JOHN SNOW : CHALLENGING THE STATUS QUO

Dr. John Snow (1813-1858)

From time immemorial, being sick of cholera was considered as a result of miasma (foul/ haunted air) or because of being immoral or poor. It was even believed, to prevent cholera you just had to spray a sweet fragrance in the air around you. This preventive measure was supported by the most learned medical practitioners of the society at the time and it continued being the case until the 1850’s when this ideology was challenged by John Snow.

John Snow was born in 1813 in a poor family and his father was a coal miner. Given his family background, Snow was destined to be a coal miner like his father but his mother noted his curious, inquisitive and active mind and decided his son will not be a coal miner. Snow’s mother used her small inheritance and sent snow to school.

Snow studied and graduated. He was attached to a doctor to apprentice under. During his apprentice, there was cholera outbreak in 1831.  The cases were so many that the doctor was so overwhelmed that he sent Snow to the slums and mines to check the cholera cases that had been reported there. In his effort to treat the sick people in the slums he tried the various methods that were common for treating cholera  such as the use of strong herbs, opium and bleeding but none worked, his years of apprentice amounted to nothing.

Cholera was mysterious at the time, a person would wake up healthy and suddenly and swiftly he would vomit, complain of stomach ache and intestinal pain, and then they would die within hours. Medical advancement, has shown that, the cholera bacteria multiplies twice it’s self every 30 minutes leading to persistent vomiting and diarrhea, causing to great loose of water in the body leading to dehydration. The cholera victim loses so much water that a patient does not die out of the germs, but because of lack of water in the body that causes the blood to be sludgy and unable to circulate through the body, therefore critical organs such as kidney, liver, heart and brain would shut down one by one causing death. Years later, it was discovered that drinking glucose could act as remedy to increase absorption of water in the body slowing down the progress of cholera.

Days later, the cholera outbreak ended mysteriously just as it had started but the experience left a print on Snow’s mind. He had noted that most patience complained of stomach and intestinal pain and diarrhea and he theorized that the sickness must have been as a result of something egested other than inhaled. Since, if it was something inhaled then the patience would have complained of throat or lungs pain.

To actualize his theory, he took to the study of the water supply in the town. There were two water pump station on a street where people on opposite side would fetch water. On one side of the street, waste water running from toilets and households containing fecal matter flowed towards the water pump. The statistic indicated that people who consumed water from this pump had died of the cholera and further they were 998% likely to die compared with the people who consumed water from the other pump.  The other Pump had waste water containing fecal matter flowing away from it. In conclusion, Snow noted that fecal waste water had to do with the cholera outbreak; He proceeded to publish the research and distributed it all over London saying the cause was a “self-multiplying poison”. He in away intentionally avoided to use the term germs since at the time the medical community were repulsed by such a term. He was sure he had made a discovery, that cholera was a waterborne disease. 

In as much as his findings were backed with data and a clear scientific method approach, the medical community gave him a cold back and informed him that the miasma theory was the only true reason why people got sick of cholera. The medical community refused his idea. The Medical establishment believed in the one and only ancient theory - the Miasma Theory that had a powerful grip over the establishment and no one would part from this theory.

After the chaos of the cholera outbreak settled, people moved on with life as usual. John Snow progressed with his career as a doctor. He gained prominence in the field of euthanasia. He was able to come with proper procedure and dosage to be used during euthanasia. He even euthanized the queen. He became one of the founders of the Epistemology Society in order to find means to control contain and prevent outbreaks of epidemics.

In 1854, as snow was reading a newspaper he read a case; where in Broadway street many people had died of a cholera outbreak, that the hearse was do full of caskets carrying dead bodies that others had to be tied on top and on the sides. This time Cholera did not seem to have a specific pattern it cut through the classes indiscriminately, the rich and the poor, male and female, the professionals and the casuals, the educated and the uneducated, the moral and the immoral, all were victims of this terrifying disease. This experience was enough to remind him of the cholera of his youth and to push him to action. He rushed to the center of the epidemic. He knew he needed to act fast, as every second there was likely a case of a new contamination or death.

He walked the streets of broadways and beyond. He visited as much sick people as he could or their physician or care giver collecting information from every person. He was assisted with a curator, named Whitehead, who being a religious person was trusted by the people and was familiar with almost all death in the area.

The figure at left is the personification of cholera

With this data, he plotted a map to illustrate where death of people was more clustered. He noted the death was more clustered near a water pump on Broadway Street and radiated outwards, thinning as a person moved away from the water pump. Having earlier developed a case study that proposed that cholera was a waterborne disease, he was sure this was an affirmation of his findings. He went to meet the Local Health Committee and proposed that the handle of the water had to be removed to prevent further spreading of the disease. He showed them the data and he firmly persuaded them to do so and finally, though reluctantly they removed the handle. Days later, maybe because of the removal of the handle or because of nature cholera ended. All this work of visiting broadways street, visiting the sick and the victims of the sick, plotting the map, visiting the register office, organizing meeting with local health officer, removing the handle on the water pump happened within 72 hours (3 days). For all this activities to have succeeded within such a short time it required his total commitment and dedication.

Since many people and important members of the society had died a Commission was formed to investigate the disease. Snow and whitehead were invited to be members of the commission. On investigation they found that the water pump obtained water from a well. The well had been dug next to a cesspit. The cesspit was not properly built and the waste from the cesspit was leaking to the well. A woman, whose child had died of cholera, had thrown the nappies of the child in the cesspit. The waste leaked to the well. This all made a complete chain. The commission made a report that cholera had been caused by leakage from the cesspit. This was a small discovery by the commission but a great leap to the discovery of causes of cholera.

Snow, did not live to see triumph of his ideas. It would be years later when the report by the commission would be believed and implemented.

John Snow effort to stop cholera is remarkable. It may not all be attributed to him directly, but looking at it in hindsight we come to appreciate his determination and courage.  That during his lifetime microscopes were yet to be invented to identify germs in the water and in fact things like germs and bacteria were still unknown; That using his own logical mind to develop methods to meticulously collect data and join the dots and give them meaning;  that he took a whole traditional medical practice head on by challenging the well engrained belief that cholera was caused by foul air and being immoral; that he developed a new scientific reason based on data; That he was able to collect data and plot it on a map and to date the same method(coronoid diagraph)  he develop on top of his head is still being used, this demonstrates how effective and practical his innovation was; that  he courageously walked the streets of  London meeting and interviewing sick patients to collect data in as much as it was suspected cholera was cause by breathing foul air in that street; his pioneering to flow against the times. To date millions of lives have been saved due to his study. His study and method has improved health and healthcare around the world.  

In current times, we now know cholera is caused by egesting contaminated water or food and that basic hygiene can greatly prevent cholera.

The battle that Snow fought years ago is the same battle we fight today. Narrow and ancient views have prevented the discovery of new truth. In this present age we have perceptions and theories that exist side by side by scientific evidence that have been tested, confirmed and proved but due to the powerful grip tradition or custom has on us we hold on to them. Frank Fanon has to say this about this condition, “Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief.” Now or days to come, we shall find ourselves in a position to lead a new order or be the cause of change. To be the people to push humanity one step to change to a better world. Changing a core belief is a herculean responsibility we must all embrace.

It will take incredible courage for a person to challenge an entire infrastructure of tradition or ignorance, to speak truth to power but by the example set by many pioneers before us such as John Snow who want a better health care, Wangari Mathai who wants a better environment, Martin Luther who burns with the dream of all people to be treated equally, we know we are in good company. John Snow gives us an example that any ordinary person from unknown background, no wealth or no fame or title can use his own creativity and knowledge to challenge the imperfection of a system or bring people together and challenge the status quo.  And to strongly know that it is within their power to remake or to rethink an ideology and make it closely align with the ultimate truth or utopia that all humanity are working towards.

I end with the words of John Lewis who said “if you do not do everything you can to change things, then they will remain the same. You only pass this way once; you have to give it all you have.” John snow change the way the world thinks and in the process changed the world, the world awaits for you.

JOHN F. KENNEDY : OUR OBLIGATION

 Thank you very much. Mr. Chancellor, Mr. Vanderbilt, Senator Kefauver, Senator Gore, Congressman Folden, Congressman Evans, Congressman Bass, Congressman Everett, Tom Murray, distinguished guests, members of the Judiciary, the Army Corps of Engineers of the Tennessee Valley:

I first of all want to express my warm appreciation to the Governor and the Mayor of this state and city and to the people for a very generous welcome, and particularly to all those young men and women who lined the street and played music for us as we drove into this stadium. We're glad their here with us, and we feel the musical future of this city and state is assured.

Many things bring us together today. We are saluting the 90th anniversary of Vanderbilt University, which has grown from a small, Tennessee University and institution, to one of our nation's greatest, with seven different colleges and with more than half of its 4200 students from outside of the state of Tennessee. And we are saluting the 30th anniversary of the Tennessee Valley Authority, which transformed a parched, depressed, and flood-ravaged region into a fertile, productive center of industry, science, and agriculture. We are saluting, by initiating construction of a dam in his name, a great Tennessee statesman, Cordell Hull the -- the "father of reciprocal trade," the "grandfather of the United Nations," the Secretary of State who presided over the transformation of this nation from a life of isolation and almost indifference to a state of responsible world leadership. And finally we are saluting, by the recognition of a forthcoming dam in his name J. Percy Priest, a former colleague of mine in the House of Representatives, who represented this district, this state, and this nation in the Congress for 16 turbulent years, years which witnessed the crumbling of empires, the splitting of the atom, the conquest of one threat to freedom and the emergence of still another.

If there is one unchanging theme that runs throughout these separate stories, it is that everything changes but change itself. We live in an age of movement and change, both evolutionary and revolutionary, both good and evil. And in such an age a university has a special obligation to hold fast to the best of the past and move fast with the best of the future.

Nearly a hundred years ago, Prince Bismark said that one-third of the students of German universities broke down from overwork, another third broke down from dissipation, and the other third ruled Germany. I do not know which third of the student body at Vanderbilt is here today, but I am confident we're talking to the future rulers of Tennessee and America in the spirit of this university.

The essence of Vanderbilt is still learning. The essence of its outlook is still liberty. And liberty and learning will be and must be the touchstones of Vanderbilt University and of any free University in this country or the world. I say two touchstones, yet they are almost inseparable, inseparable if not indistinguishable. For liberty without learning is always in peril, and learning without liberty is always in vain. This state, this city, this campus have stood long for both human rights and human enlightenment, and let that forever be true.

This nation is now engaged in a continuing debate about the rights of a portion of its citizens. That will go on, and those rights will expand until the standard first forged by the nation's Founders has been reached and all Americans enjoy equal opportunity and liberty under law.

But this nation was not founded solely on the principle of citizen-rights. Equally important, though too-often not discussed, is the citizen's responsibility. For our privileges can be no greater than our obligations. The protection of our rights can endure no longer when the performance of our responsibilities each can be neglected only at the peril of the other.

I speak to you today, therefore, not of your rights as Americans, but of your responsibilities. They are many in number and different in nature. They do not rest with equal weight upon the shoulders of all. Equality of opportunity does not mean equality of responsibility. All Americans must be responsible citizens, but some must be more responsible than others by virtue of their public or their private position, their role in the family or community, their prospects for the future, or their legacy from the past. Increased responsibility goes with increased ability. For those to whom much is given, much is required.

Commodore Vanderbilt recognized this responsibility and his recognition made possible the establishment of a great institution of learning for which he will be long remembered after his steamboats and railroads have been forgotten. I speak, in particular, therefore, of the responsibility of the educated citizen, including the students, the faculty, and the alumni of this great institution. The creation and maintenance of Vanderbilt University, like that of all great universities, has required considerable effort and expenditure, and I cannot believe that all of this was undertaken merely to give this school's graduates an economic advantage in the life struggle.

"Every man sent out from a university," said Professor Woodrow Wilson, "Every man sent out from a university should be a man of his nation as well as a man of his time." You have responsibilities, in short, to use your talents for the benefit of the society which helped develop those talents. You must decide, as Goethe put it, whether you will be an anvil or a hammer, whether you will give to the world in which you were reared and educated the broadest possible benefits of that education.

Of the many special obligations incumbent upon an educated citizen, I would cite three as outstanding: Your obligation to the pursuit of learning; your obligation to serve the public; your obligation to uphold the law. If the pursuit of learning is not defended by the educated citizen, it will not be defended at all.

For there will always be those who scoff at intellectuals, who cry out against research, who seek to limit our educational system. Modern cynics and skeptics see no more reason for landing a man on the moon -- which we shall do -- than the cynics and skeptics of half a millennium ago saw for the discovery of this country. They see no harm in paying those to whom they entrust the minds of their children a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom they entrust the care of their plumbing.

But the educated citizen knows how much more there is to know. He knows that knowledge is power -- more so today than ever before. He knows that only an educated and informed people will be a free people; that the ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all; and that if we can, as Jefferson put it, "enlighten the people generally," "tyranny and the oppressions of mind and body will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day." And, therefore, the educated citizen has a special obligation to encourage the pursuit of learning, to promote exploration of the unknown, to preserve the freedom of inquiry, to support the advancement of research, and to assist at every level of government the improvement of education for all Americans -- from grade school to graduate school.

Secondly, the educated citizen has an obligation to serve the public. He may be a precinct worker or a president. He may give his talents at the courthouse, the state house, the White House. He may be a civil servant or a senator, a candidate or a campaign worker, a winner or a loser. But he must be a participant and not a spectator. At the Olympic Games, Aristotle wrote, "It is not the finest and strongest men who are crowned, but they who enter the lists. For out of these the prize-men are selected. "So, too, in life," he said, "of the honorable and the good, it is they who act who rightly win the prize."¹

I urge all of you today, especially those who are students, to act -- to enter the lists of public service and rightly win (or lose) the prize. For we can have only one form of aristocracy in this country. As Jefferson wrote long ago in rejecting John Adams's suggestion of an artificial aristocracy of wealth and birth, "It is," he wrote, "the natural aristocracy of character and talent." "And the best form of government," he added, "was that which selected these men for positions of responsibility." I would hope that all educated citizens would fulfill this obligation, in politics, in government, here in Nashville, here in this State, in the Peace Corps, in the Foreign Service, in the government service, in the Tennessee Valley, in the world! You will find the pressures greater than the pay. You may endure more public attacks than support. But you will have the unequaled satisfaction of knowing that your character and talent are contributing to the direction and success of this free society.

Third and finally, the educated citizen has an obligation to uphold the law. This is the obligation of every citizen in a free and peaceful society. But the educated citizen has a special responsibility by the virtue of his greater understanding. For whether he has ever studied history or current events, ethics or civics, the rules of the profession or the tools of the trade, he knows that only a respect for the law makes it possible for free men to dwell together in peace and progress. He knows that law is the adhesive force of the cement of society, creating order out of chaos, and coherence in place of anarchy. He knows that for one man to defy a law or court order he does not like is to invite others to defy those which they do not like -- leading to a breakdown of all justice and all order. He knows, too, that every fellow man is entitled to be regarded with decency and treated with dignity. Any educated citizen who seeks to subvert the law to suppress freedom, or to subject other human beings to acts that are less than human degrades his inheritance, ignores his learning, and betrays his obligations. Certain other societies may respect the rule of force. We respect the rule of law.

The nation, indeed, the whole world has watched recent events in the United States with alarm and dismay. No one can deny the complexity of the problems involved in assuring to all of our citizens their full rights as Americans. But no one can gainsay the fact that the determination to secure these rights is in the highest traditions of American freedom. In these moments of tragic disorder, a special burden rests on the educated men and women of our country to reject the temptations of prejudice and violence and to reaffirm the values of freedom and law on which our free society depends.

When 90 years ago it was proposed to Commodore Vanderbilt, he said "Commodore, our country has been torn to pieces by a civil war. We want to repair this damage." And Commodore Vanderbilt reported, "I want to unite this country and all sections of it, so that all our people will be one." His response, his recognition of his obligation and opportunity gave Vanderbilt University not only an endowment but also a mission.

Now, 90 years later, in a time of tension it is more important than ever to unite this country and strengthen these ties, so that all of our people will be one. 90 years from now, I have no doubt that Vanderbilt University will still be fulfilling this mission. It will still -- It will still uphold learning, encourage public service, and teach respect for the law. It will neither turn its back on proven wisdom or turn its face from newborn challenge. It will still pass on to the youth of our land the full meaning of their rights and their responsibilities. And it will still be teaching the truth -- the truth that makes us free and will keep us free.

Thank you.

(EXTRACT FROM American Rhetoric - https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfkvanderbiltconvocation.htm)

FANNIE LOU HAMER: Is this the land of the free and the home of the brave?

 Mr. Chairman, and to the Credentials Committee, my name is Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, and I live at 626 East Lafayette Street, Ruleville, Mississippi, Sunflower County, the home of Senator James O. Eastland, and Senator Stennis.

It was the 31st of August in 1962 that eighteen of us traveled twenty-six miles to the county courthouse in Indianola to try to register to become first-class citizens.

We was met in Indianola by policemen, Highway Patrolmen, and they only allowed two of us in to take the literacy test at the time. After we had taken this test and started back to Ruleville, we was held up by the City Police and the State Highway Patrolmen and carried back to Indianola where the bus driver was charged that day with driving a bus the wrong color.

After we paid the fine among us, we continued on to Ruleville, and Reverend Jeff Sunny carried me four miles in the rural area where I had worked as a timekeeper and sharecropper for eighteen years. I was met there by my children, who told me that the plantation owner was angry because I had gone down to try to register.

After they told me, my husband came, and said the plantation owner was raising Cain because I had tried to register. Before he quit talking the plantation owner came and said, "Fannie Lou, do you know - did Pap tell you what I said?"

And I said, "Yes, sir."

He said, "Well I mean that." He said, "If you don't go down and withdraw your registration, you will have to leave." Said, "Then if you go down and withdraw," said, "you still might have to go because we are not ready for that in Mississippi."

And I addressed him and told him and said, "I didn't try to register for you. I tried to register for myself."

I had to leave that same night.

On the 10th of September 1962, sixteen bullets was fired into the home of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Tucker for me. That same night two girls were shot in Ruleville, Mississippi. Also Mr. Joe McDonald's house was shot in.

And June the 9th, 1963, I had attended a voter registration workshop; was returning back to Mississippi. Ten of us was traveling by the Continental Trailway bus. When we got to Winona, Mississippi, which is Montgomery County, four of the people got off to use the washroom, and two of the people - to use the restaurant - two of the people wanted to use the washroom.

The four people that had gone in to use the restaurant was ordered out. During this time I was on the bus. But when I looked through the window and saw they had rushed out I got off of the bus to see what had happened. And one of the ladies said, "It was a State Highway Patrolman and a Chief of Police ordered us out."

I got back on the bus and one of the persons had used the washroom got back on the bus, too.

As soon as I was seated on the bus, I saw when they began to get the five people in a highway patrolman's car. I stepped off of the bus to see what was happening and somebody screamed from the car that the five workers was in and said, "Get that one there." When I went to get in the car, when the man told me I was under arrest, he kicked me.

I was carried to the county jail and put in the booking room. They left some of the people in the booking room and began to place us in cells. I was placed in a cell with a young woman called Miss Ivesta Simpson. After I was placed in the cell I began to hear sounds of licks and screams, I could hear the sounds of licks and horrible screams. And I could hear somebody say, "Can you say, 'yes, sir,' nigger? Can you say 'yes, sir'?"

And they would say other horrible names.

She would say, "Yes, I can say 'yes, sir.'"

"So, well, say it."

She said, "I don't know you well enough."

They beat her, I don't know how long. And after a while she began to pray, and asked God to have mercy on those people.

And it wasn't too long before three white men came to my cell. One of these men was a State Highway Patrolman and he asked me where I was from. I told him Ruleville and he said, "We are going to check this."

They left my cell and it wasn't too long before they came back. He said, "You are from Ruleville all right," and he used a curse word. And he said, "We are going to make you wish you was dead."

I was carried out of that cell into another cell where they had two Negro prisoners. The State Highway Patrolmen ordered the first Negro to take the blackjack.

The first Negro prisoner ordered me, by orders from the State Highway Patrolman, for me to lay down on a bunk bed on my face.

I laid on my face and the first Negro began to beat. I was beat by the first Negro until he was exhausted. I was holding my hands behind me at that time on my left side, because I suffered from polio when I was six years old.

After the first Negro had beat until he was exhausted, the State Highway Patrolman ordered the second Negro to take the blackjack.

The second Negro began to beat and I began to work my feet, and the State Highway Patrolman ordered the first Negro who had beat me to sit on my feet - to keep me from working my feet. I began to scream and one white man got up and began to beat me in my head and tell me to hush.

One white man - my dress had worked up high - he walked over and pulled my dress - I pulled my dress down and he pulled my dress back up.

I was in jail when Medgar Evers was murdered.

All of this is on account of we want to register, to become first-class citizens. And if the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America. Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hooks because our lives be threatened daily, because we want to live as decent human beings, in America?

Thank you.

Speech from http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features

PART III - THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS : ABORTED JUSTICE

PART III: INNOCENT OR GUILTY?

(FIND PART II HERE)

On hearing the motion by, Mr. Leibowitz for the Scottsboro boys for a retrial, Judge James Edwin Horton retired to consider the motion and write the judgment.

Now, something happened during the consideration of this Motion. The Judge Horton met Dr. Marvin Lynch, who had been excused from testifying. The meeting had happened in the Court house, gents’ washroom as the Dr. Lynch did not want to be seen having a conversation with the Judge. Dr. Lynch told the judge that as per his personal examination the two women were not raped. That he had informed the prosecution that the alleged rape was a fabrication but they were adamant to press the charges against the Scottsboro boys. And it was because of this he had been excluded as a witness by the Prosecutor.

Judge Hurton became even more concern when considering the application and wondered: why is it that when the Scottsboro boys where engaging in a fight with the white boys there was no evidence to show they were armed with knives or pistol and neither of the white boys thrown out of the train had knife injuries? Where was the head wound inflicted by the pistol as alleged by Victoria Price? Victoria priced was forced to lay down on jagged rocks on the gondola car train and each boy lay on top of her to forcefully penetrate her vagina. Where was the evidence to show a lacerated vagina or bleeding back? Why was the semen in their pubic hair dry and starchy yet it was examined about one hour thirty minutes after the incidence? Why was there no evidence to show that her cloths were spattered with semen and blood? There was no evidence to show blood flowing from her vagina? Why were the white girls when presented to the doctors for examination were neither hysteria or nervous or depressed in spirit after being raped by nine men? Why were the spermatozoa non-motile or dead? Why is the evidence of Victoria Price not being corroborated by any witness given that the rape happen on top of an open train on a sunny day on a slow moving train.

Now Judge Hurton was faced with this concerning questions on one hand.  

On the other hand, Judgeship was an elective position. Judge Hurton had been elected unopposed in the previous election as judge. The election being around the corner, if he set the sentence aside he may lose the election since the masses and his voters will be annoyed and in fact an emissary had been sent to him informing him that if he set the sentence aside it will destroy him politically and he should be sure he shall lose the election. He wondered should he sell his birthright position as a defender and administrator of justice for an elective position.

On 22^nd June, 1933, the judge called the court into order. He held four sheets of paper, on it lay the fate of the Scottsboro boys and   the fate of his career as a judge.

On his opening statements he said, “Social order is based on law, and its perpetuity on its fair and impartial administration. Deliberate injustice is more fatal to the one who impose than to the one whom it is imposed. The victim may die quickly and his suffering cease, but teachings of Christianity and the uniform lessons of all history illustrate without exception that its perpetrators not only pay the penalty themselves, but their children through endless generations… the court must be faithful in the exercise of the power which it believes it possesses as it must be careful to abstain from the assumption of those not within its proper sphere” he went on to demonstrate the lack of corroboration in the evidence against the Scottsboro boys.

In conclusion Judge Hurton said, “History, sacred and profane, and the common experience of mankind teach us that women of the character shown in this case are prone for selfish reasons to make false accusations both of rape and of insult upon the slightest provocation for ulterior purposes…. It is therefore ordered and adjudged by the Court that the motion be granted; that the verdict of the jury in this case and the judgment of the Court sentencing this defendant to death be set aside and that a new trial be and the same is hereby ordered.”

Judge Hurton firmly believed that the truth will always set you free and that justice had to be done though the heavens fall. When the Judgeship election were held, he was defeated but the truth he stood for kept marching on. In 2017 A statue of Judge Horton, made of bronze, was erected outside a courthouse in Limestone County to immortalize his words during the trial when he said, “So far as the law is concerned it knows neither native nor alien, Jew nor Gentile, neither black nor white. This case is no different from any other. We have only to do our duty without fear or favor.”

The trial was done before another judge before an all-white jury but this time they were found guilty and sentenced to the electric chair. The case was appealed all the way to the Supreme Court for the second time. The ground of appeal to the Supreme Court was that “the jury selection had systematically excluded black members due to racial prejudice.”

In a land mark decision in the case of Norris V. Alabama the Supreme Court held that “the systematic and purposeful exclusion of African-Americans from service on the grand and trial juries denied African-American defendants in the state courts the equal protection of law guaranteed under the due process clause in the constitution”. The conviction was reversed and retrial ordered saving the boys from the Electric Chair.

The Supreme Court judgment in Norris V. Alabama played a great role in having the African-American people on the jury and helped in the civil right movement cases that started a few years later. This judgment acted as a seed of change and sparked civil rights movements.

THE AFTERMATH

The Scottsboro Boys case dragged on for years. It ended tragically with young productive lives of boys who were out to look for brighter days being wrecked and wasted. Some of them were released, others pardon and others run out of prison.

In 2013 the boys were granted posthumous pardons. The Governor of Albama stated, “While we could not take back what happened to the Scottsboro Boys 80 years ago, we found a way to make it right moving forward. The pardons granted to the Scottsboro Boys today are long overdue. The legislation that led to today's pardons was the result of a bipartisan, cooperative effort. I appreciate the Pardons and Parole Board for continuing our progress today and officially granting these pardons. Today, the Scottsboro Boys have finally received justice.”

This shameful case of injustice is not limited to the United States of America; Never underestimate the power of history, it repeats itself anywhere anytime. It repeats itself daily in different forms. For instance in our court rooms; when judges are compromised by corruption, politics, sex, racism, tribalism, economic and cultural factors and justice is aborted and innocent lives suffer. The society is denied the birth of affirmed human rights; this becomes the tragedy of justice.

In life we may find ourselves in any shoe of the Scottsboro story. Maybe as the White Girls, in our effort to save ourselves we accuse others falsely, as Doctors who need to testify the truth, as prosecutors who need to objective and not giving in to mob justice, as Lawyers like Samuel Leibowitz, to be determined to protect the rights and freedoms and fight for what we believe in, and maybe as Scottsboro Boy, in our daily life trying to make a brighter lives for ourselves we find ourselves as victims of circumstances in an unjust and corrupted  system; where you are guilty until proven innocent ; but I hope we or at least our judiciary shall be like Judge James E. Horton that we shall do justice though the heavens fall and even if they fall they shall fall on a just land.

In the words of Howard Zinn I conclude by saying, “Perhaps the most important thing I learned was about democracy, that democracy is not our government, our constitution, our legal structure. Too often they are enemies of democracy. Certainly this was the experience of African-Americans in this country for two hundred years. With the government failing to enforce the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, black men, women, and children decided to do that on their own. They organized, demonstrated, protested, challenged the law, were beaten, went to prison, some killed—and thereby reached the conscience of the nation and the world. And things changed. That’s when democracy comes alive.” That’s the price we pay for democracy, for justice.

PART II - THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS : ABORTED JUSTICE

 PART II: THE RETRIAL

(FIND PART I HERE)

Judge James Edwin Horton

The retrial took place before Judge James Edwin Horton.  He was a white Judge and already prejudiced. To a given certainty it was obvious he would assist deliver a guilty verdict.  He was entrusted with the duty to perform a “legal” lynching that the public had yearned for.

 But this time the trial dynamics would be different. The Scottsboro boys would be represented by Mr. Samuel Leibowitz, a renowned criminal lawyer. Mr. Lebowitz come with the entire legal arsenal to set the nine Negro boys free and would represent them on a probono basis.

Further on this retrial, one of the white girls who had alleged being raped by the Scottsboro Boys, Ruby Bates had retracted her statement and admitted that the alleged rape was a fabricated story.

An all-white people jury were selected and the trial begun.

The prosecution opened the case. The chief witnesses were the Complaint, Victoria Price and the two doctors, Dr. R. R. Bridges and Dr. Marvin Lynch who had examined the girls after the rape allegation.

Victoria price gave here chilling, thrilling, moving and gory account of how she was hit on the head by the butt end of a gun by one of the Scottsboro boys, how she was forcefully undressed and laid on the gravel or jagged rocks on the half-filled gondola car train; how one of the Scottsboro boys place a knife on her neck and threatened to kill her if she dared not co-operate, how each of the Scottsboro boys penetrated her and discharged semen in her and her cloths, how her vagina bleed and her cloths were filled with blood.

Samuel Leibowitz cross examined her.  He asked her what she did for a living; which car of the freight train had the alleged incident occurred; if she had had sex the previous night before the train ride but she evasively answered these questions and refused to give any direct answer.

Dr. Bridges testifying

The Prosecution called their next witness Dr. R. R. Bridges to the witness stand; the doctor said he examined the white girls about one hour thirty minutes after the rape allegation.  That indeed the girls had engaged in sex; that there was presence of semen in her pubic hair, there was spermatozoa in her vagina;

On cross-examining the doctor, he affirmed that the girls came to the hospital for examination one hour thirty minutes after the alleged rape; that they were not hysterical, nervous or depressing of spirit; that she did not observe blood on the hair or stich any wound on the white girl’s head; that the clothing of the girls were intact and there was no sign of forceful undressing or signs of rough handling; that there was no semen or blood stain on their cloths; that her cloths were not damp or wet due to the discharge of semen and bleeding from the vagina; That the discharge of semen around their vagina area was dusty and starchy a sign of no recent sexual intercourse; the vagina had no lacerations, tears or signs of rough handling;  that the semen quantity in their vagina was so minimal to have been discharged by  nine  boys; that the spermatozoa in their vagina was dead or non-motile;

After the cross examination and reexamination, the prosecution was to call the Second doctor, Dr. Lynch to testify but the prosecution made an application that Dr. Lynch, be excused from testifying as his evidence would be redundant and repetitive to the first doctor. His application was granted. Dr. Lynch was excused from testifying. 

The prosecution closed its case

The defense opened its case.

The accused called his witnesses. Each of the Scottsboro boys testified and denied having seen, met, interacted or raped the white women while on the freight train. It emerged one of the boys had fully blown venereal disease and could not walk as a result and therefore, could not in any way have had sexual intercourse; and if indeed he had intercourse with Victoria Price then the complainant should have been infected, and there was no evidence to indicate she was; Further one of the boys was nearly blind and had sat on the last gondola car away from where the alleged rape incident had happened, when the train was stopped and a search done the boy  was found on the last train car, how possible was it that he was able to walk over and on top of the train cars to where the complaint was, rape her and go back with such poor eye sight?

The other white girl, now defendant witness, Ruby Bates, testified that they had agreed to forge the story to avoid arrest; that no rape has occurred and that the Scottsboro boys were as innocent as a dove.

From Ruby Bates testimony, it came out clearly when the train was stopped at Paint Town the two white girls had given a “foul, contemptible and outrageous” lied to the police. They had told the police the fabricated rape story to divert the police attention from being suspected for being prostitutes and engaging in immorality so that they do not risk being arrested and prosecuted for violating the Mann Act that made those actions a felony.

On summing up the defense case Mr. Leibowitz asked the jury, “Can this poor scrap of colored humanity receive a fair trial?”

The case was closed.

With all this contradiction in evidence there was hope for the Scottsboro boys to be free.

The jury was given time to confer on the conviction and sentence. They came back after a short while.

They returned a verdict of Guilty and a sentence of death by electric chair again.

The questions lingered, what had happened to the evidence of the doctor, the complainant, the inconsistency and contradiction of evidence, was the case really proven beyond reasonable doubt?

Scottsboro Boys with their Lawyer, Mr.Leibowitz

This was a classic example of racism in the justice system. A system that was to judiciously and dutifully do justice was at the center of traversing justice. Here were children trapped in an unjust system not knowing or understanding what is going on around them. They lie miserably in their death cells awaiting their execution. The Jury mind had been clouded with prejudice. The justice system was not an avenue to get to the truth even in the midst of all this contradicting evidence. The judicial system had been turned to a place to perform a legal ritual and bring about results already decided regardless of any testimony or evidence. It was clear that the boys were being killed merely for being Negro.

Due to this prejudices, uncertainties and questions in regards of the trial, Mr. Leibowitz applied for a motion for the Judge to overturn the verdict and order a retrial; on the grounds that the jury had not considered the law and evidence in giving a determination in this case.

(Read on the outcome of the Motion on the next blog)

THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS: ABORTED JUSTICE

The law is designed to protect all persons regardless of their race, social status, religion or sex. But the same law can be used as a tool to perpetuate inhuman and degrading actions. To ensure the law is fair and just, all working democracies have a meticulous Judiciary that is tasked with the duty to interpret the law to reflect the values and principles the society stands for. Through interpretation, the values and principles of a society are sieved, gauged and asserted by courts to inform the future and to invest in the democracy the respect for the intrinsic worth of all human beings. By so doing justice is enforced in the society.

All Courts of justice have the jurisdiction to do justice. However, the judges or people in the justice system are human and are fallible and injustice may be perpetuated. They may cooperate with injustice.  And when the judiciary fails to do justice with the required impartiality to the law and evidence presented to it we experience a justice tragedy.

Such a tragedy happened back in the year 1931.

It was during the verge of the Great depression when the disastrous arm of economic depression and consequently poverty was mercilessly ravishing, causing havoc, derailing, recking lives of people in every corner of America. In an effort to avoid being spectators in their own lives, nine Negro boys aged between 13 to 19 years took initiative and hitched a freight train to travel to Alabama in order to look for work and earn a living and at least alleviate their lives out of poverty.

On the freight train the Negro boys settled in a gondola car (a train car without a top). While in the gondola car a fight broke out between the Negro boys and some white boys who were also in the train. The Negro boys prevailed and threw the white boys out of the train except of one namely, Orville Gilley. The white boys thrown out of the train reported the incident to a nearby police station. The police station telephoned the next train station at Paint Town and informed them of the incidence.

When the train arrived at Paint Town train station, a large crowd had gathered of police and the public. The crowd was hostile and explosive. They had heard what the Negro boys had done to the white boys. A posse was formed and the train was searched. Everyone on it was rounded up, among them the nine Negro boys and a white boy.

Everyone on being removed from the train was asked who they were and what they were doing on a freight train. In the process, two white girls also emerged from the train.  It was odd, what are two white girls doing on a freight train? It was common for boys but girls, more so white girls! The two white girls were Victoria Price and Ruby Bates, on being questioned of what they were doing on the train and if the Negro boys had bothered them, they alleged they had been gang raped by the nine Negro boys.

All hell broke loose. Firestorm ensued. Hot brimstone was ready to be poured on the nine Negro boys. The Negro boys were almost lynched.

At the time, due to racism, the perception was that black Negro man had an insatiable sexual appetite for white women. Just an allegation of a Negro man spoke to a white woman was enough to effect death by torture.

The police intervened and the nine Negro boys were taken to jail and the two white girls were rushed to hospital where they were examined by two doctors, Dr. R. R. Bridges and Dr. Marvin Lynch.

The next day the news headline read: “The case has no parallel in crime history of black beating and raping white.

Six days Later, the nine Negro having been accused of rape, were taken to Court in Scottsboro, and hence the name Scottsboro Boys. At the court they were charged with rape.

They could not afford a lawyer; so a real estate lawyer not familiar with criminal proceedings represented them and spent less than 20 minutes with them and spent them asking them to plead guilty but they pleaded not guilty.  

When the prosecution witnesses were testifying in court the Scottsboro boys lawyer did not bother to cross examine the witnesses or the doctor who had examined the girls and did not give the closing remarks summing up the case. The Scottsboro Boys had no witnesses apart from themselves.

They were convicted and sentenced to death on the electric chair.

They appealed the conviction to the Alabama Supreme Court of the state; the sentence was affirmed; they appealed the case to the Supreme Court of USA, on the ground that they were denied sufficient and adequate Legal counsel during trial. The Supreme Court through a precedent making judgment of Powell v. Alabama passed a judgment to their favor and ordered a retrial stating that “if charged with a crime… a person requires the guiding hand of counsel at every step in the proceedings against him.”

A retrial was ordered.

(Read what happened at the retrial on the next blog)

FILTER BUBBLE: THE DEATH OF FREE WILL?

 Free will is a very important aspect of a free society. It is what you exercise when you are in the Polling Booth alone, choosing which candidate you shall vote for. It is what you exercise in determining where to live, work or who to marry. It is what you exercise in deciding which religion, political party or group you shall join. It is what you exercise in deciding to take one choice over the other without any impediment.

Can you still claim to have free will when your available options of choice have been pre-determined for you without your knowledge? When your choices of friends on social media have been pre-selected for you? When the political ideology you hold has been pre-enforced for you? When the product or services you will purchase has been pre-preference for you? Welcome to the age of the Filter Bubble.

A filter bubble as Eli Pariser would put it “is the creation of an authority around oneself that the information you receive should confirm or be compatible with your own opinion, belief, or wants. Any information that is contrary to you is locked out.”

In this age of technology, a filter bubble is a form of Artificial intelligence that selectively guesses what information an internet user would like to see. A Filer bubble is built by website coders, who by relying on our personal information on various internet platforms such as social media to get information on our age, location, previous searches, sex, political ideology, past choices and preferences, news we read, event we follow etc. to create a logarithm that filter which information we should receive and what should be locked out. This logarithm becomes the “authority”. The authority pre-decides for you (without your knowledge) what information you should access based on your personal information they have collected.  Therefore, when using the internet you end up only having access to information that confirms or is similar to your own personal opinion and contrary opinion is locked out.

The challenge is; it is not you who decides how this “authority” exercises this authority on choosing what to lock out and what to accept in. This is dangerous because first you essentially lose your freewill; you surrender your power to decide which information you get when using the internet to this authority. Secondly, you end up being locked in your own opinion and beliefs without getting another perspective of the issues. Your perspective is left unchallenged since contrary opinion is locked out by this “authority”. This leads to biases or a form of intellectual isolation. Further, you are denied the opportunity to know what information was locked out by this “authority”.

 Consider it this way, Choices and action stem from thoughts. Thoughts are dependent on the information a person is supplied with. Thus, if a person is supplied with given information, their thoughts, and subsequently their choices are influenced. No one is immune from the information received from social media, news and what we read, this factors distorts our understanding and hampers our ability to balance decisions, therefore influencing our choices.

For instance, a logarithm on social media determines which friend suggestions you receive based on your contact list, schools you went, political party you are in, age, locality etc. Therefore you end up being surrounded by people who think or hold the same opinion or belief like you and locks out anyone with a contrary opinion. You therefore live in an illusion that your perspective is correct since everyone holds the same opinion and your internet search confirms the same to be true. Yet, in reality you are in a bubble that only allows information compatible with your perspective to get in.

A Filter bubble is important in this age of information where “censorship works by flooding people with irrelevant information and therefore we are unable to know what to pay attention to and what to ignore and we end up spending most of our time investigating and debating on the authenticity of the information rather than the content of the information. In ancient times power was to have access to data but in current age power is to know what to ignore.” And due to this need to know what to ignore, filter bubble comes to play this noble role.

In this age of technology our personal information on our activities and choices are out there somewhere being processed and shall be used to influence us to buy or use a given product or service or vote for a particular candidate.

 In as much as the filter bubble comes to play this crucial role of limiting the flooding of information to people, we pay it with the high cost of our own free will. Initially internet and social media provided an avenue to get diverse view points, perspective, ideas and opinions leading to a diverse pool of information in decision making but with the creation of the filter bubble logarithms in search engines, social media and other areas; internet is now an area to reinforce our biases.

As Bill Gates would put it, that technology  “lets you go off with like-minded people, so you’re not mixing and sharing and understanding other points of view … It’s super important. It’s turned out to be more of a problem than I, or many others, would have expected.”

In democratic society, democracy works because citizens are able to get views beyond their narrow self-interest and there is a healthy exchange of information but with coming of the filter bubble citizens only receive political information that is similar to theirs and denying them the opinion to hear the contrary opinion of other members in the society.

So as Filter Bubble logarithm continue to take grip of our flow of information, maybe freewill will just be an illusion, and our choices will be predetermined by other parties other than ourselves. This will call upon each person to take initiative to seek contrary opinion of others. It will require legal reform to ensure website coders are ethical in creating these logarithms or else Free will is dead. We need to continuously ask: What obligations does every technology innovation and company have in exchange to the power they have due to the personal information they hold? With every technological advancement, this question needs to be answered.