Critical Race Theory

 

Titanic

It was midnight on the sea
Band playing, "nearer My God to Thee"
 Cryin' fare thee, Titanic, fare thee well

Titanic, when it got its load,
 Captain hollered, "All aboard"
 Cryin' fare thee, Titanic, fare thee well

Jack Johnson want to get on board,
 Captain said, "I ain't haulin' no coal."
 Cryin' fare thee, Titanic, fare thee well

This Fourth of July is the 111st anniversary of the Fight of the Century in Reno, NV between Black Champion Jack Johnson and Great White Hope, Jim Jeffries.  While there is no record that Johnson was denied boarding on the Titanic as in LeadBelly’s song, clearly his victory was not a cause of joy for all.  Race riots occurred in more than 25 states and 50 cities after the fight. At least twenty people were killed, and hundreds more were injured.  The film of the fight was a major box office draw but its exhibition  provoked a ban on prize fight films by Congress that lasted until 1940.  Jack Johnson married several white women and was convicted of “transporting women across state lines for immoral purposes.”

There were recurring proposals to grant Johnson a posthumous presidential pardon. A bill which requested that President George W. Bush pardon Johnson passed the House in 2008, but failed to pass in the Senate.  In April 2009, Senator John McCain, along with Representative Peter King, film maker Ken Burns and Johnson's great-niece, Linda Haywood, requested a presidential pardon for Johnson from President Barack Obama. In July of that year, Congress passed a resolution calling on President Obama to issue a pardon. In 2016, another petition for Johnson's pardon was issued by McCain, King, Senator Harry Reid and Congressman Gregory Meeks to President Obama.  A provision of the Every Student Succeeds Act expressed that this boxing great should receive a posthumous pardon. A vote by the United States Commission on Civil Rights passed unanimously a week earlier in June 2016 to "right this century-old wrong”.  Mike Tyson, Harry Reid and John McCain lent their support to the campaign asking President Obama to posthumously pardon the world's first African-American boxing champion for his racially motivated 1913 felony conviction. Ironically, it was not President Obama but President Trump who pardoned Johnson in May of 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Johnson_(boxer)

If you did not know all of this, and I admit I did not, then how can you say that Critical Race Theory should not be taught in American classrooms