The mystery of ‘Stone Age Venuses’; a new Barbie; musical healing in Appalachia; and Maya Angelou and Sally Ride on U.S. quarters
|  | Monday, January 17, 2022 | | | | |
| In today’s newsletter, the mystery of ‘Stone Age Venuses’; a new Barbie; musical healing in Appalachia … and Maya Angelou and Sally Ride on U.S. quarters. | |
 | PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHN C. GOODWIN
| | By Debra Adams Simmons, Executive Editor, HISTORY and CULTURE
What would Martin Luther King, Jr. say about the pardon of Homer Plessy?
Plessy’s refusal to leave a whites-only rail car in 1892 led the state of Louisiana and the U.S. Supreme Court to codify “separate but equal” practices. While historic, this month’s posthumous pardon doesn’t erase the decades of state-sanctioned segregation of everything from schools and swimming pools to buses and water fountains that the case provided.
Plessy, who was one-eighth Black, sat in a whites-only section of a train from New Orleans to Covington, Louisiana. He was charged with violating the Louisiana Railway Accommodations Act, which required racially segregated trains. Plessy argued that the law violated his 14th Amendment rights. The judge, John Howard Ferguson, disagreed. In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the decision, providing a legal foundation for racial division that has persisted in the 130 years since Plessy took his seat. (Pictured below, segregation at a bus station in Durham, North Carolina in 1940.)
| | | |
 | PHOTOGRAPH BY JACK DELANO, FARM SECURITY ADMINISTRATION/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
| | Earlier this month, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, at the urging of descendants of Plessy and Ferguson, pardoned Plessy in a ceremony outside the New Orleans station where he boarded the train.
“The stroke of my pen on this pardon, while momentous, it doesn't erase generations of pain and discrimination. It doesn't eradicate all the wrongs wrought by the Plessy court or fix all of our present challenges," Edwards said.
Plessy and the Citizens Committee of New Orleans provided a roadmap for fighting injustice. King picked up the baton, continuing the work of Homer Plessy and his peers. King’s fearless efforts laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Even as Plessy is pardoned, voting rights are under attack.
As his life and legacy are honored today with a federal holiday in the United States, King’s top priorities—fair wages, fair housing, justice, peace—continue to be as urgent as they were when he was assassinated in Memphis 54 years ago while supporting the city’s striking sanitation workers. (Pictured at top, King in 1967, making last-minute edits to an antiwar speech.)
King would see victory in the Plessy pardon, but he would point to the fragility of voting rights, staggering inequality and unequal justice and argue that the fight of Homer Plessy must carry on.
“If peace means a willingness to be exploited economically, dominated politically, humiliated and segregated, I don’t want peace,” King wrote in 1956. “If peace means being complacently adjusted to a deadening status quo, I don’t want peace. If peace means keeping my mouth shut in the midst of injustice and evil, I don’t want it. Peace is not simply the absence of conflict, but the existence of justice for all people.”
Do you get this newsletter daily? If not, sign up here or forward this to a friend.
| | | |
 | | SCALA, FLORENCE | | The mystery of ‘Stone Age Venuses’: For a century, researchers have been stumped by more than 200 Paleolithic female figurines that have been found across Europe and western Asia. All of the pint-size clay, bone, or rock sculptures are of women. (Pictured above, one of 13 Grimaldi Venuses found in caves in northern Italy.) The work dates as far back as 35,000 years ago and represents the beginnings of portraying the feminine form in art, the February issue of National Geographic reports. Subscribers can see the figurines and read more here.
A new Barbie: She was a journalist, educator, and civil rights icon. Now Ida B. Wells joins the lineup of women honored by Mattel with a Barbie doll. NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, singer Ella Fitzgerald, and Maya Angelou, NPR reports.
Speaking of Maya Angelou ... The U.S. Mint has begun rolling out quarters with the image of the writer and poet. Coins are also planned this year for Sally Ride, the first female U.S. astronaut; Wilma Mankiller, a campaigner for Indigenous rights; and Anna May Wong, the first Chinese American film star in Hollywood, the BBC reports.
A Native champion: Clyde Bellecourt co-founded the American Indian Movement more than a half-century ago and fought for civil rights, legal aid, and fair housing and lobbied against cultural appropriation. He died on Tuesday, NPR reports. “"His life's work was always about his people,” said Bellecourt's oldest son, Little Crow.
4,000-year-old game board discovered: Thousands of years before Minecraft, settlers passed the time playing games on stone. Archaeologists have unearthed a stone board game with marked fields and cup holes for holding game pieces. According to the Oman Observer, the game design is similar to ones found in India, Mesopotamia, and the Eastern Mediterranean basin.
| | | |
 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY BATES LITTLEHALES, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION | | Ch-ch-ch-changes: Everything seems to have evolved, including workplaces and hairstyles, in the 134 years Nat Geo has been recording life and phenomena around the world. This image above, of an Oregon State pharmacy student training at a model drug store, accompanied a story in January 1969 on the changes in Oregon. The photo was recently featured in a Nat Geo archival collection.
| | | |
 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY MATT EICH, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC | | | In Appalachia, a valuable mix: He’s a medic. And a banjo player. Joe Smiddy, longtime pulmonologist and medical director, mixes both in clinics and screenings in rural southwest Virginia. Patients start smiling, singing along, even dancing. Smiddy tells Nat Geo it would make no sense to him not to incorporate it into the healthcare he administers—and more medical professionals agree that music has healing powers. (Pictured above, another physician, Mark Handy, plays “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” for patient Alicia “Cammy” Frye during a home visit in Saltville, Virginia.) | | | |
 | | I believe history matters. I believe that history is an amazing tool, not just to look back, but to live your life. | | | | Lonnie G. Bunch III | | From Into the Depths, a new podcast and upcoming Nat Geo documentary series on the Black scuba divers who are searching worldwide for buried shipwrecks from the transatlantic slave trade. Learn more. | | |
 | PHOTOGRAPH BY HISHAM IBRAHIM, GETTY IMAGES
| | Let it shine: Guiding sailors for centuries, the Lighthouse of Alexandria was considered one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. Built 350 feet high at a cost of 23 tons of silver, the lighthouse stood for the glory of the city in present-day Egypt founded by Alexander the Great. Reduced to rubble by 1477 by a series of earthquakes, the lighthouse materials were used to build a fort on the site to help defend Alexandria against attackers. That citadel (pictured above) remains standing today, Nat Geo’s History magazine reports.
| | | |
Today's newsletter was curated and edited by Monica Williams, Jen Tse, and David Beard. Have an idea or link to a story you think is right down our alley? Let us know at david.beard@natgeo.com.
| | | |
| SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS | | We'd like to hear from you! Tell us what you think of our emails by sharing your feedback in this short survey.
| | | |
Clicking on the Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and National Geographic Channel links will take you away from our National Geographic Partners site where different terms of use and privacy policy apply.
This email was sent to: mitch.dobbs.pics@blogger.com. Please do not reply to this email as this address is not monitored.
This email contains an advertisement from:
National Geographic | 1145 17th Street, N.W. | Washington, D.C. 20036
Stop all types of future commercial email from National Geographic regarding its products, services, or experiences.
© 2022 National Geographic Partners, LLC, All rights reserved. | | |
