Things More Noted Still

At Early Modern Notes, Sharon Howard offers an old-fashioned EMN linkfest – to Asia and Africa, letters and diaries, science and law, pirates and painting.

On a personal note, you've heard that there was a large earthquake off the island of Hawaii yesterday and it suffered considerable structural damage. I'm happy to report that I've heard from our former colleague, Jon Dresner, that he and his family sustained no injuries.

Last week, 60 historians and other academicians filed an amicus brief in two highly contested cases the Supreme Court will hear this term. They arise from the plans of school boards in Seattle, Washington, and Louisville/Jefferson County, Kentucky, to maintain a semblance of racial integration in their systems. Having been a student in Jefferson County's schools when they voluntarily desegregated in compliance with Brown in 1956, I was interested in that case. Fifty years later, we were able to get Jack Greenberg, who participated in arguing the Brown decision, as our Counsel of Record and John Hope Franklin, who was a consultant to the NAACP in Brown, heads the list of those of us who filed the brief. In"When Lawyers Go Wrong, Historians Set the Record Straight," History News Network, 16 October, I discuss the environment in which the 14th Amendment was adopted and the kind of historical evidence we thought it important for the justices to have before them in these cases. I've also appended to it a list of all the historians and other academic people who joined us in the brief. It is a veritable Who's Who and makes me proud today to be one with them -- a historian.