fbpx
Connect with us

Mississippi Today

On this day in 1850

Published

on

On this day in 1850

May 3, 1850

Shadrach Minkins, right, worked at the Cornhill Coffee House and Tavern, believed to have been located in the highlighted area. Credit: Courtesy of National Park Service

Shadrach Minkins, already separated from his family, escaped from the Norfolk, Virginia, home, where he was enslaved. He made his way to Boston, where he did odd until he began working as a waiter at Taft’s Cornhill Coffee House.

Months later, passed the Fugitive Slave Act, which gave authorities the power to go into states and arrest Black Americans who had escaped .

A slave catcher named John Caphart arrived in Boston, with papers for Minkins. While serving breakfast at the coffee house, federal authorities Minkins.

Several local lawyers, Robert Morris, volunteered to represent him. Three days later, a group of abolitionists, led by African-American abolitionist Lewis Hayden, broke into the Boston courthouse and rescued a surprised Minkins.

โ€œThe rescuers headed north along Court Street, 200 or more like the tail of a comet,โ€ author Gary Collison wrote. They guided him across the Charles to the Cambridge home of the Rev. Joseph C. Lovejoy, whose brother, Elijah, had been lynched by a pro-slavery mob in Illinois in 1837.

Another Black leader, John J. Smith, helped Minkins get a wagon with horses, and from Cambridge, Hayden, Smith and Minkins traveled to Concord, where Minkins stayed with the Bigelow family, which guided him to the Underground Railroad, making his way to Montreal, spending the rest of his in Canada as a free man.

Abolitionists cheered his escape, and President Millard Fillmore fumed. Morris, Hayden and others were charged, but sympathetic juries acquitted them. Meanwhile in Montreal, Minkins met fellow fugitives, married, had four and continued to work as a waiter before operating his own restaurants.

He ended his career running a barbershop before dying in 1875. A play performed in Boston in 2016 told the dramatic story of his escape.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.biloxinewsevents.com/?p=355311

Mississippi Today

On this day in 1750

Published

on

mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-11-04 07:00:00

Nov. 4, 1750

A painting of Jean Baptiste Point DuSable by Blackshear II. Credit: National Postal

Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, the โ€œFather of Chicago,โ€ was born. 

A man of African descent, he became the first known settler in the area that became the of Chicago. He married a Potawatomi woman, Kitiwaha (Catherine), and they had two

According to , the property included a log cabin with two barns, a horse-drawn mill, a bakehouse, a poultry house, a dairy, a smokehouse, a fenced garden and an orchard. At his trading post, DuSable served Native Americans, British and French explorers and spoke a number of languages. 

โ€œHe was actually by the British for being thought of as an American Patriot sympathizer,โ€ Julius Jones, curator at the Chicago History Museum told WLS, but DuSable beat those charges. 

In Chicago , a school, street, museum, harbor, park and bridge bear his name. The place where he settled near the mouth of the Chicago is now a National Historic Landmark, part of the city’s Pioneer Court.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Continue Reading

Mississippi Today

Podcast: Mississippiโ€™s top election official discusses Tuesdayโ€™s election

Published

on

mississippitoday.org – Geoff Pender, Bobby Harrison and Taylor Vance – 2024-11-04 06:30:00

Secretary of Michael Watson talks with Mississippi Today’s Geoff Pender, Bobby Harrison and Taylor Vance ahead of Tuesday’s election. He urges voters to remember sacrifices many have made to protect Americans’ rights and get to the polls, and he weighs in on whether a recent court ruling on absentee vote counting will impact this year’s elections.

READ MORE: As lawmakers look to cut taxes, Mississippi mayors and county leaders outline infrastructure needs

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Continue Reading

Mississippi Today

Insurance chief willing to sue feds if Gov. Reeves doesnโ€™t support state health exchangeย 

Published

on

mississippitoday.org – Taylor Vance – 2024-11-04 04:00:00

Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney is willing to sue the federal Centers for Medicare and Services if it does not allow Mississippi to create a state-based insurance exchange because of Republican Gov. Tate Reeves’ potential opposition.

Federal , who must approve of a state implementing its own health insurance exchange, want a letter of approval from a state’s governor before they allow a state to implement the program, according to Chaney.  

โ€œI don’t know what the governor’s going to do,โ€ Chaney told Mississippi . โ€œI think he’ll probably wait until after the election to make a . But I’m willing to sue CMS if that’s what it takes.โ€ 

The five-term commissioner, a Republican, said his requests to Reeves, also a Republican, to discuss the policy have gone unanswered. The governor’s office did not respond to a request to comment on this story. 

Earlier this year, the Legislature passed a authorizing Chaney’s agency to create a Mississippi-based exchange to replace the federal exchange that currently is used by to obtain health insurance. The bill became law without the governor’s signature.

States that operate their own exchanges can typically attract more companies to write health insurance policies and offer people policies at lower costs, and it would likely save the state millions of dollars in payments to the federal .

Chaney also said he’s been consulting with former Republican Gov. Haley Barbour, who also supported some version of a state-based exchange while in office, about implementing a state-based program. 

Currently, 21 states plus the District of Columbia have state-based exchanges, though three still operate from the federal platform. Should he follow through and sue the federal government, Chaney said he would use outside counsel and several other states told him they would join the .

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Continue Reading

Trending