Posted on 10/07/2006 6:54:42 PM PDT by mcg2000
I sat across from him at my family's kitchen table back home in Memphis.
As often was the case, my brothers Jake, Isaac and I were right where we wanted to be- right beside our daddy as he discussed the issues of the day.
It was a time when, on the heels of Vietnam and Watergate, young Americans were turning away from public service.
But Al Gore didn't turn away.
He jumped feet first into public life and was elected one of Tennessee's youngest congressmen ever.
That's when he became my role model.
Thanks. Any idea what it is now? When I spoke at my neighbor's funeral, I said we were friends, and both our grandmothers were Irish. Her family said her grandmother was a cracker. She was so white as an infant that her daddy turned away and did not accept her. Later she turned what she called pecan tan. After her funeral, her cousin came over and we got to sharing stories about teaching in newly integrated schools and how people got to affiliate as they wanted. I guess I answered my own question, and that is why I have joined the ranks of "other" when asked about race.
"Any idea what it is now?"
Below is a piece that mentions the Louisiana case of Susie Phipps circa 1980s. It mentions that the 1/32 law was repealed in 1983.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E07E5DE1F39F93AA25753C1A963948260
...Ford does have some white blood inhim....
His mother lied about his father. She provided him white genes by getting pregnant by a white man. She thought it was the ultimate motherly gift.
Unless there is a paternity test proving otherwise......
I feel gypped. The government never told me who any of my great-great-great-great-grandparents were when I applied for my passport.
Not according to Louisiana law (only recently repealed).
What now consitutes "white" in Louisiana, bearing in mind the Tennessee is up the Missisippi a bit? I gather it used to be at least 15/16 white. Genetics run wild.
Look at Post 60. In Louisiana, people who were 1/8 Black were called Octaroons.
Octaroons were apparently black. Septararoons, or whatever 16 is in the Latin were not. How did the new law change this? :)
The law was changed only about 20 years ago. I don't know what determines a person's ethnicity in Louisiana nowadays.
An interesting point. The late ex-Mayor of New Orleans, Ernest "Dutch" Morial, used to brag that he was the first Black graduate of LSU's Law School. However, at the time he attended LSU, he passed himself off as "White." He was very light skinned...just like Harold Ford, Jr.
A little math reference for you, although, no doubt outside your esoteric speciality. What is your speciality again? I am having a senior moment.
It's hard to describe my area to a layman. But I don't specialize in Latin prefixes, that's for sure.
Or is it prefices?
See?
I thought it was something about combinations and pemutations, or whatever, is it not?
Even in Ford Family, race divides generations
Memphis Commercial Appeal
March 19, 2006
By Wendi C. Thomas
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1599295/posts
I saw that earlier! Ford's, one of a kind!!!!!
I would guess that "Plessy" was originally "Plessis" (that is, a Creole name).
Then their surname Ford is a lie?
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