June 18, 1923: The Conviction of Marcus Garvey

June 18, 1923: Marcus Garvey is convicted of mail fraud in federal court in New York. At the time, he was regarded as the most famous black person in the world. Were he not, he probably wouldn't even have been arrested. 

Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. was born on August 17, 1887 in Saint Ann's Bay, Jamaica. Jamaica was a British colony from 1655 to 1962. Garvey was born into a moderately prosperous Afro-Jamaican family, and was apprenticed into the print trade as a teenager. Working in the colonial capital (now the national capital) of Kingston, he became involved in trade unionism.

He later lived briefly in Costa Rica, Panama, and England. On returning to Jamaica, he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (usually abbreviated to "UNIA") on July 15, 1914. In 1916, he moved to the United States, and established a UNIA branch in New York City's Harlem, which was completing its process of changing from a German and Italian neighborhood to a black one.

Emphasizing unity between Africans and the African diaspora, Garvey campaigned for an end to European colonial rule in Africa, and advocated the political unification of the continent. He envisioned a unified Africa as a one-party state, governed by himself, that would enact laws to ensure black racial purity.

Although he never visited the continent, he was committed to the Back-to-Africa movement, arguing that part of the diaspora should migrate there. Garveyist ideas became increasingly popular, and the UNIA grew in membership.

His black separatist views led him to build a relationship with white racists, like the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), in the interest of advancing their shared goal of racial separatism. He appreciated that they didn't hide their racism, saying:

I regard the Klan, the Anglo-Saxon clubs and White American societies, as far as the Negro is concerned, as better friends of the race than all other groups of hypocritical whites put together. I like honesty and fair play.

This caused a division between Garvey and other prominent African-American civil rights activists, such as W.E.B. Du Bois, who promoted racial integration. Labor leader A. Philip Randolph, early in his career, publicly criticized Garvey.

Believing that black people needed to be financially independent from white-dominated societies, Garvey launched various businesses in the U.S., including the Negro Factories Corporation and a newspaper, the Negro World. In 1919, he became President of the Black Star Line shipping and passenger company, designed to forge a link between North America and Africa and facilitate African-American migration to the African nation of Liberia, which was founded by former slaves.

In October 1919, George Tyler, a part-time vendor of the Negro World, entered the UNIA office, and fired 4 shots with a .38-caliber revolver. Garvey received 2 bullets, in his right leg and his scalp, but he survived. Tyler was soon apprehended, but committed suicide by leaping from the third-tier of the Harlem jail. Garvey soon recovered from his wounds, and gave a public speech in Philadelphia 5 days later.

In January 1922, Garvey was arrested and charged with mail fraud, for having advertised the sale of stocks in a ship, Orion, which the Black Star Line did not yet own. Garvey spoke out against the charges he faced, but focused on blaming not the state, but rival African-American groups, for them. As well as accusing disgruntled former members of UNIA, in a Liberty Hall speech, he implied that the NAACP were behind the conspiracy to imprison him. The mainstream press picked up on the charge, largely presenting Garvey as a con artist who had swindled African-American people.

Having been postponed at least three times, in May 1923, the trial finally came to court, with Garvey and 3 other defendants accused of mail fraud. Garvey's attorney, Cornelius McDougald, urged him to plead guilty to secure a minimum sentence, but Garvey refused, dismissing McDougald, and deciding to represent himself in court.

Garvey struggled due to his lack of legal training. In his three-hour closing address, he presented himself as a selfless leader, who was beset by incompetent and thieving staff, who caused all the problems for UNIA and the Black Star Line. On June 18, the jurors retired to deliberate on the verdict, returning after 10 hours. They found Garvey himself guilty of a scheme to defraud, but found his 3 co-defendants not guilty.

Garvey was furious with the verdict, shouting abuse in the courtroom and calling both the Judge and the District Attorney "damned dirty Jews." (Judge Julian Mack was Jewish, but D.A. Joab Banton was not.) This was different: He had previously been supportive of Zionism, and had never previous expressed anti-Semitic views.

(By 1933, he was again supportive, writing, "The Jewish race is a noble one, and the Jew is only persecuted because he has certain qualities of progress that other people have not learnt." He even denounced the Nazis.)

Garvey remained free on appeal. At least temporarily a free man, Garvey toured the U.S., giving a lecture at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. In speeches given during this tour, he further emphasized the need for racial segregation through migration to Africa, calling the United States "a white man's country."

In February 1925, his appeal was denied, and he was taken to the federal prison in Atlanta, to begin a 5-year sentence. In 1927, President Calvin Coolidge commuted his sentence, on the condition that he be deported. He returned to Jamaica, but was not well-received there, and left in 1935, moving to London, where he told a friend that he had "left Jamaica a broken man, broken in spirit, broken in health and broken in pocket... and I will never, never, never go back."

For the next 5 years, he continued to speak out for pan-Africanism, but ran afoul of other black civil rights groups, including when he criticized Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia following Italy's invasion of that nation in 1935. Well overweight, his health was not good. In 1940, he suffered a series of strokes, the last of them ending his life on June 10, at the age of 52.

He was survived by his 2nd wife, Amy Jacques, who had written for his various publications, and lived until 1973. They had 2 sons, both born in Jamaica. Marcus Jacques Garvey, known as Marcus Garvey Jr., was born in 1930, became a lawyer, founded the African Nationalist Union in 1968, served as President of the UNIA from 1992 to 2004, and lived until 2020. Dr. Julius Garvey, born in 1933, became a thoracic surgeon and a hospital administrator. As of June 18, 2022, he is still alive.

In 1926, George Weston succeeded Garvey in a UNIA Convention Election, becoming the second elected President-General of the UNIA, Inc. Many Garvey supporters were angered, and split off into rival entities such as the "Garvey Clubs" and other organizations, based on members' differing interpretation of the original aims and objects of the UNIA. Officially, the UNIA, Inc. is still operating.

Like many other radical figures, once dead and no longer able to disappoint his followers, Garvey has become a hero to black groups. He is a national hero in his native Jamaica, founding President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana looked to him as a role model, and Martin Luther King laid a wreath on Garvey's grave in Kingston in 1965.

On 4 occasions growing up, I was hospitalized at the Hospital for Joint Diseases at 123rd Street and Madison Avenue in New York's Harlem. (There is still a medical facility there, but much of the building has been converted into apartments.) Across Madison Avenue, there was a park, originally named Mount Morris Park, named for Founding Father Robert Morris. In 1973, it was renamed Marcus Garvey Park.

UPDATE: On his last full day in office, January 19, 2025, President Joe Biden pardoned Garvey for his mail fraud conviction.

*

June 18, 1923 was a Monday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Detroit Tigers, 10-3 at the original Yankee Stadium, which had opened 2 months earlier. Ken Holloway outpitched Waite Hoyt. Babe Ruth went 1-for-4 with an RBI. 3rd baseman Joe Dugan went 4-for-4. Ty Cobb, by this point also the Tigers' manager, went 2-for-5 with a home run.

* The New York Giants beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 4-1 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Frankie Frisch went 3-for-4 with a walk and an RBI.

* The Brooklyn Robins (as the Dodgers were known from 1914 to 1931, while Wilbert Robinson was managing them) lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 6-3 at Redland Field (later renamed Crosley Field) in Cincinnati. Zack Wheat went 1-for-4.

* The St. Louis Browns swept a doubleheader from the Boston Red Sox, 6-2 and 9-0 at Fenway Park in Boston. Elam Vangilder pitched a 3-hit shutout in the 2nd game. George Sisler, the Browns' best player, missed the entire season due to sinus issues.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 6-5 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Eddie Collins went 2-for-5 with 2 RBIs.

* The Washington Senators beat the Cleveland Indians, 4-3 at Griffith Stadium in Washington. Jim O'Neill singled Bucky Harris home with the winning run in the bottom of the 13th inning. Tris Speaker went 0-for-5 with a walk, but had an RBI with a groundout. Walter Johnson of the Senators and Stan Coveleski of the Indians both went the distance.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Boston Braves, 8-3 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.

* And the Chicago Cubs beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 9-3 at Cubs Park (later renamed Wrigley Field) in Chicago.

June 2, 1956: Harry Belafonte Releases "Calypso"

June 2, 1956: Harry Belafonte releases his album Calypso. It makes him one of the biggest stars in America.

Harold George Bellanfanti, Jr. was born on March 1, 1927 in Manhattan. His parents were Caribbean immigrants. One of his grandfathers was a Dutch Jew. In other words, he was ingrained in America's, and indeed in New York City's, history before he could understand what that meant. He found out, and embraced it.

He served in the U.S. Navy in World War II. Upon his return, he met Sidney Poitier, another struggling young Caribbean-American actor then. Unable to afford one tickets to plays, they would purchase one, one would see the first act, tell the other about it at intermission, and the other would see the second act, and tell the first man about it afterward.

In 1952, after singing with Charlie Parker (whose band then included Miles Davis and Max Roach), he got a recording contract. In 1954, he starred with Dorothy Dandridge in Carmen Jones, an adaptation of Georges Bizet's Carmen with an all-black cast.

In 1956, Calypso, with its Caribbean themes, became the 1st album by a soloist to sell over 1 million copies. Many of its songs were written and arranged by William Attaway, a black novelist and songwriter. Some were written by Irving Burgie, a songwriter known as Lord Burgess.

"Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)" became one of the most familiar songs in the world, turned into parodies and sports-team chants all over the world. "Jamaica Farewell" became a standard. So did "Man Smart (Woman Smarter)," with its chant that "The woman is... smar-ter! Smarter than the man in ev-e-ry way!"

Amazingly, Belafonte was able to record and release a song titled "Brown Skin Girl," which, like "Man Smart (Woman Smarter)," was written by traditional calypso singer Norman Span. Even more amazing, he got away with recording a song titled "The Jack-Ass Song," co-written by Burgess and Attaway.

Grownups, already sick of rock and roll and hoping it was just a fad, were hoping that calypso would be the fad that chased rock and roll away. It didn't, although Belafonte had more hits in the style, including "Mama Look at Bubu," and many groups recorded the Caribbean-inflected "Marianne."

In early 1957, Belafonte released the album An Evening With Belafonte, which had more traditional songs like "Hava Nagila" (spelled "Hava Nageela" on this album), "Danny Boy" and "Shenandoah." On December 10, 1959, his TV special "Tonight with Belafonte" aired on CBS. This special, also featuring black singers Odetta, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, made him the 1st black person to win an Emmy Award.

Naturally, he went into the Civil Rights Movement, and was at the March On Washington in 1963. He's never stopped singing or fighting, and is probably wondering why he still has to do this stuff at age 90. His daughter, Shari Belafonte, also became a renowned actor.

UPDATE: He died on April 25, 2023.

*

June 2, 1956 was a Saturday. Baseball star Pedro Guerrero was born. And These baseball games were played:

* The New York Giants lost to the Cincinnati Redlegs (as the Reds were known from 1953 to 1959), 5-2 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. The Reds scored 4 runs in the bottom of the 8th inning to win it. Rookie Frank Robinson went 1-for-3. Willie Mays went 0-for-3 with a walk.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers were swept in a doubleheader by to the Chicago Cubs, 8-1 and 5-4 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. In the opener, Don Kaiser outpitched Carl Erskine. In the nightcap, Bob Rush outpitched Don Newcombe, though Newcombe went 2-for-4 with an RBI. Over the 2 games, Ernie Banks went 2-for-9. Duke Snider went 1-for-6 with 2 walks. Jackie Robinson did not play in either game.

* The Kansas City Athletics beat the Boston Red Sox, 11-3 at Fenway Park in Boston. Ted Williams went 0-for-4.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Washington Senators, 15-0 at Griffith Stadium in Washington. Herb Score struck out 13, but walked 8, keeping a 3-hit shutout, and outpitching George Stone. Eddie Yost had 2 of the Senators' hits, and future Hall-of-Fame manager Whitey Herzog had the other.

Sam Mele, who went on to manage the Senators franchise, as the Minnesota Twins, to the 1965 American League Pennant, went 3-for-5 with a home run, a walk, and 4 RBIs. Jim Hegan hit a grand slam. Vic Wertz and rookie Rocky Colavito also homered for the Tribe.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Milwaukee Braves, 4-2 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Roberto Clemente did not play. Hank Aaron went 0-for-3 with an RBI.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-4 at the first Busch Stadium (formerly the last Sportsman's Park) in St. Louis. Richie Ashburn went 2-for-4 with a walk and 3 RBIs. Stan Musial went 1-for-5.

* The New York Yankees and the Detroit Tigers were rained out at Yankee Stadium. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader the next day. The Tigers swept, 6-3 and 7-4. Billy Hoeft went the distance for the win in the opener, while Whitey Ford didn't get out of the 5th inning. Yogi Berra did not play.

Don Larsen started the nightcap, and got home runs from Yogi and Eddie Robinson, but Tom Morgan fell apart in the top of the 10th inning. Over the 2 games, Mickey Mantle went 2-for-8, and Al Kaline went 1-for-7 with 3 walks and an RBI.

* And the Baltimore Orioles and the Chicago White Sox were rained out at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. This game was also made up as part of a doubleheader the next day. The White Sox swept, 12-0 and 9-2. Dick Donovan pitched a 7-hit shutout in the 1st game. Dave Philley and Sherm Lollar each had 4 hits.

May 30, 1927: The Ku Klux Klan Rally In Queens

May 30, 1927: On this Memorial Day, a national holiday, the Ku Klux Klan marched in Queens to protest that "Native-born Protestant Americans" were being "assaulted by Roman Catholic police of New York City."

What, you thought the KKK only hated black people? They hate Catholics and Jews, too. In fact, given the way they treated the Governor of the State of New York, Alfred E. Smith, it could legitimately be argued that, in the 1920s, hating Catholics was a higher priority for them than hating blacks. Maybe not in the South, but definitely in the North.

According to an article in The New York Times, "1,000 white-robed Klansmen marched through the Jamaica neighborhood, eventually spurring an all-out brawl in which seven men were arrested."

Among those arrested, the article identifies a man with the name and address of the home of Fred Trump, in the Queens neighborhood of Jamaica. The article details the charges filed against six of the men. However, it does not identify any charges against Fred Trump, and merely states that he "was discharged."

The Times article did not say that Fred Trump was a member, or even a supporter, of the KKK, or whether he was a bystander, falsely accused or otherwise the victim of mistaken identity during the chaotic event.

A contemporaneous article from another newspaper, the Daily Star, noted that Fred Trump was detained "on a charge of refusing to disperse from a parade when ordered to do so."

Frederick Christ Trump -- and that's pronounced "Krihst," not "Krighst" like in Jesus' title -- was born on October 11, 1905, in The Bronx, meaning he was 21 years old at the time of the arrest. Although both of his parents were born in Germany -- Fred's grandfather had changed the name from "Drumpf" -- long after World War II, Fred told people that his family was of Swedish origin. According to his nephew John Walter, "He had a lot of Jewish tenants, and it wasn't a good thing to be German in those days."

He went into the real estate business, owning apartment buildings in Queens and Brooklyn. In 1950, folksinger Woody Guthrie rented one of Fred Trump's buildings, and wrote a song titled "Old Man Trump" (Fred was 45, 7 years older than Guthrie), about how he stirred up racial hate "in the bloodpot of human hearts."

In 1954, Fred was investigated by a U.S. Senate committee for profiteering from public contracts, including overstating his Beach Haven building charges by $3.7 million -- about $40 million in 2022 money. He ended up not being charged.

He was listed as chairman of The Trump Organization. His son Donald, born on June 14, 1946, would become the Organization's president. On October 16, 1973, 27-year-old Donald's name appeared in The New York Times for the 1st time. It was in an article about how the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit against the Trump Organization, charging them with violating the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Within 2 years, the case was settled, with both sides claiming victory.

But think about that for a moment: The U.S. Department of Justice. The federal government. In 1973. This means that Fred and Donald Trump were, officially, too racist for Richard Nixon.

Donald was not Fred's oldest child: That would be Maryanne Trump Barry, who became a federal Judge appointed by, oddly, President Bill Clinton. Unlike her father and her brother, she has never been accused of any impropriety.

Nor was Donald Fred's oldest son. That was Frederick Christ Trump Jr. But being the eldest son and the namesake didn't help Freddy. He wasn't strong like his father. He was weak. Weak enough to become an alcoholic. (This is known, as opposed to Donald's addictions to the drugs cocaine and Adderall, which remain, for the moment, pure speculation.)

Freddy became a pilot with Trans World Airlines. (Another company associated with the Trumps that has since gone out of business, although I don't think any member of the family can be blamed for it.) As far as I know, there was never an incident of him flying drunk. Nevertheless, Freddy died in 1981, at age 43, as a result of complications of his drinking.

For this reason, Donald not only swore off alcohol -- except for his brief marketing of Trump Vodka, which apparently didn't wash Trump Steaks down well -- but learned to be the strong, tough son for his father that Freddy wasn't.

The results speak for themselves: Donald merely talks tough, but is truly a bigoted, whiny little bitch. Just like his daddy was.

From his father, Donald learned that discrimination was okay, and that you had to be strong, and fight every perceived slight.

By the time Donald married Marla Maples in 1993, by which point he had become one of the most famous (but not, as he claimed, one of the richest) people in America, Fred had begun to fall victim to Alzheimer's disease. He died on June 25, 1999, at the age of 93.

Is there any publicly known proof that Fred Trump was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, or even a sympathizer? No. Is there evidence? Yes. Certainly, the amount of evidence gathered since 1927 suggests that, at the very least, he shared their views toward black people.

When asked about the issue in September 2015 by The New York Times, Donald lied, and denied that his father had been arrested:

He was never arrested. He has nothing to do with this. This never happened. This is nonsense and it never happened...

This never happened. Never took place. He was never arrested, never convicted, never even charged. It's a completely false, ridiculous story. He was never there! It never happened. Never took place.

But it did. Whatever Fred Trump had done, 88 Memorial Days earlier, he had been arrested.

Criminal behavior, like bigotry, cruelty and cowardice, runs in the Trump family.

*

May 30, 1927 was a Monday -- but, at the time, that was not a given: May 30 had been Memorial Day in America since 1868, and it wasn't until 1968 that it became, by law, the last Monday in May, and thus a 3-day weekend.

As was once traditional, baseball teams played doubleheaders on Memorial Day. This time, all 16 teams then in the major leagues played them:

* The New York Yankees split with the Philadelphia Athletics at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. The A's won the opener, 9-8. Lefty Grove went the distance, but George Pipgras didn't get out of the 3rd inning. The  Yankees won the nightcap, 6-5. Babe Ruth won it with a home run in the top of the 11th inning, the 14th of 60 home runs he would hit that season.

Over the 2 games, Ruth went 4-for-9 with 2 walks and 2 RBIs, Lou Gehrig went 5-for-10 with a walk and 5 RBIs; and Ty Cobb, running out the string with the A's, went 1-for-6 with 6 walks.

* A weird doubleheader was played at the Polo Grounds. The 1st game had a football score: The New York Giants beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 14-10. The 2nd game had a soccer score: The Phillies won, 1-0. For the Giants, Rogers Hornsby went 2-for-5 with 2 walks and 2 RBIs, Bill Terry went 2-for-9 with 3 RBIs, and Mel Ott went 0-for-3 with 2 walks in the 1st game and sat out the 2nd game.

* The Brooklyn Robins -- as the Dodgers were known from 1914 to 1931, while Wilbert Robinson was their manager -- swept the Boston Braves, 5-2 and 6-2 at Braves Field in Boston. Babe Herman went 0-for-3 in the 1st game, but 3-for-5 with 4 RBIs in the 2nd game.

* The Washington Senators swept the Boston Red Sox, 3-0 and 13-5 at Griffith Stadium in Washington. Walter Johnson pitched a 3-hit shutout in the 1st game. Having started the season injured, this was his 1st appearance, and it was his 113th career shutout, still far and away a major league record. It was his last. And it was his 413th career win, still far and away an American League record, and 2nd only to Cy Young overall. He would win 4 more games, and made his last major league appearance on September 30 of that year -- as a pinch-hitter, against the Yankees, in the same game where Ruth his his 60th homer.

* There was a split at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. The Chicago Cubs won the 1st game, 7-6. Their shortstop, Jimmy Cooney, turned an unassisted triple play in the bottom of the 4th inning, off a line drive by Paul Waner. Hack Wilson singled Sparky Adams home with the winning run in the top of the 10th inning. The Pittsburgh Pirates won the 2nd game, 6-5. This game also went 10 innings, and Joe Harris singled Glenn Wright home with the winning run.

* There was a split at Navin Field in Detroit. (It was renamed Briggs Stadium in 1938, and Tiger Stadium in 1961.) The Cleveland Indians won the 1st game, 9-8. The Detroit Tigers won the 2nd game, 11-3.

* There was a split at Comiskey Park in Chicago. The St. Louis Browns won the 1st game, 11-3. The Chicago White Sox won the 2nd game, 10-0. Alphonse "Tommy" Thomas pitched a 7-hit shutout.

* And the St. Louis Cardinals swept the Cincinnati Reds, 6-3 and 3-1 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.

May 11, 1981: Bob Marley Dies

May 11, 1981: Bob Marley discovers that God not only likes his music, but has no problem with marijuana.

Robert Nesta Marley was born on February 6, 1945 in Nine Mile, Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica. By 1964, he was a recorded singer on his home island. With his band The Wailers, he became a pioneer of reggae music, and helped to popularize the black-oriented religion to which he had converted, Rastafari. He was also more identified with a particular drug than any music star ever, in his case marijuana, which is a sacrament in Rastafari.

In 1973, his album Catch a Fire did just that, making him world-famous. His song "I Shot the Sheriff" was popularized by a version by Eric Clapton that hit Number 1 around the world. He survived an assassination attempt in 1976, and kept on recording.

But cancer is a more insidious enemy than any human would-be killer, and he was diagnosed with it in 1977. He fought it hard, and maybe have been the world's 1st known practitioner of "medical marijuana." But it progressed to the point where there was nothing he could do, and he died in Miami at the age of 36. His musical legend has only grown since.

Several family members also went into music, including one of his sons, who formed Ziggy Marley & The Melody Makers. Another son, Rohan Marley, played football at the University of Miami. Unfortunately, he had to go against the family religion and cut his dreadlocks, because they wouldn't fit under his helmet. And since he was only 5-foot-9, his teammates teased him by singing one of his father's songs: "Get Up, Stand Up!" He later played in the Canadian Football League, for the Ottawa Rough Riders, and has built an organic-food empire. He and singer Lauryn Hill of The Fugees had 5 children together.

*

May 11, 1981 was a Monday. Football was out of season. The Stanley Cup Playoffs were between the Semifinals and the Finals, as the New York Islanders went on to beat the Minnesota North Stars for the Cup. The NBA Finals were in progress, and the Boston Celtics went on to beat the Houston Rockets.

Monday is often a travel day in Major League Baseball, and so only 5 games were played:

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 3-2 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Bruce Benedict singled home the winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 7-6 at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto. Carl Yastrzemski went 0-for-5.

* The Houston Astros beat the Cincinnati Reds, 5-0 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. Nolan Ryan pitched a 7-hit shutout.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Chicago White Sox, 3-1 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Bert Blyleven was the winning pitcher.

* And the Texas Rangers beat the Kansas City Royals, 9-1 at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium) in Kansas City. George Brett went 0-for-4.

January 22, 1973: Roe v. Wade, LBJ Dies, Down Goes Frazier

The Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, 1973. Top row, left to right:

Lewis Powell, Thurgood Marshall, Harry Blackmun, William Rehnquist.

Bottom row, left to right: Potter Stewart, William O. Douglas,

Chief Justice Warren Burger, William J. Brennan, Byron White.

January 22, 1973: The U.S. Supreme Court announces its decision in the case of Jane Roe, et al. v. Henry Wade, District Attorney of Dallas County -- heretoafter referred as Roe v. Wade for short.

It is the most controversial decision the Court has made since Dred Scott v. Sanford in 1857. And it is a story so big that it overshadows 2 other events on the same day: The death of a former President of the United States, and the Heavyweight Championship of the World changing hands on a spectacular knockout.

In 1968, Norma McCorvey, a 21-year-old Dallas resident, became pregnant for the 3rd time. She had given up her 2nd child for adoption willingly, and was tricked into doing the same for her 1st. She was divorced from the father of her 1st child, and had no means to raise a child.

She sought an abortion, but the law of the State of Texas prohibited in nearly all cases. The only exception was if giving birth would endanger the mother's life. She was referred to attorneys Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee, who filed a lawsuit in U.S. federal court in March 1970, alleging that Texas' abortion laws were unconstitutional.

To keep her identity a secret, McCorvey was listed in court records with the placeholder name Jane Roe. (Legal placeholder names include John Doe, Jane Doe, Richard Roe, and, in this case, Jane Roe.) The defendant was the District Attorney for Dallas County, Henry Wade, previously best known for having successfully prosecuted Jack Ruby, who had murdered Lee Harvey Oswald before Oswald could be tried for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Three months after filing the suit, on June 2, 1970, Norma McCorvey gave birth to her 3rd child, a girl, and put her up for adoption. A few months later, a 3-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas heard the case, and ruled in her favor. Crawford Martin, the Attorney General of the State of Texas, appealed directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.

It took until January 22, 1973 for the High Court to issue a ruling. It was 7-2 in McCorvey's favor. The reasoning was that the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States provides a "right to privacy" that protects a pregnant woman's right to choose whether to have an abortion.

However, it also ruled that this right is not absolute, and tied the degree of any State's regulation to the trimester of pregnancy which is to be aborted. In other words, the Court provided a loophole which gave anti-abortion activists hope that, one day, the Roe v. Wade decision might be overturned.

The decision was written by Justice Harry Blackmun, who became, to anti-abortion activists, the most hated Justice in the Court's history. He was joined by Chief Justice Warren Burger, and Justices William O. Douglas, William J. Brennan, Potter Stewart, Thurgood Marshall and Lewis Powell.

Dissenting were Justices Byron White and William Rehnquist. Both were Catholic -- but so was Brennan, who supported the aforementioned citation of a right to privacy.

Appointed by Democratic Presidents: Douglas by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939, White by John F. Kennedy in 1962, and Marshall by Lyndon Johnson in 1967. The Democrats, ever since, have been the Party favoring abortion rights, but White did not vote that way.

Appointed by Republican Presidents: Dwight D. Eisenhower had appointed Brennan in 1956, and Stewart 1958; while the current President, Richard Nixon, had appointed Burger in 1969, Blackmun in 1970, and Powell and Rehnquist in 1972.

However, Brennan was a Democrat, whom Eisenhower had appointed as a gesture of bipartisanship. Of the other 5, only Rehnquist ruled against the right to an abortion. In 1986, when Burger retired as Chief Justice, President Ronald Reagan rewarded Rehnquist by promoting him to the Chief's chair.

Control of the Supreme Court has been seen as the anti-abortion movement's way of getting Roe overturned. Which is why, in 2016, when hard-core anti-abortion Justice Antonin Scalia died, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell prevented President Barack Obama's appointee to the seat, Merrick Garland, from even getting a hearing in the Senate.

It was also why evangelical "Christian" Republicans, so often hypocritical, were willing to accept Donald Trump, a pathological liar, a man married 3 times and divorced twice, a serial adulterer, a confessor to serial sexual assault, and a man whose words and actions compare very poorly with those of Jesus of Nazareth, as the Republican nominee for President, because they knew he would appoint Justices to the Court that would be acceptable to McConnell, and thus acceptable to them. This allowed the Scalia seat to remain vacant until Trump took office, enabling him to appoint Neil Gorsuch to the seat.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, often the "swing vote" on cases, including the biggest challenge to Roe to that point, Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992, surprisingly retired in 2018, and Trump appointed Brett Kavanaugh as his replacement, an alcoholic with, like Trump himself, a record of sexual assault and hatred of women.

And when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in office in 2020, before Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer could do anything about it, McConnell rushed the confirmation of Trump's appointee, Amy Comey Barrett, through the Senate, giving the Court a 6-3 conservative majority that, Court-watchers believe, will overturn Roe when they reach a decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, likely coming at the end of the Court's term in June 2022, 7 months short of the 50th Anniversary of Roe. (UPDATE: That decision came on June 24, and it did overturn Roe.)

After Roe v. Wade, Henry Wade did not see his reputation take a hit. Liberals didn't blame him for a law in place well before he ever took office, and conservatives did not hold it against him that he lost the case. He retired as District Attorney in 1987, after 36 years, and died in 2001.

Despite having slept around with men, Norma McCorvey more often identified as a lesbian, having spent most of her adult life with a single life-partner, Connie Gonzales, but constantly cheating on her. In 1989, she came forward as Jane Roe, and participated in abortion-rights rallies.

Then, in 1995, she switched sides, becoming an evangelical Catholic -- at least, officially -- and attending anti-abortion rallies. She wrote 2 books, 1 while on each side of the debate, and both of which were exposed for containing lies. She was never really an asset to either side. Apparently, the only thing she truly believed in was publicity.

In 2017, I wrote, "Whoever that baby turned out to be, he or she is now 47 – my age -- and we have no way of knowing whether he or she knows of the status as the most famous unwanted child of all time, a famous person whose name no one knows." At the time, that was still true.

In 2021, the baby that "Jane Roe" didn't want came forward for an article in the Atlantic Monthly magazine, and a subsequent book by Joshua Prager, The Family Roe. (Prager had gained the cooperation of McCorvey's 1st 2 children and her ex-partner.) 

Shelley Lynn Thornton grew up in the Dallas suburb of Mesquite, Texas, and later in the Seattle suburb of Kent, Washington, knowing that she was adopted and that she had 2 half-sisters living elsewhere -- but, at the time, no more than that. Shortly before her 19th birthday, she was told -- by a "reporter" for the National Enquirer -- who her birth mother was.

She freaked out. Not because she now knew that her birth mother wanted to end her life. But because, even at her age, she knew that both the Enquirer and the right-to-life movement would want to use her. In one of the few decent things the Enquirer has ever done, it kept Shelley's name out of the printed story.

In 1991, Shelley herself became pregnant. Understandably, she was opposed to abortion, but, to her, the term "pro-life" meant the fanatics who terrorized women seeking a choice, and blew up clinics, killing people and making themselves hypocrites, and she wanted nothing to do with that label. She didn't want the "Right to Life" movement to use her in any way.

Unlike her mother, she had a supportive boyfriend, and they got married before their son was born. They moved to Tucson, Arizona, and added 2 daughters. She met both of her half-sisters, and got along well with them. But, despite 2 difficult phone calls, years apart, Shelley Thornton never met Norma McCorvey face-to-face.

McCorvey died on February 18, 2017, in the Houston suburb of Katy, Texas, of heart failure, at age 69. In what turned out to be a final interview, what abortion rights activists have called a "deathbed confession," she said she was paid to switch to the anti-abortion side: "I was the big fish. I think it was a mutual thing. I took their money, and they'd put me out in front of the cameras and tell me what to say. That's what I'd say."

However unreliable a narrator she may have been, I'll let her have the last word: "If a young woman wants to have an abortion, that's no skin off my ass. That's why they call it 'choice.'"

Of the 9 Justices on the Court for Roe v. Wade, Rehnquist was the last one on the Court, dying in office in 2005. The last one who voted for reproductive rights was Harry Blackmun, who retired in 1994.

*

January 22, 1973 was a Monday. And Norma McCorvey was not the only Texas resident in the news that day. Former President Lyndon B. Johnson suffered a heart attack at his LBJ Ranch outside Johnson City. (The city was named for his grandfather, and the closest big city is Austin.) He had a private plane on the Ranch, and Secret Service agents loaded him onto it. He was flown to Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston, outside San Antonio, but he was pronounced dead on arrival.

The last known photo

He was 64, and had spent the last 4 years watching Nixon pick apart at his legacy. Actually, while Nixon did dismantle some "Great Society" programs, he kept some, and strengthened others.

That night, at the National Stadium (now named Independence Park) in Kingston, Jamaica, Joe Frazier defended the Heavyweight Championship of the World. His opponent was George Foreman, from Houston. Both men were Olympic Gold Medalists: Frazier in Tokyo in 1964, Foreman in Mexico City in 1968. Both men were undefeated as professionals: Frazier was 29-0, and Foreman, despite being 5 years younger, was 37-0.

In what was known as the Sunshine Showdown (despite taking place at night), Foreman dominated from the opening bell. The rule mandating the fight be ended in the event of 3 knockdowns in 1 round was waived for this fight. Angelo Dundee, Muhammad Ali's trainer, who had also worked with Foreman, was seated at ringside, and, halfway through the 1st round, could be heard on ABC Sports' broadcast yelling, "Frazier's hurt!"

Sitting next to Dundee, Howard Cosell tried to tell the ABC audience what Dundee had said, but couldn't finish it, because Foreman delivered a knockdown blow: "Angie Dundee, Ali's trainer, right next to me, is saying it. You may hear it... Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier! The Heavyweight Champion is taking the mandatory 8-count, and Foreman is as poised as can be in a neutral corner!"

Frazier got up at the count of 2, but took the 8-count, and resumed. With 16 seconds left in the 1st round, Foreman knocked Frazier down again. He got up. Just before the bell rang to end the round, Foreman knocked Frazier down for a 3rd time. There was no "saving by the bell": Had Frazier not gotten up, it would have been over then.

It should have been over then. Instead, referee Arthur Mercante, who had refereed the 1st Ali-Frazier fight in 1971, let the 2nd round begin. Frazier was knocked down a 4th time. Mercante didn't stop it. Frazier was knocked down a 5th time. Mercante didn't stop it. Frazier was knocked down a 6th time. Only then did Mercante stop it. Foreman was the Champion.

In his next fight, on September 1 at Budokan in Tokyo, Japan, Foreman knocked Puerto Rican fighter José "King" Roman out in the 1st round. Next up, on March 26, 1974 in Caracas, Venezuela, Foreman knocked Ken Norton out in the 2nd round.

Roman had never fought Ali. But, now, Foreman had destroyed the only 2 men to defeat Ali as professionals. Yet Ali wanted to fight him to regain the title. People were afraid that Foreman would badly hurt Ali, maybe even kill him. Instead, Ali knocked Foreman out in the 8th round, and proved that he was, indeed, what he had been saying he was: "The Greatest of All Tiiiiiiiime!"

Foreman retired in 1977, became a minister, and, in 1987, returned to boxing to raise money for his church. Discovering that he still had some punching power, he kept at it. He fought Evander Holyfield for the title in 1991, and while he didn't come close to winning, he went the distance and didn't get hurt.

Lots of people, myself included, thought he had proven his point, and that he should stop before he did get hurt. He didn't. In 1994, with the title now in the hands of Michael Moorer, Foreman knocked Moorer out, and, at 45, became the oldest Heavyweight Champion of the World ever.

*

The Foreman-Frazier fight was, by far, the biggest sporting event on January 22, 1973. Baseball and football were out of season. And there were no games scheduled in the NBA, the ABA, or the NHL that day.

Two games were played in the World Hockey Association. The New York Raiders lost to the Minnesota Fighting Saints, 3-2 at Madison Square Garden. And the Alberta Oilers beat the Chicago Cougars, 6-1 at the Edmonton Gardens.

The following year, the Oilers would drop "Alberta" from their name and become the Edmonton Oilers. And the Raiders would change their name to the New York Golden Blades, and, in midseason, move to the Philadelphia suburb of Cherry Hill, and change their name to the Jersey Knights. They folded at the end of the season.