William H. Hastie inaugurated as the first Black governor of the Virgin Islands.

In a speech before the New England Anti-Slavery Society at its convention on May 7, 1844, Charles Lenox Remond adopted a theme increasingly popular among many anti-slavery activists, arguing that Northern states such as Massachusetts should secede from the Union then dominated by slaveholders. Remond and others who advocated this radical view made two arguments. First they claimed dissolution of the union would cut off economic support for slavery from Northern business interests. However they also argued that dissolution of the Union was the only remaining response to a government that was unwilling to allow fundamental rights for African Americans. After his presentation, and similar remarks by other abolitionists, the New England Anti-Slavery Society adopted a resolution supporting the dissolution by a margin of 252 to 24. Thus, ironically, some of the earliest calls for the end of the Union came from abolitionists in the North rather than from Slaveholders in the South. Remond’s speech appears below.

I do not intend, Sir, even to attempt an answer to the respected friend who has just taken his seat. My point of view is too distant from his to leave me the vantage-ground for doing so. But I feel a deep interest in the question, and the present moment is perhaps the most fitting one for the expression of my humble views. I cannot expect them to make much impression upon the many—upon the body of this nation, for whose benefit the Constitution was made; but they will meet a response from the few whom it entirely overlooks, or sees but to trample upon, and the fewer still, who identify themselves with the outcast, by occupying this position, of a dissolution of their union with Slaveholders.

It does very well for nine-tenths of the people of the United States, to speak of the awe and reverence they feel as they contemplate the Constitution, but there are those who look upon it with a very different feeling, for they are in a very different position. What is it to them that it talks about

On this date in 1800, Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable, frontier trader, fur trapper, farmer, businessman and father of Chicago sold all his property for $1,200 and left the area. He died 18 years later, almost penniless, and was buried in St. Charles, Missouri.

J. R.

Winters receives

a patent for the

fire escape

ladder.

Dr. John E. W. Thompson, graduate of the Yale University Medical School, named minister to Haiti.

Black demonstrators staged ride-in to protest segregation on New Orleans streetcars. Similar demonstrations occurred in Mobile, Ala., and other cities.

Johnnie Carson is a retired diplomat who served as United States Ambassador to Uganda (1991-1994), U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe (1995-1997), and U.S. Ambassador to Kenya (1999-2003). Carson was born on April 7, 1943 in Chicago, Illinois. After attending public schools in Chicago, Carson received a bachelor of history and political science from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa in 1965 followed by a master’s degree in international relations from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London (UK) in 1975.  

Carson’s overseas experience began in 1965 when the 22-year-old became a Peace Corps volunteer in Tanzania. He joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1967.  His first overseas assignment was at the U.S. Embassy in Lagos, Nigeria from 1969 to 1971.  He was then sent to the newly opened American Embassy in Maputo, Mozambique from 1975 to 1978.  He also served in the U.S. Embassies in Lisbon, Portugal (1982-1986), and Gaborone, Botswana (1986-1990).  While stationed in Washington, D.C. at the U.S. State Department he served as desk officer in the Africa department for the State Bureau of Intelligence and Research (1971-1974).  He was also staff director for the African Subcommittee of the United States House of Representatives (1979-1982).

In 1991 President George H.W. Bush nominated Carson to become ambassador to Uganda.  After U.S. Senate confirmation, he headed the U.S. Mission in Kampala from 1991 to 1994.  President Bill Clinton nominated him to serve as ambassador to Zimbabwe.  He oversaw the U.S. Embassy in Harare from 1995 to 1997 and served in the same role in Nairobi, Kenya (1999-2003), when President Clinton nominated him for that ambassadorship.  

At the end of his tenure in Nairobi, Ambassador Carson became the senior vice president of the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. (2003-2006). On May 7, 2009 Ambassador Carson was sworn in as Assistant Secretary of State for African affairs in the U.S. State Department. He retired from that post and from the Foreign