War in the Caucasus - Wall Street Journal
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on August 10th, 2008 4:28 am by HL
War in the Caucasus - Wall Street Journal
America’s Racial Progress
WASHINGTON — The Oxford English Dictionary dates the word “pogrom” from 1905, the year hundreds of Russian Jews were massacred in Odessa. In 1908, there was a pogrom of sorts in Illinois. It occurred in Springfield 100 years ago this week. So, consider the phenomenon of progress, which at the moment seems more contingent than it did just a decade ago. On the night of Aug. 13, Mabel Hallam, a pretty young white woman whose husband Earl was working the night shift as a streetcar conductor, retired early. Around 11:30 p.m. she was awakened by a man’s weight on her. “Why, Earl,” she said, “what is wrong with you?” The man, who was not Earl and was black, said, “I am drunk.” He raped her and fled. So she said.
