Recy Taylor
Recy Taylor (''née'' Corbitt; December 31, 1919 – December 28, 2017) was an African-American woman from Abbeville in Henry County, Alabama. She was born and raised in a sharecropping family in the Jim Crow era Southern United States. Taylor's refusal to remain silent about her rape by white men led to organizing in the African-American community for justice and civil rights. On September 3, 1944, Taylor was kidnapped while leaving church and gang-raped by six white men. Despite the men's confessions to authorities, two grand juries subsequently declined to indict the men; no charges were ever brought against her assailants. In 2011, the Alabama Legislature officially apologized on behalf of the state "for its failure to prosecute her attackers." Taylor's rape, refusal to remain silent, and the subsequent court cases were among the early instances of nationwide protest and activism among the African-American community, and ended up providing an organizational spark in t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Abbeville, Alabama
Abbeville is a city in and the county seat of Henry County, in the southeast part of Alabama, United States. It is part of the Dothan, Alabama Metropolitan Statistical Area. At the 2020 census, the population was 2,358. It is the first city alphabetically, both by city and state, in the '' Rand McNally Road Atlas''. It has two high schools: the public Abbeville High School and private Abbeville Christian Academy. Chapters of the Red Cross and Habitat for Humanity operate here. Geography Abbeville is located at (31.566367, -85.251300). The city is located in southeastern Alabama along U.S. Route 431, Alabama State Route 10, and Alabama State Route 27. U.S. 431 runs from north to south along the western side of the city as a four-lane divided highway, leading north to Eufaula and southwest to Dothan. AL-10 runs from west to east through the center of town as Washington Street, and leads east to the Georgia state line near Fort Gaines and northwest to Blue Spr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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State Of The Union
The State of the Union Address (sometimes abbreviated to SOTU) is an annual message delivered by the president of the United States to a joint session of the United States Congress near the beginning of each calendar year on the current condition of the nation. The State of the Union Address generally includes reports on the nation's budget, economy, news, agenda, achievements and the president's priorities and legislative proposals. The address fulfills the requirement in Article II, Section 3, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution for the president to periodically "give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." During most of the country's first century, the president primarily submitted only a written report to Congress. After 1913, Woodrow Wilson, the 28th U.S. president, began the regular practice of delivering the address to Congress in person as a way to rally support ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Firebombing
Firebombing is a bombing technique designed to damage a target, generally an urban area, through the use of fire, caused by incendiary devices, rather than from the blast effect of large bombs. In popular usage, any act in which an incendiary device is used to initiate a fire is often described as a "firebombing". This article is concerned with aerial incendiary bombing as a military tactic; for non-military (almost always criminal) acts, see ''arson''. Although simple incendiary bombs have been used to destroy buildings since the start of gunpowder warfare, World War I saw the first use of strategic bombing from the air to damage the morale and economy of the enemy, such as the German Zeppelin air raids conducted on London during the Great War. The Chinese wartime capital of Chongqing was firebombed by the Imperial Japanese starting in early 1939. London, Coventry, and many other British cities were firebombed during the Blitz by Germany. Most large German cities were extensi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Death Threat
A death threat is a threat, often made anonymously, by one person or a group of people to kill another person or group of people. These threats are often designed to intimidate victims in order to manipulate their behaviour, in which case a death threat could be a form of coercion. For example, a death threat could be used to dissuade a public figure from pursuing a criminal investigation or an advocacy campaign. Legality In most jurisdictions, death threats are a serious type of criminal offence. Death threats are often covered by coercion statutes. For instance, the coercion statute in Alaska says: Methods A death threat can be communicated via a wide range of media, among these letters, newspaper publications, telephone calls, internet blogs and e-mail. If the threat is made against a political figure, it can also be considered treason. If a threat targets a location that is frequented by people (e.g. a building), it could be a terrorist threat. Sometimes, death threats ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Indictment
An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a legal person, person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felony, felonies, the most serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use the felonies concept often use that of an indictable offence, an offence that requires an indictment. Australia Section 80 of the Constitution of Australia provides that "the trial on indictment of any offence against any law of the Commonwealth shall be by jury". The High Court of Australia has consistently used a narrow interpretation of this clause, allowing the Parliament of Australia to define which offences proceed on indictment rather than conferring a universal right to a jury trial. Section 4G of the ''Crimes Act 1914'' provides that "offences against a law of the Commonwealth punishable by imprisonment for a period exceeding 12 months are indictable offences, unless the contrary intention appears". Canada A direct indictment is one in which the ca ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Grand Jury
A grand jury is a jury—a group of citizens—empowered by law to conduct legal proceedings, investigate potential criminal conduct, and determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may subpoena physical evidence or a person to testify. A grand jury is separate from the courts, which do not preside over its functioning. Originating in England during the Middle Ages, grand juries are only retained in two countries, the United States and Liberia. Other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most others now employ a different procedure that does not involve a jury: a preliminary hearing. Grand juries perform both accusatory and investigatory functions. The investigatory functions of grand juries include obtaining and reviewing documents and other evidence, and hearing sworn testimonies of witnesses who appear before it; the accusatory function determines whether there is probable cause to believe that one or more persons committed a particula ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Equal Justice Under Law
Equal justice under law is a phrase engraved on the West Pediment, above the front entrance of the United States Supreme Court building in Washington D.C. It is also a societal ideal that has influenced the American legal system. The phrase was proposed by the building's architects, and then approved by judges of the Court in 1932. It is based upon Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence, and has historical antecedents dating back to ancient Greece. Proposed by architects and approved by justices This phrase was suggested in 1932 by the architectural firm that designed the building. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes and Justice Willis Van Devanter subsequently approved this inscription, as did the United States Supreme Court Building Commission which Hughes chaired (and on which Van Devanter served). The architectural firm that proposed the phrase was headed by Cass Gilbert, though Gilbert himself was much more interested in design and arrangement, than in meaning. Thus, accordi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Committee For Equal Justice
The Committee for Equal Justice (also known as the Committee for Equal Justice for the Rights of Mrs. Recy Taylor) was an organization founded with the goal of assisting black women reclaim their bodies against sexual violence and interracial rape. Recy Taylor and Rosa Parks founded the committee in 1944 after six white men kidnapped and raped Taylor, an African-American woman, as she left her Abbeville, Alabama church. Taylor's case garnered heavy media coverage. With this attention came national support, which led to what the ''Chicago Defender'' called the "strongest campaign for equal justice to be seen in a decade." Committee members formed eighteen chapters across the United States, and included such figures as WEB DuBois, Mary Church Terrell, Oscar Hammerstein II, John Sengstacke and Langston Hughes, among others. Beginnings Close to midnight on September 3, 1944, six white male assailants stopped Recy Taylor, Fannie Daniels, and West Daniels as they returned home from ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chicago Defender
''The Chicago Defender'' is a Chicago-based online African-American newspaper. It was founded in 1905 by Robert S. Abbott and was once considered the "most important" newspaper of its kind. Abbott's newspaper reported and campaigned against Jim Crow-era violence and urged black people in the American South to settle in the north in what became the Great Migration. Abbott worked out an informal distribution system with Pullman porters who surreptitiously (and sometimes against southern state laws and mores) took his paper by rail far beyond Chicago, especially to African American readers in the southern United States. Under his nephew and chosen successor, John H. Sengstacke, the paper dealt with racial segregation in the United States, especially in the U.S. military, during World War II. Copies of the paper were passed along in communities, and it is estimated that at its most successful, each copy was read by four to five people. In 1919–1922, the ''Defender'' attracted t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Rosa Parks
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott. The United States Congress has honored her as "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement". On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks rejected bus driver James F. Blake's order to vacate a row of four seats in the "colored" section in favor of a White passenger, once the "White" section was filled. Parks was not the first person to resist bus segregation, but the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) believed that she was the best candidate for seeing through a court challenge after her arrest for civil disobedience in violating Alabama segregation laws, and she helped inspire the Black community to boycott the Montgomery buses for over a year. The case became bogged down in the state courts, but the federal Montgomery bu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sexual Assault
Sexual assault is an act in which one intentionally sexually touches another person without that person's consent, or coerces or physically forces a person to engage in a sexual act against their will. It is a form of sexual violence, which includes child sexual abuse, groping, rape (forced vaginal, anal, or oral penetration or a drug facilitated sexual assault), or the torture of the person in a sexual manner. Definition Generally, sexual assault is defined as unwanted sexual contact. The National Center for Victims of Crime states: In the United States, the definition of sexual assault varies widely among the individual states. However, in most states sexual assault occurs when there is lack of consent from one of the individuals involved. Consent must take place between two adults who are not incapacitated and consent may change, by being withdrawn, at any time during the sexual act. Types Child sexual abuse Child sexual abuse is a form of child abuse in wh ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Montgomery, Alabama
Montgomery is the capital city of the U.S. state of Alabama and the county seat of Montgomery County. Named for the Irish soldier Richard Montgomery, it stands beside the Alabama River, on the coastal Plain of the Gulf of Mexico. In the 2020 census, Montgomery's population was 200,603. It is the second most populous city in Alabama, after Huntsville, and is the 119th most populous in the United States. The Montgomery Metropolitan Statistical Area's population in 2020 was 386,047; it is the fourth largest in the state and 142nd among United States metropolitan areas. The city was incorporated in 1819 as a merger of two towns situated along the Alabama River. It became the state capital in 1846, representing the shift of power to the south-central area of Alabama with the growth of cotton as a commodity crop of the Black Belt and the rise of Mobile as a mercantile port on the Gulf Coast. In February 1861, Montgomery was chosen the first capital of the Confederate States of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |