BLACK PATRIOTS: A 252 YEAR STORY (COVER

Russia’s Political Prisoner

Phoenix Mercury center Brittney Griner, who has played in Russia like many other WNBA stars, tries to power her way past Chicago Sky forward Candace Parker during a game in 2021.

Photo credit: Ralph Freso/AP

Just Another Pawn in The Game

By Kristen Jones

Since basketball star Brittney Griner was arrested in Russia in February 2022 on drug charges, the world has waited with bated breath for nearly six months to see what would happen to her. We’re still not certain.

In August 2022, Griner went from a WNBA “Dunk Champion” to a Russian prisoner for possessing 0.702 grams of cannabis oil in cartridges. And while that may not seem like much to a lot of people, according to officials in Russia, it is “a significant amount” of drugs and warranted the nine-year jail sentence that she received.

Born in 1990, the Texas native has been in the spotlight a lot in her lifetime, having attended Baylor University where she set records for being the only NCAA player to score 2,000 points and have 500 blocks in her career. The three-time All-American was also named the AP Player of the Year and the Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four in 2012. Moreover, Griner is one of only 11 women to win an Olympic gold medal, an NCAA championship, a FIBA World Cup gold medal and a WNBA championship.

While some argue that the star player is being used as a political pawn in the Russia-Ukraine War to punish the United States for siding with Ukraine against Russia, right wingers in the U.S. argue that Griner’s punishment fits the crime, saying that she “carried illegal drugs into Russia” and deserves her sentence. They also claim that her support for

Photo credit: Ap

President Joe Biden has put her in more hot water than she would be in if former President Donald Trump were still in the White House and that he would not have let her remain in captivity this long.

Although it is hard to believe that someone who has won two Olympic gold medals for the U.S. would find herself in this situation in the first place, the use of African Americans as pawns for political agendas is nothing new.

The Prisoner and the Presidential Candidate

On December 4, 1983, for example, in response to two U.S. F-14 aircraft having been fired upon the previous day, 10 A-6 Intruders of the VA-85 Black Falcons along with others participated in a bombing raid over Beirut, Lebanon, leading to an international crisis. During the mission, a U.S. aircraft was hit by a Syrian missile, and its pilot was killed. The other crew member, Navy bombardiernavigator Lt. Robert Goodman, an African American, was injured and captured by Syrian soldiers. He would be held prisoner in Damascus for a month and used by the Syrians to try to end U.S reconnaissance flights over Lebanon and force all U.S. troops to leave the war-torn country.

In January 1984, Jesse Jackson, a black candidate for the Democratic nomination for president that year, negotiated Goodman’s release from Syria after the U.S. government failed to do so. Many marveled at how Jackson was able to accomplish this feat with no ties to the Syrian government. Jackson had, however, previously visited other countries in efforts to foster positive relationships, and his close ties to Africa is believed to have helped him free the prisoner.

On January 4, U.S. President Ronald Reagan welcomed Goodman at the White House hours after he and Jackson arrived back in the U.S. Reagan said Goodman “exemplified qualities of leadership and loyalty” and that Jackson’s “mission of mercy” had “earned our gratitude and our admiration.” In turn, Jackson praised Reagan for sending a letter to Syrian President Hafez al-Assad calling for cooperation in bringing peace to Lebanon.

While Jackson’s efforts were praised by some, they were criticized by others as a political stunt. Some argued that the Syrians had used Goodman and Jackson to embarrass Reagan and weaken support for the U.S. role in Lebanon, while others saw Jackson’s success as proof of his leadership capabilities. Regardless, after his capture, Goodman became a pawn of international players and was simply a piece in their larger political game. (Following his return to the U.S., Goodman remained in active service. In 1995, he retired with the rank of commander and subsequently became a business owner in Colorado Springs, Colo.)

While Goodman’s experience ultimately had a happy ending, we still don’t know the final outcome of Griner’s case? Many people, including her wife, Cherelle Griner, have been vocal about the injustice they believe Griner is suffering.

Long before this incident, Griner faced many challenges, including being bullied as a youth for being different. Also, after she came out as gay to her family, she was rejected and ended up leaving home at a young age. The first openly gay player to receive a Nike endorsement deal, Griner has also faced a lot of unwanted scrutiny over the years. But this is different.

Although she has overcome many obstacles and helped her teams win championships, the Russian legal system and prosecutorial team may be the toughest team she has ever faced.

According to her defense, Russia’s shaky justice system has failed her in several ways. Although the Russian constitution guarantees everyone the right to use their native language and to choose their language of communication, this right was not afforded to Griner, according to one of her lawyers, who said that a translator showed Griner some papers and told her that they meant “basically, you’re guilty.” Her detention at the airport is also argued to be unconstitutional because she was given documents and told to sign them, even though she didn’t understand them. Moreover, Griner said her rights were not explained to her and that no lawyer was present.

Although Griner has stated that she had no intent in possessing the cannabis oil and that she made an honest mistake, that did not sway the court from sentencing her to nine years. While her defense team still has TOP: Captured Navy Lt. Robert Goodman, whose release from Syrian captivity was deftly negotiated by thenpresidential candidate Jesse Jackson, was a political football in 1983 and 1984. Photo credit: Ira Schwarz/AP

BOTTOM: Will Griner be traded for convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout? Time will tell. Photo credit: DEA

10 days from her sentencing to appeal the court’s decision, once again the world is waiting to see what the outcome will be.

Unfortunately, the current political climate heavily influences the judgment of both governments and individuals regarding Griner’s guilt or innocence and the justice or injustice of her sentence. Like Goodman, Griner is caught up in an international chess game much larger than herself and far beyond her control. WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver have expressed their thoughts on the case, and they aren’t alone. President Biden has joined the fight for a potential prisoner exchange for convicted Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout, and if he is able to pull it off, she could come home a free woman soon. Otherwise…

At press time, Griner’s trade for Bout, which might include other imprisoned Americans such as Paul Whelan, was still being negotiated between the U.S. State Department and the Russian government.

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A 4th regiment United States Colored Troops Civil War flag. In August of 1863, the “Colored Ladies of Baltimore” presented this hand-painted, hand-sewn silk flag to the Fourth Regiment of United States Colored Troops. It is one of only twenty-five U.S.C.T. flags known to survive today The silk flag was carried in the 1864 Battle of New Market Heights, outside of Richmond, Virginia.

Black Patriots A 252Year Story

A Photo Essay

By Lorraine Jones

In our society, it seems as if African American history is simply the missing pages of American history that many simply want to ignore, rewrite or erase. This is especially true when it comes to black patriotism.

Although they were enslaved and have been treated unjustly in the United States for hundreds of years, black Americans have time and time again put their lives on the line to preserve the American Experiment. While African American soldiers have distinguished themselves in battle on numerous occasions, have been at the forefront of numerous U.S. victories, and have been among the most courageous veterans, they are seldom referred to or treated as heroes. Much of American history hasn’t reflected the nation’s purported core values of equality and justice for all citizens. That contradiction is one reason many activists such as the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick kneel during the national anthem to protest the treatment of the black community.

In a speech in 1852, Frederick Douglass once asked, “What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?” This question still holds relevance today. With all the modern injustice and systemic racism that African Americans face, it makes you wonder what patriotism should mean to the black American. Throughout history, black soldiers and veterans have returned home

from war to find the same socioeconomic inequities and racist violence that they faced before enlisting. Despite the ultimate sacrifices they make when they put their lives on the line for their nation, black veterans still struggle to get hired for well-paying jobs, encounter segregation, and endure targeted brutality once they return home to U.S. soil.

Soldiers are often viewed as black first and veterans second. Despite all their advancements, the awards and ribbons on their chest, and achieving the highest ranks in the military and in political life, African Americans are still treated as if they have something to prove. Black patriots are continuously defending and serving a country that in turn denies them their basic rights as citizens.

Black soldiers have historically been an asset to the U.S. military since they were officially allowed to participate in the Civil War in 1863 after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. Douglass, one of the most notable abolitionists, had urged President Abraham Lincoln to free the slaves and arm all black people willing to fight. Lincoln’s decisions to do so helped lead to the overall Union victory in the war.

Regardless of their eagerness to serve, black Americans have systematically been denied their rights as citizens and as veterans. In 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the G.I. Bill of Rights, social legislation intended to avert mass unemployment among returning veterans and a postwar depression by offering veterans unemployment insurance, tuition assistance, job placement, and guaranteed loans for homes, farms or businesses. This influenced many African Americans to enlist with the hopes that it would propel black servicemen into the middle class. But because the bill was race neutral, discrimination toward African Americans found its way through loopholes in the legislation. The bill’s benefits such as owning a home or property that would’ve helped establish generational wealth for veterans’ families weren’t given to 1.2 million African Americans who served, denying them the opportunity to create economic security and causing the wealth gap between whites and African Americans to increase. Black Americans enlisted with the hopes of achieving racial equality through their commitment to military service but instead were met with physical violence and social and political disparities during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

It is not a simple feat to be an African American patriot in a country that has enslaved your ancestors, continuously reminds you that you are a secondclass citizen, and perpetuates a system of racial inequality to this day, yet, through it all, we have still risen. Black patriotism continues to remain unwavering. Black people’s steady belief in democracy and civil liberties in the face of adversity shows true patriotism. ABOVE: On the evening of March 5, 1770, British troops

fired into a crowd of angry American colonists in Boston. Five colonists were killed including Crispus Attucks. The event, which became known as the Boston Massacre, helped fuel the outrage against British rule—and spurred on the American Revolution.

BELOW: Crispus Attucks is referred to as the first

casualty of the American Revolution. Attucks has been celebrated not just as one of the first martyrs in what became the fight for American independence, but also as a symbol of African Americans’ struggle for freedom and equality.

Photos credit: Bettmann/Getty Images

American Revolution (1770-1781)

Present at the Birth of a Nation

Crispus Attucks, a man of African and Native American descent, is referred to as the first casualty of the American Revolution. As the first American to die during the confrontation between British troops and colonists at the Boston

Massacre in 1770, Attucks is now used to symbolize African American patriotism, sacrifice, and citizenship, but that wasn’t how he was originally treated. During the trial of the British soldiers who killed him, the defense attorney, John Adams, vilified Attucks as a disreputable outsider “to whose mad behavior ... the dreadful carnage of that night is chiefly to be ascribed.” Others during that time referred to Attucks and the other massacre victims as patriotic martyrs and symbols of British abuses but did not acknowledge his race.

Civil War (1861-1865)

The Fight for Freedom and Survival

Black soldiers first became prevalent in 1863 when the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, an all-black regiment of the Union Army, was activated. The infantry consisted of more than 1,000 soldiers, many of whom were former slaves. Although African Americans were given false promises of equal treatment, they were instead relegated to separate regiments commanded by white officers, received less pay than white soldiers, got inferior benefits, were given lower-quality food and equipment, were overlooked for promotions, and were given inferior medical care. They endured the abuse of racist surgeons and lost countless lives to unequal hospital facilities. As a result, nine times as many African American troops died of disease such as pneumonia, dysentery, typhoid fever and malaria than on the battlefield. These soldiers participated in the war effort at great risk. The Confederate government threatened to execute or sell into slavery any black Union soldiers who were captured.

Medal of Honor Recipients*

Aaron Anderson, Navy, at Mattox

Creek, Va., 1865 Bruce Anderson, Army, Second

Battle of Fort Fisher, N.C., 1865 William H. Barnes, Army, Battle of Chaffin’s Farm, Va., 1864 Powhatan Beaty, Army, Battle of

Chaffin’s Farm, Va., 1864 Robert Blake, Navy, off Legareville in the Stono River, Johns

Island, S.C., 1863 James H. Bronson, Army, Battle of

Chaffin’s Farm, Va., 1864 William H. Brown, Navy, Battle of

Mobile Bay, Ala., 1864 William Harvey Carney, Army,

Battle of Mobile Bay, Ala., 1864 Decatur Dorsey, Army, Battle of the Crater, Petersburg, Va., 1864 Thomas English, Navy,

Aboard USS New Ironsides, First and Second Battles of Fort

Fisher, N.C., 1865 Christian Fleetwood, Army,

Battle of Chaffin’s Farm, Va., 1864 James Daniel Gardner, Army,

Battle of Chaffin’s Farm, Va., 1864 James H. Harris, Army, Battle of

Chaffin’s Farm, Va., 1864 Thomas R. Hawkins, Army, Battle of Deep Bottom, Va., 1864 Alfred B. Hilton, Army, Battle of

Chaffin’s Farm, Va., 1864 Milton M. Holland, Army, Battle of Chaffin’s Farm, Va., 1864 Miles James, Army, Battle of

Chaffin’s Farm, Va., 1864 Alexander Kelly, Army, Battle of

Chaffin’s Farm, Va., 1864 John Henry Lawson, Navy, Battle of Mobile Bay, Ala., 1864 James Mifflin, Navy, Battle of

Mobile Bay, Ala., 1864 Joachim Pease, Navy, off Cherbourg, France, 1864

American Plains Indians referred to the black cavalry troops as “buffalo soldiers” because of their dark, curly hair, which resembled a buffalo’s coat and because of their fierce nature of fighting. The nickname soon became synonymous with all AfricanAmerican regiments formed in 1866.

BOVE: Buffalo Soldiers by Don Stivers

RIGHT: 2nd Lieutenant 9th Calvary by Bobb Vann

Robert Pinn, Army, Battle of

Chaffin’s Farm, Va., 1864 Edward Ratcliff, Army, Battle of

Chaffin’s Farm, Va., 1864 Andrew Jackson Smith, Army,

Battle of Honey Hill, S.C., 1864 Charles Veale, Army, Battle of

Chaffin’s Farm, Va., 1864

Indian Wars/Spanish-American War (1866-1911)

Patriotism, Adventure, Imperialism

Following the civil war, six all-black cavalry and infantry regiments were established after Congress passed the Army Reorganization Act in 1866. Many Native Americans who fought them in the Indian Wars referred to black soldiers as “Buffalo Soldiers” because of their dark, curly hair, which resembled a buffalo’s coat and because of their fierceness in battle. This name became synonymous with all African American regiments formed in 1866.

The primary purpose of the Buffalo Soldiers was to help build infrastructure, protect white settlers, and fight the Native Americans on the U.S.’s Western frontier. In addition to their military obligations, these soldiers served as some of the first caretakers of the national parks.

In 1898, Buffalo Soldiers also participated in the Battle of San ABOVE: African American soldiers in quarantine at

Camp Wikoff, Montauk, after the Spanish American war. Many were recovering from battle wounds, yellow fever, malaria and typhoid.

Juan Hill in Cuba alongside Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, some of whom were black, enabling the U.S. to win the war. Five of them earned the Medal of Honor for their heroism.

African Americans’ involvement in U.S. wars became controversial in the black community, however, as Jim Crow laws in the U.S. deprived blacks of their rights and, allowed institutional discrimination and race-based violence to terrorize African Americans, especially in the South.

Medal of Honor Recipients

Thomas Boyne, Army, Mimbres

Mountains and near Ojo

Caliente, N.M., 1879 Benjamin Brown, Army, Ariz., 1889 John Denny, Army, Las Animas

Canyon, N.M., 1879 Pompey Factor, Army, Pecos

River, Texas, 1875 Clinton Greaves, Army, Florida

Mountains, Luna County, N.M., 1877 Henry Johnson, Army, Milk

River, Colo., 1879 George Jordan, Army, Fort

Tularosa and Carrizo

Canyon, N.M., 1881 Isaiah Mays, Army, Cedar

Springs, Ariz., 1889 William McBryar, Army, Salt

River, north of Globe, Ariz., 1890 Adam Paine, Army, Canyon

Blanco, Staked Plains, Texas (Red River War), 1874 Isaac Payne, Army, Pecos

River, Texas, 1875 Thomas Shaw, Army, Carrizo

Canyon, Cuchillo Negro

Mountains, N.M., 1881 Emanuel Stance, Army, Kickapoo

Springs, Texas, 1870 Augustus Walley, Army, Cuchillo

Negro Mountains, N.M., 1881 John Ward, Army, Pecos

River, Texas, 1875 Moses Williams, Army, Cuchillo

Negro Mountains, N.M., 1875 William Othello Wilson, Army,

Sioux Campaign, 1890 Brent Woods, Army, Gavilan

Canyon, N.M., 1881 Edward Baker Jr., Army, at

Santiago, Cuba, 1898 Dennis Bell, Army, Battle of

Tayacoba, Cuba, 1898 Fitz Lee, Army, Battle of

Tayacoba, Cuba, 1898 Robert Penn, Navy, On board the

USS Iowa off Santiago de Cuba, 1898 William H. Thompkins, Battle of

Tayacoba, Cuba, 1898 George H. Wanton, Battle of

Tayacoba, Cuba, 1898