but not simply for a change from the policies, actions, and directions of the recent past with which I’ve disagreed and found offensive and disheartening. My hope is for the healing of wounds that have been inflicted and experienced over centuries in America. Our nation has a complicated and checkered past. While building a nation based on the ideals of freedom, equality, and justice, and offering high hopes and dreams to people from around the world, those in power have also stolen land from, and annihilated, indigenous people. They enslaved African people. They have oppressed people of Asian and Hispanic descent and discriminated against people based on their religious beliefs, gender, sexual orientation, and disabilities. This historic moment of change, when Barack Obama takes the oath of office and becomes our president, offers great opportunity.

My own family's history mirrors that of America's in many ways. I'm a white man whose ancestors terrorized and killed American Indians in King Philip's War in the 17th century. I'm related to the most successful slave-trading family in American history. Three generations of DeWolfs from Rhode Island, over the course of five decades, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, brought 10,000 African people in chains to the Caribbean islands, and North and South America. They received a political favor from President Thomas Jefferson that allowed them to continue their evil commerce in human flesh long after Rhode Island declared the slave trade illegal. The most successful, James DeWolf, became a United States Senator from Rhode Island in 1821. When he died in 1837 he was reportedly the second richest man in America.

Others of my ancestors were active abolitionists. Calvin DeWolf helped found the Anti-Slavery Society of Illinois in 1839 and was indicted in 1858 for aiding in the escape of a fugitive slave. They've been farmers, carpenters, ministers, lawyers, writers, secretaries, and sales people. Like so many other families they were the mothers, fathers, daughters and sons of America.

Books Still Burn Here

Today's post, by Christopher M. Finan, honors Banned Books Week. Finan is president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the bookseller's voice in the fight against censorship. He is the author of From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America, which recently received the American Library Association's Eli Oboler Award for the best book on intellectual freedom in 2006 and 2007.

Some people will yawn at hearing that Saturday was the beginning of the 27th Annual Banned Books Week.

The story is the same every year, isn't it? Hundreds of titles are challenged in schools and libraries around the country. In 2007, the number was 420. This is fewer than the year before, but the number has fluctuated widely since the launch of Banned Books Week in 1982. The average is around 500.

Even the book at the top of the hit list is the same as last year–And Tango Makes Three, a childrens book that has been condemned as "pro-homosexual" and "anti-family" because it tells the story of two male penguins caring for an egg.

But this apparent sameness masks what is really going on. Behind the numbers are a lot of angry people–censors demanding the removal of books that offend them; teachers and librarians upset at finding themselves accused of trying to hurt kids, and the kids themselves caught in the crossfire.

Book banning is an old story, but it is new and often intensely painful for the people who experience it for the first time.

Professor’s Perspective: the Red Sox and the History of Racial Inequality

Although Beacon Press is not strictly speaking an "academic publisher," Beacon's books are frequently used in college and high school classrooms around the country. Today we share the perspective of one professor about why she chose Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston as a text for her students. Amy Bass, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of History at the College of New Rochelle and is the author of Not the Triumph but the Struggle: the 1968 Olympic Games and the Making of the Black Athlete (University of Minnesota Press, 2002) and In the Game: Race, Identity, and Sports in the 20th Century (MacMillan, 2005).

So here's my problem teaching cultural history: I am a devout and devoted, dedicated and dutiful, fan of the Boston Red Sox.

There are many, many, many well known burdens in being a fan of Boston. Until recently, there was the whole "curse" thing. The year 1918, which could be mentioned for many historically important reasons (the flu epidemic, Exterminator's unlikely win at the Kentucky Derby, the creation of Wilson's Fourteen Points, etc.), haunted Boston fans until 2004. I was one of them. I endured.

But perhaps the greatest burden is when I come to the story of Jackie Robinson on my syllabus. It's a topic I address not just when I'm teaching my upper-division seminar entitled "Race, Sport, and Society." I also talk about Robinson at length in my U.S. history survey, "Reconstruction to Present," using his minor and major league debuts, and Branch Rickey's push to make the Dodgers the team that would transform baseball's color line, to describe what was going on in early postwar America to spur on the major civil rights movements that emerge in the 1950s and 1960s. It's not sports history, I tell students; it's history.

But then comes that question. That terrible, terrible question. That question that is part of my burden: which team was the last to integrate?

And here's where Howard Bryant and his wonderful Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston come in.

I used to answer that while the Red Sox were technically the last team to integrate, they had tried to integrate first by getting Robinson board, along with Marvin Williams and Sam Jethroe, as early as 1945. But then I read Bryant's tremendously readable book, and I realized that the word tried was really the wrong one. Bryant's startling telling of the tryout shut down my defense of Boston, and only heightened my understanding of why it wasn't until 1959 that the Red Sox became the last – yes the absolute last – team to integrate, bringing up Elijah "Pumpsie" Green in 1959. By the time Green came on board, Robinson was retired, a fact that makes the "Curse of the Bambino" seem like a story used, as so many are in American history, to overshadow the very real and devastating effects of racism.

Howard Bryant's book isn't just about baseball. And it isn't just about sports. It's about history – American history – and should be read by anyone interested in it.

If you are a professor and are interested in learning more about Beacon Press titles, visit the "For Educators" links on the Beacon Press website. If you have used a Beacon title in your course, Beacon Broadside would like to hear your story, either in the comments stream below or in an email to the editor.

 

My Soul Looks Back and Wonders

Today's post is from Sherrilyn Ifill, author of On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-first Century. Ifill is a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law. She is also a civil rights lawyer and a regular speaker on race, public policy, and law. She blogs regularly at BlackProf.com, where a version of this post originally appeared. 

Sometimes, you just can't be cynical. Sometimes – even though you know that we still have a long way to go, that the work of achieving a racially just society is far from over, even though you don't subscribe to the messianic fervor that sometimes surrounds talk of about this presidential campaign – sometimes you just have to stop for a moment, and acknowledge the extraordinariness of this moment in American history.

Sometimes, as the old spiritual goes, "my soul looks back and wonders, how I got over." And so I'm taking a moment to reflect on an event that I wished my father had lived to see. I've watched conventions since 1968. I consider myself politically savvy, intellectually gifted, skeptical and pragmatic. But when Michelle Obama and her daughters were standing up on that stage with fresh perms, looking like my sister and her daughters, and when Barack Obama was nominated to be the presidential candidate for the Democratic Party by acclamation Wednesday night, I got a little emotional.

Unlike so many others, I'm not thinking so much about 1963 and King's "I Have a Dream" speech today. Instead, today I'm thinking about 1964. Forty-four years ago, the Democratic Party refused to seat that great voting rights activist, leader and former sharecropper Fannie Lou Hamer on the floor of the convention.

Crossing Borders, Expanding Equality, and Seeking Justice

Today's post is from Patricia A. Gozemba, co-author (with Karen Kahn and Marilyn Humphries) of Courting Equality: A Documentary History of America's First legal Same-Sex Marriages (Beacon Press, 2007). You can read more at www.courtingequality.com

Equality is a core value in Massachusetts. More than two weeks have passed since our Massachusetts borders fell to the further expansion of equality. When Governor Deval Patrick signed the repeal of the 1913 law that prohibited out-of-state same-sex couples from coming to our state to marry, our state borders became more permeable and we are glad of it. At the July 31, 2008, signing ceremony, Patrick said, "the repeal will confirm a simple truth: that is, in Massachusetts, equal means equal."

In 2003, Massachusetts' Goodridge v DPH decision, gave hope to same-sex couples just as in 1948 California with Perez v. Sharp gave hope to interracial couples. Two court decisions, equally visionary. Most recently, California, a state now often associated with border worries, showed the way on marriage equality with a sweeping court decision on May 15, 2008, that welcomed all same-sex couples to marry there regardless of their residence. No question this bold expansion of civil rights cleared the way for Massachusetts to move ahead in this worrisome presidential election year and match California's commitment to democracy. Bi-coastal equality on the march.

Strange Bedfellows: Lesbian Moms and Anti-Gay Legal Groups

Today's post is from Nancy Polikoff, author of Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage, and a Professor of Law at American University Washington College of Law. Polikoff teaches Sexuality and the Law and has taught Family Law for more than 20 years. She posts regularly about LGBT family issues at the Bilerico Project and at her blog.

Question: When will a right-wing, anti-gay legal group help out a lesbian mother? Answer to follow.

Lesbian couples raising children in the suburbs of my city, Washington, DC, got a one-two punch in the last three weeks. First the Maryland Court of Appeals ruled that when only one member of the couple had adopted the child they were both parenting, and then the couple split up, that the child had only one mother….and that mother can decide whether to maintain or stop contact between the child and the other mother. Since 2000, Maryland courts had been awarding visitation rights in this situation. Not anymore:the highest court in the state said there’s no such thing as a “de facto” parent with rights to continue a relationship with a child she has raised.

Last week, while the Virginia State Supreme Court handed down a ruling that on the surface seemed to support gay parents, an appeals court in that state ruled in a way similar to the Maryland court Lots of people heard about the Miller-Jenkins case, which was a cover story in the Washington Post Magazine. In that case, the biological mom (Lisa) moved from Vermont to Virginia with the child, renounced her lesbianism, obtained representation from the right-wing, anti-gay Liberty Counsel, and argued that the state’s version of the Defense of Marriage Act meant the courts should not enforce a Vermont order giving the non-bio mom (Janet) visitation rights. Earlier this month, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled in Janet’s favor, prompting glee among gay parents everywhere – including in the blogosphere.

But that case was decided on a technical issue; the Virginia court agreed that the Vermont court had jurisdiction to rule in the case and therefore under both state and federal law Virginia had to respect Vermont’s order.

The Shoulders Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton Stand On

Today's post is from Thomas N. DeWolf, author of Inheriting the Trade: A Northern Family Confronts Its Legacy as the Largest Slave-Trading Dynasty in U.S. History published by Beacon Press. The film of his family's journey, Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North will be broadcast on PBS's acclaimed documentary series P.O.V.  on June 24 (check local listings). Tom and his cousin, filmmaker Katrina Browne, will be interviewed on CBS's The Early Show on Juneteenth (June 19).

Oregon—where I live—held its primary election on May 20. For the first time since I moved here for college in 1972, the primary actually meant something to the presidential contest. Always in the past our primary is so late in the game that the presidential candidates for both parties have already been crowned. This exceedingly white state handed a man of color an 18-point margin of victory over a woman. That same day, far across the country in Kentucky, voters there handed that same woman a 35-point victory over the man of color.

Also that day I received an article in the mail from my father about Jackie Robinson who, while serving in the army, stationed in Texas, was court-martialed for refusing to move to the back of a bus in 1944. At UCLA a few years earlier Robinson was the first athlete to earn varsity letters in four sports (football, basketball, baseball, and track). When he enlisted in the army it was with great fanfare. Many historians believe that Robinson's trial and acquittal had a strong impact on President Harry Truman and led to his integrating the military in 1948.

Robinson first donned a Dodger uniform and trotted onto the field on April 15, 1947. Two reasons my father and I share a strong interest in Jackie Robinson are, first, we're life-long Dodger fans, and second, I was born seven years to the day after Jackie's first Dodger game.

Link Roundup: CA Marriage, Keeping Up With Nan Mooney

As E. J. Graff points out in this New Republic article, last week’s decision in California giving marriage rights to same-sex couples offers a lot to be excited about, and not as much for the Democrats to worry about as some of the hand-wringing pundits might lead you to believe. Graff, whose book What is Marriage For? was published by Beacon Press, debunks the idea that anti-gay marriage referenda contributed to Kerry’s loss in 2004, and thinks that the political climate makes a backlash at the polls even less likely this year.

Whatever moral contagion was feared four years ago has not spread. The red states care less and less about married same-sex couples. Young Christian evangelicals, raised on MTV like everyone else in their generation, increasingly favor tolerance toward lesbians and gay men. The new generation of megachurch preachers are stepping away from the antigay bazookas and turning toward other issues instead. I honestly believe that this particular witch hunt has worn itself out.

At the Bilerico Project, Nancy Polikoff, author of Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage, offers another analysis of the California ruling. Polikoff celebrates the decision, but also warns that achieving marriage equality doesn’t go far enough in protecting the rights of all families. For examples of the problems she’s thinking about, read her post about a recent ruling in Maryland, and also be sure to check out her book-related blog.

Nan Mooney, who posted here Monday, has struck a chord with many who can’t understand why achieving the American dream is so much harder now than it was for the previous generation. Read an interview with her at Salon, excerpts from the book at Alternet and Utne,and see how her work is featured in a discussion of middle-class anxiety at Newsweek.

California, The Sky Will Not Fall

Today's post is from Patricia A. Gozemba, co-author (with Karen Kahn and Marilyn Humphries) of Courting Equality: A Documentary History of America’s First legal Same-Sex Marriages (Beacon Press, 2007). You can read more at www.courtingequality.com

California, we are so happy to have you join us. It’s hardly a "from sea to shining sea moment" of marriage equality, but now Massachusetts and California have shown the country that equal marriage is fundamental to freedom and liberty. The threats to the marriage equality movement in California will probably continue, just as they have in Massachusetts. But oh, for this moment, our country feels like a "sweet land of liberty." All these patriotic refrains keep running through my head!

Be prepared to hear that "the end of civilization is coming." That’s the least of the hateful rhetoric that will come your way. Take heart. We have heard it all in Massachusetts. Now four and a half years after the Goodridge decision granting us marriage equality, we are still standing as we struggle to hold on to our rights and fight for the same rights for others.

While we are one-sixth the size of your population, our roots are in feistiness, rebellion, and a commitment to liberty and justice for all. Our combined populations approach 43 million--15% of the US population.  How long will it seem fair to the other 239 million to withhold this civil right? You can look to our path-breaking ways and we gladly welcome your guidance. We are so happy to have you as allies.

On May 17, 2008, we mark four years of marriage equality. All of the dire predictions of "the sky is falling" ilk have proved to be nothing more than the rhetorical rantings of  religious conservatives on a fear mongering mission.

The Relevance of Nooses and Lynching in the Age of Obama

by Sherrilyn A. Ifill

In the flush of the current presidential campaign, when crowds of blacks and whites caught up in Obama fever chant together, “race doesn’t matter,” and even the mainstream media seems delirious with the possibility that the U.S. may be poised to elect its first black president, it’s hard to remember that only a few months ago college campuses, high schools and workplaces from Louisiana to New York were sites of racial intimidation. 2007 was the year of the noose. Dozens of incidents, in which nooses were hung in places designed to intimidate black workers and students, seemed to engulf the country. Many of these noose hangings seem to have been set off by the case of the Jena Six -- a Louisiana case in which black high school students faced serious criminal charges after a series of violent conflicts with white students. The friction between the students arose after white students hung nooses from a tree that had long been regarded as reserved as a meeting place for white students. Many whites minimized the noose hangings at Jena and in other places as mere pranks. Blacks, by and large, regarded the noose hangings as hate crimes – messages of intimidation and white supremacy inspired by the nearly 5,000 lynchings of black men and women that took place in the 20th century.

Today, it’s almost tempting to dismiss the rash of noose incidents and attendant focus on the history of lynching as just a strange autumnal anomaly -- some kind of retro race moment, a last gasp of 20th century racism. Nooses had fallen so far outside the national conversation that it came as somewhat of a shock last Tuesday when President Bush finally condemned noose displays in a ceremony at the White House commemorating Black History Month. The noose, said the President “is wrong . .. [and has] no place in America today.” The President forcefully insisted that displaying a noose is “not a harmless prank, and lynching is not a word to be mentioned in jest.” Instead the noose, said the President, “is a symbol of gross injustice.”

The timing of the President’s statement was curious. Months earlier, when noose incidents were on the front page of major newspapers every day, a presidential statement denouncing the display of nooses would have been a powerful and authoritative repudiation of racist symbols. Yet at that time, the President was silent on the issue. As a result, President Bush’s statement last week seemed strangely out of time. It read like a random selection from a stack of draft presidential statements, hauled out for Black History Month. Clearly drafted months ago [and perhaps embargoed for unknown reasons], the President’s statement provided no guidance on how to reconcile the rash of noose displays four months ago with the current mood of racial harmony and possibility sweeping the country.