On March 19, 1939, Lloyd Lionel Gaines, the central figure in the 1938 Supreme Court case Gaines v. Canada, disappeared.
“A Quiet Hero of Civil Rights History, Vanished in 1939.
Lloyd Gaines was moody that winter of 1939, acting not at all like a man who had just triumphed in one of the biggest Supreme Court cases in decades. And oddly, even though it was raining and the sidewalks of Chicago were clogged with slush, he felt a need to buy postage stamps one night.
Or so he told a friend just before he left his apartment house on March 19, 1939, never to be seen again. Had he not vanished at 28, Lloyd Gaines might be in the pantheon of civil rights history with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Thurgood Marshall and other giants whose names will be invoked at the centennial convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which started this weekend in Manhattan.
Instead, Mr. Gaines has been consigned to one of history’s side rooms, his name recalled mainly by legal scholars and relatives, like Tracy Berry, an assistant United States attorney in St. Louis whose grandmother was Mr. Gaines’s sister.
“He was taken away and more than likely killed,” Ms. Berry said when asked to speculate on his fate. She said Mr. Gaines was known in family lore as “a caring, loving brother and son” who would not have chosen to disappear or commit suicide, despite the pressure he was under.
On Dec. 12, 1938, the Supreme Court ruled that the segregated University of Missouri Law School had to admit Lloyd Lionel Gaines, who was qualified except for the color of his skin, if there was no comparable legal education available to him within Missouri — and there was not.
Despite his victory, Mr. Gaines was troubled. He had told relatives and friends he was having trouble finding steady work to earn money for school (apparently one reason he went to Chicago), and he was ambivalent about being in the spotlight.
“As for my publicity relative to the university case, I have found that my race still likes to applaud, shake hands, pat me on the back and say how great and noble is the idea,” he wrote his mother in St. Louis days before disappearing. “How historical and socially important the case but — and there it ends.” He added, “Sometimes I wish I were just a plain, ordinary man whose name no one recognized.”
Born in Mississippi to sharecropper parents in 1911, Lloyd Gaines was 14 when his widowed mother, Callie, took her seven children to St. Louis. Graduating first in his all-black high school class, Mr. Gaines won a $250 scholarship in an essay contest. He enrolled at a teachers’ college but dropped out for want of money. Then he won another modest scholarship, and with help from his brothers and black churches, he entered Lincoln University, a school for blacks in Jefferson City.
Mr. Gaines was president of his senior class, an honors graduate in history and a skilled debater. And he wanted to be a lawyer. There were only 36 black lawyers in Missouri in 1936, and all had been educated elsewhere, according to a 1951 article by Edward T. Clayton, an editor for Ebony whose account is probably the definitive one.
For the 1930s, Missouri’s policy was enlightened: since there was no law school at Lincoln, the state paid the tuitions of blacks from Missouri who went to nearby states to study law. And the Missouri legislature had committed itself to establishing a law school at Lincoln someday, should there ever be enough demand.
But Mr. Gaines said he wanted to go to the University of Missouri’s law school, so in 1936 he sued in state court to gain admission. He lost, but lawyers for the N.A.A.C.P. saw his case as a way to attack the “separate but equal” doctrine laid down by the Supreme Court in 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson, which was used to justify public school segregation.
Mr. Gaines’s team was headed by Charles Hamilton Houston, chief litigator for the N.A.A.C.P., mentor to Thurgood Marshall and later dean of the Howard University Law School. The case reached the Supreme Court on Nov. 9, 1938. Houston argued that the state had blatantly failed to meet the “separate but equal” standard and that paying out-of-state tuition for black students from Missouri was not good enough. The court ruled 6 to 2 for Mr. Gaines. “The basic consideration here is not as to what sort of opportunities other states provide, or whether they are as good as those in Missouri, but as to what opportunities Missouri itself furnishes to white students and denies to Negroes solely upon the ground of color,” Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes wrote.
Justices James C. McReynolds and Pierce Butler dissented, saying the State of Missouri ought to be able to set its own education policies. (There was one vacancy on the court.)
The ruling in Gaines v. Canada (S. W. Canada was the university registrar) would eventually open the doors of law schools for blacks in a dozen Southern and border states. And it was a steppingstone toward Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark 1954 decision that repudiated the “separate but equal” notion in outlawing school segregation.
In 1939, the Missouri legislature tried to skirt the Gaines decision, setting up a supposedly equal, and ultimately short-lived, Lincoln University law school in an old beauty academy. It was only when the N.A.A.C.P. lawyers were preparing a challenge to this move that they realized Mr. Gaines had disappeared.
Mr. Gaines, who earned a master’s degree in economics at the University of Michigan while his case was winding through the courts, had behaved erratically before. In January 1939, he told a St. Louis gathering that he was eager to study law at Missouri — but his mother recalled things differently.
“I remember once I asked him if he was going to that school, and he said, ‘No,’ ” Callie Gaines told Ebony in 1951. “I told him then that I thought it would be too dangerous.” The family never filed a missing-person report, figuring he would turn up when he wanted to, his mother said.
Lloyd Gaines’s nephew George Gaines, a retired Navy captain who lives in San Diego, said recently, “We have never had him declared dead.” But Captain Gaines said he doubted that his uncle would have chosen to drop out of life, or end his life, given the perseverance he displayed.
In the early 1950s, the University of Missouri began admitting black students. Lloyd Gaines is now revered at the university, which awarded him an honorary law degree in 2006. That year, the state bar awarded him a law license, posthumously.”
Source: A Supreme Triumph, Then Into the Shadows (Published 2009)
I wonder what really happened…
Thank you for reading today's post. Have an InterStellar Day! ~PrP
Apologies to all who tried to comment earlier this day. Small tech issues.
No worries. Thank you for the information about Mr. Gaines. I never knew there was a case before Brown v Board of education.
Very interesting story. I can guess he was murdered.
You Still Can’t Trust Amazon Reviews and Here’s Why
CORY GUNTHER
These days we all buy a ton of stuff online, and a good majority of that is likely from Amazon. With online shopping, ratings and reviews are one of the most important factors for many users. Still, it’s important to remember that not everything is what it seems when you’re browsing Amazon’s marketplace.
Amazon reviews are one of its best assets and biggest problems. Reviews can be wildly helpful if you’re trying to find a good deal or get the best product for your money. But you can’t always trust them. Fake or misleading reviews are not a new issue for the site, and here’s why you still can’t trust Amazon reviews.
“In Exchange” Reviews
Aukey offered $100 gift cards in return for “an honest review.” Aukey / Twitter
If you are shopping on Amazon, there is a good chance you’ll find a few fake reviews somewhere. These come in many forms, whether that’s paid reviews, Facebook groups that flood a product with high ratings to appear higher in results, or even those “In Exchange” reviews we’re all quite familiar with.
And if you don’t know what we mean by that, search for something and look at an off-brand product. Many items, especially in the tech space, have reviews like, “I got a discount on this product in exchange for an honest review,” or something similar.
In 2021, Amazon removed entire brands, including Aukey, RAVPower, Mpow, and several others, over this violation. The company removed millions of these “in exchange” reviews, too, then put out a statement on how Amazon is creating a trustworthy review experience.
However, the problem didn’t go away. Instead, there are Facebook groups dedicated to this same type of practice. Instead of mentioning it in the review, members of a club or group get discounts or promo codes, then must leave reviews on a product.
And while Amazon has taken several steps in the right direction, and things keep improving, it’s not enough. Today, we still see all sorts of shady or untrustworthy reviews and situations that are hard to ignore, making finding honest reviews a challenge.
Review Merging
Another common problem with Amazon reviews that we’re seeing more of lately is review merging. And while this could happen by accident, many brands merge old products with good reviews (or any reviews) into a new product that doesn’t make any sense.
Why would a company merge reviews? Well, a different product could rank higher in Amazon search results, look more appealing, and have an excellent four or 5-star rating on the outside. Then, an unsuspecting buyer will see its high rating and several hundred reviews and buy it without researching further. That’s bad for consumers.
The Absolute Weirdest Junk You Can Buy On Amazon
A prime example is this nifty little no-name screw-in lightbulb security camera. It’s easy to install, gives you a security camera anywhere with a light socket, and it looks to have over 200 reviews giving it a 4-5 star rating.
However, look a little closer, and you’ll notice all of those reviews are for a pitcher for drinking water, tea, or juice. The reviews have nothing to do with a security camera, many of which are from way back in 2018. Confused? Me too. None of the reviews are from the current year (2022, at the time of writing), and not a single review is for the camera.
Unfortunately, we’ve even seen the “Amazon’s Choice” badge on headphones, USB devices, and other products with fake “merged” reviews. One product has over 30,000 reviews, a high rating, and showed up on the first page of search results. Unfortunately, many of the reviews were for a completely unrelated product.
How Are Amazon Star Ratings Calculated?
So, how are the Amazon reviews and star ratings calculated anyways? Well, that’s another issue that could potentially affect your purchasing decision. According to the company, “Amazon calculates a product’s star rating using machine-learned models instead of a simple average.”
This could be good and bad, but we’re not sure without knowing more details. Either way, Amazon doesn’t just take an average of all the stars and give you a solid number. Instead, it uses the age of the review, purchaser status, and several other factors. Then a machine-learning algorithm comes up with the star rating we all see on the site.
How to Spot Fake Reviews on Amazon
Another potential issue is all those “Verified Purchase” reviews you’ll spot on Amazon where the company verified that the reviewer actually bought that item. Just because the purchase is “verified” doesn’t mean the review isn’t fake or paid for or that it was even bought on Amazon. The system simply needs images to verify the reviewer has said product. It just gives other customers a false sense of security.
So, how can you spot when funny business is happening? Here are a few things to look for while viewing products on the marketplace.
Too many 5-star reviews with only one or two words in the review.
Lack of detail with generic “Good product,” “Great item,” or “Excellent” as the review title.
Watch out for review merging where the product doesn’t match the reviews.
“Customers also bought” section contains unrelated products. (a sign of merging)
Poor grammar with robotic (bot-like) spelling and wording.
Several similar reviews in a short period, with big gaps between all the others.
Any review that mentions “in exchange for an honest review” type comments.
The 6 Best Amazon Prime Alternatives of 2022
As you can see, there are still several different issues regarding Amazon reviews. However, remember that many of these elements are also in good, honest, legitimate reviews.
Furthermore, don’t instantly discredit an item if you spot a weird review because it could be a real review or even a “false positive” review from hackers and spam bots. The Amazon marketplace is a tricky business with a lot of competition, and some people will go to insane lengths to beat the competition. This can include buying bad reviews to make its competitor’s product look suspicious.
In closing, this isn’t a new problem, and it’s not limited to Amazon, as Walmart, eBay, and others are in a similar boat. Also, Amazon works tirelessly to prevent these reviews, which is a tough job. Just think about all the items on Amazon and the millions of real (and fake) customers. There’s a reason the company removes hundreds of millions of reviews as fast as it can.
That doesn’t change the fact that it’s still hard to trust Amazon reviews. What next? We’ll have to wait and see what Amazon comes up with next. For now, you can look into tools like Fakespot, which uses AI to detect fake reviews, scams, and other bots. Or, use ReviewMeta to evaluate Amazon reviews while you shop.
I wonder what really happened…
Given the evil of the white race I’d wager the bastards murdered Mr. Gaines.
No, doubt. Whites could get away with any thing back then.
No, doubt. Whites could get away with any thing back then.
“Back then” Have you been reading the news? Today they use their racist thugs with badges to do their dirty work.
Harry Haft was just a teenager when he was sent to Auschwitz. Once he arrived, the Nazi guards found out that he had some boxing experience — so they ordered him to fight his fellow prisoners in harrowing boxing matches where the loser would be executed.
Forced to literally fight for his life, Haft never lost a single match, even though he would have known many of his opponents because the Nazis regularly sent people from the same town to the same concentration camps. From 1943 to 1945, he was forced to fight at least 76 people, none of whom he ever saw alive again.
Only in April 1945 did Haft manage to escape during a death march away from the camp — by killing a Nazi soldier and stealing his uniform. Haft then spent weeks running from village to village. Trained to fight to the death, he even killed an elderly couple who offered him shelter after he suspected they’d discovered that he wasn’t really a Nazi. By the time he made it to Allied-controlled Germany, he weighed only 110 pounds and spent the next two years recovering in a refugee camp. But by 1947, he decided to fight again and immigrated to America to become a professional boxer — where he took on some of the biggest names in the sport.
Separate, but equal. How dumb is that?
Works when you don’t want to give a group equality.
Joke:
Tired of constant blonde jokes, a blonde dyes her hair brown.
She then goes for a drive in the country and sees a shepherd herding his sheep across the road.
“Hey, shepherd, if I guess how many sheep are here, can I keep one?”
The shepherd is puzzled but agrees. She blurts out “352!”
He is stunned but keeps his word and allows her to pick a sheep.
“I’ll take this one,” she says proudly. “It’s the cutest!”
“Hey lady,” says the shepherd, “if I guess your real hair color, can I have my dog back?”
1. As we were driving we saw a sign that said “Watch for Rocks” Morta said it should read “Watch for Pretty Rocks.” I told her she should write in her suggestion to the highway department, but she started saying it was a joke—-just to get out of writing a simple letter! And I thought I was lazy!
JOKE:
Hello?”
“Hi honey this is Daddy. Is Mommy near the phone?”
“No Daddy. She’s upstairs in the bedroom with Uncle Paul.”
After a brief pause, Daddy says, “But honey, you haven’t got an Uncle Paul.”
“Oh yes I do, and he’s upstairs in the room with Mommy, right now.”
Brief Pause.
“Uh, okay then, this is what I want you to do. Put the phone down on the table, run upstairs and knock on the bedroom door and shout to Mommy that Daddy’s car just pulled into the driveway.”
“Okay Daddy, just a minute.”
A few minutes later the little girl comes back to the phone. “I did it Daddy.”
“And what happened honey?” he asked.
“Well, Mommy got all scared, jumped out of bed with no clothes on and ran around screaming. Then she tripped over the rug, hit her head on the dresser and now she isn’t moving at all!”
“Oh my God!!! What about your Uncle Paul?”
“He jumped out of the bed with no clothes on, too. He was all scared and he jumped out of the back window and into the swimming pool. But I guess he didn’t know that you took out the water last week to clean it. He hit the bottom of the pool and I he isn’t moving either.”
Long Pause
Longer Pause
Even Longer Pause
Then Daddy says, “Swimming pool? Is this 486-5731?”
She yells, “No, I won’t sleep with you tonight, you pig!”
Everyone in the bar stops and stares.
Completely embarrassed, the guy slinks back to his table with a red face.
After a few minutes, the woman walks over to him and apologizes.
She smiles and says, “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you. I’m a graduate student in psychology, and I’m studying how people respond to embarrassing public situations.”
To which the guy responds as loudly as possible, “What do you mean $200 for a BJ?”
JOKE:
Pat goes to confession and tells the priest
“I’ve had sex with a woman who is not my wife”
“What’s the woman’s name”, asks the priest.
“Oh, I can’t tell you that”, says Pat.
“Well I can’t give you penance if you don’t tell me who it was.”
“Was it Mrs. Gilhooly”?
“No, father, it wasn’t.”
“Was it Mrs. Murphy”?
“No, father, it wasn’t “
“Was it Mrs. Jones”?
“No, father, it wasn’t “
“Well then Pat I can’t give you penance “, says the priest.
On the way out Pat meets Seamus.
“Well, Pat, did he give you penance?” asks Seamus.
“No, he didn’t, but he gave me three good leads”, says Pat.
JOKE:
Interviewer: How much amount of milk does your cow produce?
Farmer: which one, black one or white one?
Interviewer: Black one
Farmer: 2 litres per day.
Interviewer: And the white one?
Farmer: 2 litres per day.
Interviewer : Where do they sleep?
Farmer: The Black one or the. White one?
Interviewer: The black one
Farmer : In the Barn
Interviewer: And the White one?
Farmer: In the Barn
Interviewer: Your cows look healthy… What do
you feed them?
Farmer: which one..black one or white one?
Interviewer: Black one
Farmer: Grass
Interviewer: And the white one?
Farmer: Grass
Interviewer: (Annoyed😤) but why do you keep on asking if the black one or the white one when your answers are just the same??
Farmer: Because the black one is mine.
Interviewer: And the white one?
Farmer: Its also mine.
JOKE;
Arrived safely
Mr. Johnson, a businessman from Wisconsin, went on a business trip to Louisiana. He immediately sent an e-mail back home to his wife, Jennifer to let her know he had arrived safely.
Unfortunately, he miss-typed a letter and the e-mail ended up going to a Mrs. Joan Johnson, the wife of a preacher who had just passed away.
The preacher’s wife took one look at the e-mail and promptly fainted. When she was finally revived, she nervously pointed to the message, which read: “Arrived safely, but it sure is hot down here.”
JOKE:
Little Johnny was playing in the goat pen and the local pastor who just got finnished with house visit, saw him.
He saw Johnny play with the goat droppings, and noticed he placed the droppings in neat little rows.
Curious, he asked Johnny what he was doing.
“I’m playing Church, Pastor!” Johnny explained.
“That is interesting, Johnny. What does the rows of droppings represent?” The pastor asked.
“Oh, those are the people sitting in the church, pastor” Johnny replied.
Ammused, the pastor asked the boy “Now where is the pastor, Johnny?”
Then Johnny answered disappointed: “I haven’t found a big enough turd yet.”
JOKE:
Mother goes on a business trip or something like that, and when she returns, she asks her son, “And how did you get along with father, little Tommy, while I was away?”
The boy says, “Everything was fine, mum, daddy took me out in a boat on the lake every day, and I swam back alone.”
“Oh, wasn’t it too long a distance for you to swim?”
“Oh no, mum, that was OK. My only problem was that I had to get out of the bag first.”
Did You Know?
Superstar Swedish pop band ABBA’s breakthrough moment that put their music in front of more than just Swedish audiences came when they won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974—as a result of their contest success, they were able to tour Europe and appear on major television shows.
Should You Vacuum Broken Glass?
SHEA SIMMONS
Whether a wine glass got knocked over or a sauce bottle slipped out of your hand, broken glass happens. When it does, it’s of the utmost importance that you get it all up. After all, no one wants a bleeding big toe. But should you reach for your vacuum to do it?
When it comes to how to dispose of broken glass, your vacuum might or might not be the answer. It’s all about the type of appliance you have.
When it comes to household vacuums, most feature flexible hoses, and unfortunately, those can’t be used on broken glass. When you start to clean up broken glass using the hose, those jagged shards can damage the hose itself as well as the interior of the machine. Even the smallest cut in a vacuum’s hoses can cause it to lose suction.
If you’ve got a vacuum with a beater brush built into the base, you’re also out of luck. Those brushes are designed to loosen dirt caught in carpet strands. When your broken glass is on the carpet, those same brushes can actually push the glass into the material.
What vacuums can you use to pick up broken glass? Handheld vacuums are great options. There are no brushes or hoses, and the containers are often made of durable plastic that isn’t at risk of damage. Simply vacuum up the smaller pieces and immediately dump the canister.
If you happen to have a wet/dry shop vacuum, you can also get up the glass. You should check your manufacturer’s manual before attempting to use it this way, but it is possible.
Don’t have a handheld or wet/dry vacuum? Don’t worry. There’s a handy trick that’ll ensure you get up every piece of glass, and all you need is a lint roller.
It feels like this day took *forever* but its finally here!
New York Attorney General Letitia James announced Wednesday that she filed a civil lawsuit against former President Donald Trump and his three eldest children over his long-running alleged tax-dodging scheme.
James hopes to convince a court to take steps to bar Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump from conducting business in the state of New York, along with making them pay some $250 million in restitution and limiting their access to loans.
Former President Donald Trump claimed — yet again — that New York Attorney General Letitia James is “racist,” blasted her crime-fighting abilities, and called her “Peekaboo” in an angry rant on Truth Social after she filed a fraud lawsuit against him, his business and his three eldest children.
“Another Witch Hunt by a racist Attorney General, Letitia James, who failed in her run for Governor, getting almost zero support from the public, and now is doing poorly against Law & Order A.G. candidate, highly respected Michael Henry,” he wrote.
Dubbing her “Attorney General Letitia ‘Peekaboo’ James,” Trump said she is “a total crime fighting disaster” who is spending time “fighting for very powerful and well represented banks and insurance companies, who were fully paid, made a lot of money, and never had a complaint about me…”
James’ office said “Trump falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to further enrich himself and cheat the system.”
NY AG James filed a civil suit -not a criminal one. That’s disappointing
Do we have to hide our presence on Neptune?
When Allyson Felix became pregnant, Nike was prepared to cut the terms of Felix’s endorsement by as much as 70% due to the pregnancy, and told her to “know your place and just run.” 🤯
Amid all of this, she was forced to have an emergency c-section seven months into her pregnancy because of a potentially life-threatening condition and her baby had to live for more than a month in the NICU. But two years later she’s qualified for her fifth Olympics with her daughter watching.
Felix dropped Nike and created her own brand of running shoes, the Saysh One. She is currently running in the Olympics in Japan wearing them under the banner “I Know My Place”. 😏
With 11 medals now, she passed Carl Lewis this summer for the most track and field medals by an American in history!
“I used my voice and built this company for you. So that you never have to train at 4:30am while you’re 5 months pregnant to hide your pregnancy from your sponsor.” ❤️❤️❤️❤️
“Do you know who Eugene Jacques Bullard is? Chances are you don’t, but don’t feel bad because probably not one American in one million does, and that is a National tragedy.
His name is Eugene Jacques Bullard, and he is the first African-American fighter pilot in history. But he is also much more then that: He’s also a national hero, and his story is so incredible that I bet if you wrote a movie script based on it Hollywood would reject it as being too far-fetched.
Bullard was an expat living in France, and when World War 1 broke out he joined the French Infantry. He was seriously wounded, and France awarded him the Croix de Guerre and Medaille Militaire. In 1916 he joined the French air service and he first trained as a gunner but later he trained as a pilot. When American pilots volunteered to help France and formed the famous Lafayette Escadrille, he asked to join but by the time he became a qualified pilot they were no longer accepting new recruits, so he joined the Lafayette Flying Corps instead. He served with French flying units and he completed 20 combat missions.
When the United States finally joined the war, Bullard was the only member of the Escadrille or the French Flying Corps who was NOT invited to join the US Air Service. The reason? At that time the Air Service only accepted white men.
Now here is the part that almost sounds like a sequel to ‘Casablanca’: After WWI Bullard became a jazz musician in Paris and he eventually owned a nightclub called ‘L’Escadrille’. When the Germans invaded France and conquered it in WW2, his Club, and Bullard, became hugely popular with German officers, but what they DIDN’T know was that Bullard, who spoke fluent German, was actually working for the Free French as a spy. He eventually joined a French infantry unit, but he was badly wounded and had to leave the service.
By the end of the war, Bullard had become a national hero in France, but he later moved back to the U.S. where he was of course completely unknown. Practically no one in the United States was aware of it when, in 1959, the French government named him a national Chevalier, or Knight.
In 1960, the President of France, Charles DeGaulle, paid a state visit to the United States and when he arrived he said that one of the first things he wanted to do was to meet Bullard. That sent the White House staff scrambling because most of them, of course, had never even heard of him. They finally located him in New York City, and DeGaulle traveled there to meet him personally. At the time, Eugene Bullard was working as … An elevator operator.
Not long after Eugene Bullard met with the President of France, he passed away, and today very, very few Americans, and especially African-Americans, even know who he is. But, now YOU do, don’t you? And I hope you’ll be able to find opportunities to tell other people about this great American hero that probably only 1 American in 1 Million has ever heard of.”
Tyneka Santiago de Laveau
What is the coolest line a pilot has said to the passengers?
We had an unruly passenger before a flight. Rather than have cops drag her off, the entire plane had to get off, and re-board with the offender not allowed back on.
After we were back on, the pilot came on the speakers and apologized for the delay and said he would try to get us back on schedule and added “I’m gonna fly this plane like I stole it.”
I’m a white man and I have to tell you blacks that you are right the police have gotten way out of hand.
The police came around yesterday and told me that the neighbors were complaining that my dogs were chasing people on bikes. All I did was tell them why that couldn’t possibly be true and they arrested me on the spot.
I told them my dogs don’t even have bikes.