Celebrating Black History Month: John E. Rudder, first African American commissioned officer in regular USMC

 

John Earl Rudder, born October 4, 1924 in Paducah, Kentucky, became the first African American to be commissioned into the regular United States Marine Corps.  Frederick C. Branch became an officer in the Marine Corps Reserve in 1946.

He enlisted into the Marines and served during WWII.  After the war, he graduated from the Naval Reserve Officer's Training Corps.  He received his commission as 2nd Lieutenant in the USMC, May 28, 1948.  He entered the Marine Corps' Basic School at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia in August, but resigned in 1949.

The FBI put him under long-term surveillance, suspecting him as being a communist. Rudder moved to Washington DC and became activists, protesting war and discrimination.

I had a lot of trouble finding any images or videos of Rudder, so I couldn't find any more information after 1967.  He passed away in 2006 in Paducah, Kentucky.

Celebrating Pride Month: One, Inc. v. Olesen, first US Supreme Court ruling dealing with homosexuality and free speech rights

ONE, Inc. published and distributed ONE: The Homosexual Magazine starting in 1953, an early pro-gay publication.  The US Post Office and the FBI began a campaign of harassment and LA Postmaster Otto Olesen declared the October 1954 issue "obscene, lewd, lascivious, and filthy" and refused to mail it citing the Comstock Act of 1873.

Attorney Eric Julber filed a suit against the postmaster in US District Court, seeking an injunction.  In March 1956 US District Judge Thurmond Clarke ruled for the Olesen, stating that homosexuals should not be granted special privileges.  

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the decision in February 1957. Julber filed a petition with the US Supreme Court on June 13, 1957.  On January 13, 1958, the Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit's decision. It was the first Supreme Court ruling to deal with homosexuality and the first to address free speech rights with respect to homosexuality. 

Millennium TV series promo starring Lance Henriksen

MillenniuM, a spin-off from the X-files, debuted October 25, 1996.  It featured Lance Hendriksen as Frank Black, a former FBI profiler with a "gift" that he could see into the mind of the killer.  MillenniuM had a much darker and more violent tone than the X-files, which is one of the reasons it lasted only three seasons.

During its run, however, it won several awards and was nominated for many more.  Lance Hendriksen was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama series all three seasons.

"The X Files" premieres 1993

Talk about cutting edge television and pushing the envelope!  The X-Files, creepy, spooky and totally entertaining, premiered on September 10, 1993.  A skeptical FBI agent Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) is assigned to assist FBI's premium pariah, Agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) in his investigations in the X-files, cases that involve strange phenomena and nobody else wants to handle.

The series, created by Chris Carter, covers everything from alien abduction, supernatural beings and paranormal events.  Over the span of its initial 11 seasons and now into the second season of its recent incarnation, the show has received 212 nominations including Primetime Emmys and Golden Globes and has won 96 of them.

It is listed as #86 on the highest ranked-television programs on imdb.com.

Book review - Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann

One of the comments on the dust jacket of this book describes it as “emotionally devastating” and I found that to be an understatement.  David Grann’s book covers the 1920’s northeast Oklahoma when the Osage Indians were sitting on one of the richest oil reserves in the world.  Just two or three generations prior, the government relocated hundreds of thousands of native Americans to Oklahoma, the infamous Trail of Tears.

The idea was to move the native Americans to an area of the country where it was arid, rocky, hilly and the soil was not conducive to growing crops.  No one else wanted it so why not give it to the “Indians”?

It sounded like a good idea to the American government and white people until oil was discovered on this land.  Soon the Osages were riding in chauffeured limousines, building huge houses and turning small towns such as Gray Horse and Fairfax into thriving cities.

But wealth like that is going to draw trouble.  With the help of corrupt the American and Oklahoma governments, the white people began scheming on how they could get their hands on all that money.  Although plots were woven to inherit or control Osage lands, some decided to take a faster route and resorted to murder.

Molly Burkhart’s sister disappeared suddenly.  Her body was found several days later, badly decomposed.  The cause of death was determined to be a bullet fired into the back of her skull.  Despite no exit wound, the bullet was never located. 

More Osages were killed in this manner, but others were poisoned.  Whether the plan was outright violence or more insidious, the goal was the same.  The Osage had little help from law enforcement and virtually from the government.  Here is where the emotional devastation comes in, as the extreme injustice is allowed to flourish with impunity.  Corruption was everywhere and the Osage powerless to defend themselves, robbed of their wealth.

Grann unravels the most diabolical schemes that involved Molly Burkhart, her sisters, mother and even her children.  Grann’s book begins to read like an Agatha Christie novel with twists, turns and surprises that would impress the Queen of Mystery herself.

The bad part is this is no cozy mystery.  It is a documented story of greed, racism and murder.