Hate Crime Charge For Zimmerman, Or Media Hype Disguised As Reporting?

The basic premise for a federal “hate crime” charge against George Zimmerman would be proof that the reason for his approaching Trayvon Martin was specifically and intentionally due to his race. However, how can a black male, which, by definition George Zimmerman is, be charged with a race crime against another black male?

If President Obama is black then George Zimmerman is black.

George Zimmerman’s Grandparents were black, his mother was black, and there is multiple racial ancestry within his family. So does Eric Holder actually propose to be the first Attorney General in the history of Hate Crime Legislation who is going to charge a hate crime regardless of ethnicity, when the very definition of “hate crime” is dependent on ethnicity? If so, there are a bunch of Chicago murders now eligible for Federal Hate Crime legislation. This is ridiculous. Implausible, insufferable, and ridiculous.

SANFORD, Fla. — WFTV has learned charges against George Zimmerman could be getting more serious.

More @ The Last Refuge

Amateur Genealogist Who Backed '1/32 Cherokee' Warren Now Admits Mistake

Lynda Smith, the amateur genealogist who unknowingly found herself at the root of the false “Elizabeth Warren is 1/32 Cherokee” meme introduced to the media by “noted” genealogist Chris Child of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, acknowledged in an email to me this past Saturday, May 12, that her statement in a March 2006 family newsletter upon which Mr. Child based his claim of Ms. Warren’s Cherokee ancestry was made with no supporting documentation. It was, in fact, an honest mistake that Ms. Smith now acknowledges is entirely without foundation.

More @ Breitbart

Civil War (Sic) Magazines - What I Like - Part One

My favorite Civil War print publication has, in the last 18 months, become North South Trader's Civil War. Though I've known of the publication for years (they've been publishing since 1973) and have read numerous issues before, I only started subscribing 2 years ago when I became an avid relic hunter. I'm certainly glad I did. Though geared toward CW relic hunters and collectors, it bills itself as a publication "for collectors, researchers, relic hunters, and historians of the War Between the States." And it is most certainly that. Published 6 times a year, there is enough in each issue to satisfy anyone who studies the WBTS - well almost anyone.

As publisher Steve Sylvia has alluded to in the most recent issue's editorial titled "Apologies and appeasement", those who concentrate on so-called "social history" (I think Robert Krick calls some of this emphasis "psychobabble") may not find the articles "socially conscious" enough; which is why it has become my favorite publication. When I subscribe to magazines which focus on history, I really don't want to read "preachy" styled articles emphasizing a morality play regarding the real Civil War myth: "North good, South bad."

As historian Brion McLanahan has pointed out:

The importance of this myth is that it is used to divide the country into progressive and enlightened (the North) and reactionary and racist (the South), and allows historians to portray all of American history through that divide, dismissing the Southern founders and Southern arguments about limited government and states' rights while praising ever-expanding powers for the federal government . . . ( The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers, page 14.)

Quite frankly, I'm sick of it. There's enough of that shallow, agenda-driven, self-serving silliness available in the blogosphere at no charge. There's really no need for me to pay a subscription fee to have it delivered to my home.

More @ Old Virginia Blog

Henry and Franklin Cozzens: Free persons of color

Michael C. Hardy
VERBATIM POST

If you have not figured it out by now, I'll go ahead and let you in on a bit of my life: I really like cemeteries. I actually teach a class on cemetery iconography. Over the past twenty years, I've been in hundreds of cemeteries, from Florida, to Massachusetts, to Missouri. Very few things give me greater pleasure than setting stones for veterans, especially Civil War soldiers.

This past Saturday, I was honored to help set a stone on an unmarked grave of a Confederate soldier - one that I had been hunting for a long time.

Henry Cozzens (Cousins) or at times, William Henry Cozzens, and his brother, Franklin Cozzens, both voluntarily enlisted in Watauga County in what became Company B, 37th North Carolina Troops, on September 14, 1861. Both were mustered in as privates. Both were from Randolph County. Henry was 21 and living at home; Franklin was 28 and married, with an infant daughter. Franklin Cozzens was killed in action at the battle of Second Manassas on August 29, 1862, and lies buried in a mass grave.

Henry served most of the war as a teamster. He was captured on April 2, 1865, after the break through below Petersburg, Virginia. He was confined at Point Lookout and released after taking the Oath on June 10, 1865. After returning from the war, he moved southwest to Yancey County, where he married Alex Beaver King, the widow of a Confederate soldier. He eventually applied and was awarded a pension for his service in the Confederate army.

I've believed for many years that he was buried in the King Cemetery in Yancey County. A few months ago, after persistent questioning, we finally found a family member who confirmed this. A stone was ordered from the VA and placed on his previously unmarked (or fieldstone marked) grave.

But there is more to this story (something I've been researching for over a decade): Henry and Franklin Cozzens were "free persons of color." They and their families are listed as either being negroes (1850) or mulatto (1860) on the Watauga County census. They considered themselves melungeons, or, of mixed blood, part Indian, part Portuguese, part Black. Regardless, they were not required (or even eligible) for Confederate service. Yet they did serve, voluntarily. It cost Franklin his life. I've always wondered what happened to his widow after the War. She simply disappears. Oh well, the search goes on.