Latest news with #abolition
Wall Street Journal
2 days ago
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
‘Charles Sumner' Review: Fighting Slavery on the Senate Floor
Among the leaders of the Civil War era, figures such as Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman stand tall. Charles Sumner, the abolitionist and senator, was their contemporary—yet many Americans today associate his name with a single historical moment: when Preston Brooks, the representative from South Carolina, viciously beat him with a cane on the floor of the Senate Chamber in 1856. Sumner deserves to be remembered for much more than being the victim of Brooks's assault, argues Zaakir Tameez in his engrossing biography 'Charles Sumner: The Conscience of a Nation.' Mr. Tameez, a scholar of antitrust and constitutional law, has written an excellent book about the courageous Massachusetts senator, whom the author calls 'the most famous civil rights leader of the nineteenth century.' A physically and intellectually imposing figure whose heart 'bled for abolition, racial justice, and constitutional democracy,' Sumner pushed U.S. presidents and Senate colleagues alike to end slavery before the Civil War and to secure black rights during Reconstruction. Mr. Tameez's monograph joins Stephen Puleo's 'The Great Abolitionist' (2024) as the only two biographies of Sumner to have been published since David Herbert Donald's 'Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man' (1970). The excision of some repetitious material could have reduced the protracted length of Mr. Tameez's book, but 'Charles Sumner' is nonetheless an engaging account. Drawing from hundreds of letters, articles and speeches, Mr. Tameez has created a remarkable portrait of a complex man who faced many personal challenges. Depression stalked Sumner throughout his life, but his desire for racial justice gave him a sense of purpose and a will to live. As a young man, he struggled with his sexuality, partaking in 'romantic friendships' with married men—including Samuel Gridley Howe, the abolitionist and physician, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the poet—and failing to find happiness with Alice Hooper, who abandoned him after mere months of matrimony. Heart disease afflicted Sumner in his older age, causing painful episodes of angina that sapped his strength and impeded his ability to work. Sumner's unwavering commitment to uplifting African-Americans was informed by his childhood on the North Slope of Boston's Beacon Hill, where he was born, in 1811, in a predominantly black community. Mr. Tameez describes Sumner's birthplace as 'featuring gaslit lamps, steep cobblestone roads, and redbrick sidewalks'; these distinctive elements didn't emerge until years later, but Beacon Hill at the turn of the 19th century was exceptional in other ways. Approximately 1,000 free African-Americans lived there and helped produce a 'bubbling movement of Black abolitionism,' Mr. Tameez tells us, making the neighborhood 'a beacon of hope' at a time when slavery was still legal in many states.
Bloomberg
5 days ago
- Politics
- Bloomberg
‘Abolishing FEMA' Memo Outlines Ways for Trump to Scrap Agency
By , Jason Leopold, and Lauren Rosenthal Save Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to prepare a memo on how to abolish itself and create a re-branded, radically smaller disaster response organization, according to a copy of the document reviewed by Bloomberg News. As recently as last week, President Donald Trump and Noem said they wanted to wind down FEMA but offered few details publicly. The March 25 memo offers insight into how the administration has weighed which of its current functions to cut. Technically, only Congress can eliminate the agency.
Arab News
09-06-2025
- General
- Arab News
What We Are Reading Today: Worlds of Unfreedom by Roquinaldo Ferreira
In 'Worlds of Unfreedom,' Roquinaldo Ferreira recasts West Central Africa as a key battleground in the struggle to abolish the transatlantic slave trade between the 1830s and the 1860s. Ferreira foregrounds the experiences and agency of enslaved Africans, challenging Eurocentric narratives that marginalize African participation in abolition efforts. Drawing on archival research, he shows how enslaved people resisted the oppressive systems that sought to commodify their lives. He integrates microhistorical analysis with broader world history.
