Few Notes of Interest

Two items I found interesting in the news this past mouth I will note here.  First, the US Congress has awarded the Congressional Gold Medal-the highest civilian honor-on the code talkers of World War II fame.  They were American natives indians who used their language to create a military code the enemy-the Japanese-could not de-code.  This article says they were active in both World Wars (WWI, I am not sure of; it will need to be checked).  Thirty-three tribes made contributions to the "code talkers".

Source:  "Washington: Congress honors Code Talkers".  From wire reports in The Virginian Pilot, date in early Nov 2013.

Second, the state of Alabama has "posthumously pardoned" three black men falsely accused and convicted on rape in 1931 in the case known as the "Scottsboro Boys".  Nine young black men, riding a train thru Montgomery, Alabama, were accused, tried and convicted of the rape of two white females on the train with them.  Within three weeks of the events on that train, eight of the men were sentenced to death by the Alabama judge after a trial by an all-white jury.  The case got national attention at the time and led the US Supreme Court to overturn the convictions and order new trials.  The high court ruled that blacks should have been included on the jury and that the men did not receive "adequate legal representation".  The state re-tried four of the men, after dropping charges against five of the defendants.  They were convicted and sentenced to prison in 1937.  One of the four escaped from prison and eventually died in Michigan.  The others were finally pardoned by Governor George Wallace in 1976.  They were paroled some time before the pardon, so I don't know how long they remained in prison.  The state, with this decision, hopes the case will be put "to rest".  This article clearly states that the men were not guilty of any crime involving the events on that train in 1931.  The three men were Haywood Paterson, Charles Weems, and James A. Wright.

(Source:  "Alabama hopes to put "Scottsboro Boys" case to rest" by Alan Blinder of the New York Times.  In The Virginian Pilot on 11/22/13)

1940 US Census

On April 2, 2013 the government was to release the census from 1940, which had not been public for the last 72 years.  Historians and geneologists will be interested in what will be found there.  Some areas of interest will be, a) info on refugees from wars in Europe in the 1930's, b) info on the 100,000 Japanese Americans who were later relocated to internment camps after Pearl Harbor attack, c) info on the large migration of black Americans from the rural south to northern cities in search of jobs and a better life. Historian Henry Louis Gates Jr of Harvard University has prepared a documentary for PBS entitled "Finding Your Roots" which was to air March 2, 2012.  In the case of Japanese Americans the census will paint a clearer picture of the extent of the groups community and the amount of loss suffered by those interned.   A topic interest will be the level of income of ordinary Americans at the time.  A picture printed with the article noted below shows a census worker interviewing a family of four outside a railroad car that was converted in a home.  I note this because it seems to me to be a novel way of providing housing for some in need.  The "house cars" were part of the Mohawk and Hudson RR line and the NY Central.  (could this  be a method of housing the homeless today?)  

The web site that provide these census records "will be free and open to anyone on the Internet" but these records are not "name-searchable".  

http://1940census.archives.gov/1940 and www.the1940census.com.  

(Source:  "Details of daily life from the Great Depression" by Cristian Salazar and Randy Herschaft of the AP.  In The Virginian Pilot on 3/19/12)