mation as well as the often-ignored role of black contributors in advancing freedom in the United States.
“Harry Briggs warrants his due, too,” Kennedy said. He was
a “very modest man, worked in a gas station. His wife was a maid in motels. When it became public that he was the plaintiff in the case, his boss came to him and said, ‘Harry, we’ve gotten along fine, but I’m not going to be able to keep you on if you don’t get off this case.’ And he didn’t get off the case. And he was fired. As was his wife. They went through all sorts of hell. He and many of the other people associated with the plaintiffs in that case were literally run out of South Carolina.” Similarly, Kennedy noted in regard to the Emancipation Proclamation, “Lincoln was important. There were a wide variety of actors that were important. But don’t forget the slaves. The slaves who at the first opportunity they had lit out for the Union lines and surprised everyone in doing that. They had a role in shaping history, too, and that should be remembered.” Kennedy asserted that both documents “are read all too in-
Macarena dancing breaks out at the EJF Auction.
frequently. They are actually, both of them, strikingly boring. They are devoid of poetry. They are full of legalese. There are no drums beating, there is no trumpet sounding in either one of
EJF Raises Cool $50,000
ecutive order, a war measure, declaring that certain slaves
with Bids on Breakdancing Lessons and Jimmy Fallon Tickets
in the United States will be free. It freed three million slaves,
The items were going, going and then gone
them. And so when people suggest otherwise, either they never read them, or if they have read them, they’ve read them under the power of suggestion.” The Emancipation Proclamation, he said, is simply an ex-
but 800,000 slaves in the Union states of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland and Missouri, and Tennessee were not freed. The Proclamation “doesn’t talk about slavery at all, or freedom at all,” Kennedy said. In Brown v. Board of Education there is no denunciation of segregation. “It struck down du jure segregation in primary and in public schools, which was a big deal, but not everywhere,” Kennedy said. “In each case, they were undertaken with extreme caution because of the power of racism,” Kennedy said. “Both were extremely important advances in the struggle for racial desegregation in America. I’m not seeking to disparage them. I just want to look at them realistically.”
for a good cause. Items ranging from a Maine lobster dinner to four tickets and VIP passes for a Smashing Pumpkins/Blind Melon concert in Veracruz, Mexico, were up for bid at the Equal Justice Foundation Auction (EJF), held in February, which raised more than $50,000 for public interest programs.
The EJF Auction raises money for grants to support students’
summer work at nonprofit organizations, and awards stipends to graduates who intend to do public interest work.
A sampling of auction items:
• A catered dinner for six in the Dean’s office with deans Gary Clinton and Michael Fitts
• Two tickets to a New York Giants football game on the fifth row of the 15-yard line Auction Items continued on page 12
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