HATSHEPSUT

In relating OUR STORY we must realize that OUR STORY did not begin when we were brought to the shores of America. Our story contains not only great deeds of black men but of great black women as well. This is the story of one of those great black women....

Hatshepsut, meaning Foremost of Noble Ladies, of ancient Egypt is considered on of the greatest female rulers of all time. She was the first woman in recorded history to confront and literally destroy the theory of male superiority.

Hatshepsut was the elder daughter of Thutmose I and Queen Ahmose, the first king and queen of the Thutmoside clan of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Thutmose I and Ahmose are known to have had only one other child, a daughter, Akhbetneferu, who died in infancy. Thutmose I also married Mutnofret, possibly a daughter of Ahmose I, and produced several half-brothers to Hatshepsut: Wadjmose, Amenose, Thutmose II, and possibly Ramose, through that secondary union. Both Wadjmose and Amenose were prepared to succeed their father, but neither lived beyond adolescence.

Royal lineage was traced through the women in ancient Egypt. Hatshepsut could trace her female ancestry to her jet-black Ethiopian grandmother, Nefertari Aahmes. Marriage to a queen of the royal lineage was necessary, even if the king came from outside of the lineage as happened occasionally. Secondary unions to other women in the royal family assured that there would be heirs from the lineage of women who could became the royal wives. This is the reason for intermarriages. The royal women also played a pivotal role in the religion of ancient Egypt. The queen officiated at the rites in the temples, as priestess, in a culture where religion was inexorably interwoven with the roles of the rulers.

Upon the death of her father in 1493 BCE, Hatshepsut married her half-brother, Thutmose II, and assumed the title of Great Royal Wife. Thutmose II ruled Egypt for 13 years, during which time it has traditionally been believed that Queen Hatshepsut exerted a strong influence over her husband. It is generally believed that Thutmose II was overweight, sickly, and a weakling, allowing Hatshepsut to run the affairs of the monarchy unopposed during their 13 years of marriage. When Thutmose II died, he left behind only one son, a young Thutmose III to succeed him. The latter was born as the son of a lesser wife of Thutmose II rather than of the Great Royal Wife, Hatshepsut, as Neferure, Hathshepsut's daughter was. Due to the relative youth of Thutmose III, he was not eligible to assume the expected tasks of a Pharaoh. Instead, Hatshepsut became the regent of Egypt at this time, assumed the responsibilities of state, and was recognized by the leadership in the temple.

Upon the death of Thutmose II Hatshepsut startled all Egypt by declaring she was now a man. She seized the throne, started to dress as a man, and donned a fake beard. Hatshepsut crushed all opposition by announcing that she was not the daughter of Thutmose I, but was the virgin birth son of Amen and her mother Ahmose. She declared that Amen appeared to her mother in a "flood of light and perfume" and through Immaculate Conception produced a male child (herself). From then on her statues and sculptured portraits depicted her with a beard and male features. Hatshepsut became firmly entrenched as King/Pharaoh for the next 21 years as her popularity increased along with Egypts prosperity. She opened trade to neighboring lands, and her reign was generally peaceful.

She later commissioned her Black architect boyfriend, Senenmut to build the colossal Temple of Amen-Ra at Karnak, which became a strong hold for her detractors. She then commissioned Senenmut to build another magnificent temple called Deir el Bahari out of sheer rock cliffs that looked down on the temple of Amen-Ra. Del el Bahari is considered one of the world's most remarkable architectural achievements. As a final blow to her opposition Hatshepsut ordered the creation of two of the largest obelisk the world had ever seen. She purposely made the obelisk larger than the the Temple of Amen-Ra so that the roof would have to be removed to accommodate them. She made the obelisk more conspicuous by encasing the tops in a mixture of silver and gold. This made the obelisk so brilliant in the sunlight that whenever anyone saw the city, the most brilliant sight was her obelisk, not the Temple of Amen-Ra.

Hatshepsut died under mysterious circumstances. It is believed that Thutmose III upon coming of age to become Pharaoh, decided to seize political power from Hatshepsut and had her killed. Thutmose declared Hatshepsut a "non-person" and had her image erased from many Egyptian artifacts. It is believed that Neferure, Hatshepsut daughter later became the royal wife of Thutmose III.

Hatshepsut's rule was one of the most prosperous times in ancient Egypt. Memories of Hatshepsut persisted for many centuries after her tenure as Pharaoh. Hatshepsut was a great Black woman during Africa's "Golden Age". 

BLACK WALL STREET

In 1921, Tulsa, Oklahoma was considered the "Oil Capital of the World," and the black community that existed there was among the most prosperous in the nation. The area was home to several prominent black businessmen, many of them multimillionaires. Greenwood boasted a variety of thriving businesses that were very successful The Greenwood section of town was known both as:

 "Little Africa" and as "The Black Wall Street."

After the civil war many African-Americans settled in Oklahoma because of employment opportunities from the oil fields. Around 1908 the community of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma was established. Based on the growth of African-Americans in Greenwood, Jim Crow laws legalizing segregation were passed in 1908.

However, following World War I, the United States Supreme Court declared the Jim Crow segregation laws unconstitutional in 1915. African-Americans progressed thereafter without restriction. Growth ensued. Consequently, the African-American community became subjected to continual harassment and other discriminatory actions from white mobs.

As time went on the level and frequency of violence against the black community, in Greenwood escalated. In 1919 two Black prisoners were removed from incarceration and lynched.

On the Night of May 31, 1921, mobs called for the lynching of Dick Rowland, A black man who shined shoes, who was accused of sexually assaulting a white woman named Sarah Page, an elevator operator. Although no "official" report of Ms. Page's accusation was ever made it was later uncovered that she informed authorities that Rowland had merely lost his balance and fell into her.

Seizing an opportunity to confront the successful black residents of Greenwood a local newspaper, the Tulsa Tribune, printed the fabricated story that Rowland tried to rape Page. A crime, for which he was never formally charged. In an editorial, the same newspaper told enraged white residents that a hanging was planned for that night.

The confidence of the black community members in the security of Dick Rowland was non-existent. Small groups of armed black men began to venture toward the courthouse in automobiles, partly for reconnaissance, but with their weapons visible, they were also demonstrating that they were prepared to take necessary action to protect Dick Rowland. The white community members quickly interpreted these actions as a "Negro uprising".

On June 1, 1921 confrontations between angry white mobs and the black people of Greenwood ensued. Outnumbered and outgunned Blacks were viciously attacked.  Led by the Ku Klux Klan and their sympathisers, "deputized" by ranking officials of the police department, the black people of Greenwood were lynched, shot, and murdered. Their homes were looted and burned. In a period spanning 12 hours, the carnage left over 300 Black Americans dead and over 600 highly successful businesses burned and destroyed. Over 1,500 homes were burned as members of the police flew airplanes overhead, dropping nitroglycerin and incendiary kerosene bombs on homes and businesses over a 35-square block radius. Although many of the residents affected by the riots had insurance, the insurance companies refused to make good on their policies.

The attack completely destroyed Greenwood. Those citizens who were not killed fled the area, because there was nothing to come back to. The governor declared martial law and the National Guardsmen reestablished law and order. Eventually, the community was rebuilt; however, it never again regained its former prominence.

In 2003, a lawsuit for reparations was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma, seeking damages and restitution, based on violations of the Fourteenth Amendment. To date, no reparations have been given to the victims, or their descendants, of what has come to be referred to as the Black Holocaust.

DRED SCOTT DECISION

Born around 1800, Dred Scott later migrated westward with his master, Peter Blow. They travelled from Scott's home state of Virginia to Alabama and then, in 1830, to St. Louis, Missouri. Two years later in 1832, Peter Blow died; Scott was subsequently bought by army surgeon Dr. John Emerson, who later took Scott to the free state of Illinois. In the spring of 1836, after a stay of two and a half years, Emerson moved to a fort in the Wisconsin Territory, taking his slave, Scott with him. While there, Scott met and married Harriet Robinson, a slave owned by a local justice of the peace. Ownership of Harriet was transferred to Emerson.

Scott's extended stay in Illinois, a free state, gave him the legal standing to make a claim for freedom, as did his extended stay in Wisconsin, where slavery was also prohibited. But Scott never made the claim while living in the free lands, perhaps because he was unaware of his rights at the time. After two years, the army transferred Emerson again, this time to the south: first to St Louis, then to Louisiana. A little over a year later, a recently-married Emerson summoned his slave couple. Instead of staying in the free territory of Wisconsin, or going to the free state of Illinois, the two travelled over a thousand miles, apparently unaccompanied, down the Mississippi River to meet their master. Only after Emerson's death in 1843, when Emerson's widow hired Scott out to various families including an army captain, did Scott seek freedom for himself and his wife. First he offered to buy his freedom from Mrs. Emerson, then living in St. Louis, for the sum of $300. The offer was refused. Scott then sought his freedom through the courts.

Scott went to trial in June of 1847, but lost on a technicality he couldn't prove that he and Harriet were the property of  Emerson's widow. The following year the Missouri Supreme Court decided that case should be retried. In an 1850 retrial, the the St Louis circuit court ruled that Scott and his family were free. Two years later the Missouri Supreme Court stepped in again, reversing the decision of the lower court. Scott and his lawyers then brought his case to a federal court, the United States Circuit Court in Missouri. In 1854, the Circuit Court upheld the decision of the Missouri Supreme Court. There was now only one other place to go. Scott appealed his case to the United States Supreme Court.
The nine justices of the Supreme Court of 1856 certainly had biases regarding slavery. Seven had been appointed by pro-slavery presidents from the South, and of these, five were from slave-holding families. In his attempt to bring his case to the federal courts, Scott had claimed that he and the case's defendant (Mrs. Emerson's brother, John Sanford, who lived in New York) were citizens from different states. The main issues for the Supreme Court, therefore, were whether it had jurisdiction to try the case and whether Scott was indeed a citizen. Scott lost the decision as seven out of nine Justices on the Supreme Court declared no slave or descendant of a slave could be a U.S. citizen, or ever had been a U.S. citizen. As a non-citizen, the court stated, slaves had no rights and could not sue in a Federal Court and must remain a slave. 
Under the law whether or not the Scotts were entitled to their freedom was not as important as the consideration of their value as property.
The decision of the court was read in March of 1857. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, a staunch supporter of slavery wrote the "majority opinion" for the court. It stated that because Scott was black, he was not a citizen and therefore had no right to sue. The chief justice wrote, blacks had been "regarded as beings of an inferior order" with "no rights which the white man was bound to respect." The decision also declared the Missouri Compromise of 1820, legislation which restricted slavery in certain territories, unconstitutional.

 While the decision was well-received by slaveholders in the South, many northerners were outraged. The decision greatly influenced the nomination of Abraham Lincoln to the Republican Party and his subsequent election, which in turn led to the South's secession from the Union.

Peter Blow's sons, childhood friends of Scott, had helped pay Scott's legal fees through the years. After the Supreme Court's decision, the former master's sons purchased Scott and his wife and set them free.

Dred Scott died nine months later.

The 13th amendment abolished slavery

It is believed that the 14th amendment overturns the Dred Scott decision. This forum does not afford me the opportunity to offer my opinion as to whether or not this is the case. Read the 14th amendment yourself and decide if " substantive due process" is enough.