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Black Kos, Week In Review - The Slave Forts of Western Africa [1]
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Date: 2022-09-30
Cape Coast Castle, Ghana as rebuilt by the British in the 18th century - It was originally a Portuguese "feitoria" or trading post, established in 1555
AFRICA’S SLAVE CASTLES — B eautiful But Tragic Reminders of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
By dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
“THEY WERE THE LAST PLACE A SLAVE WOULD ‘RESIDE’ BEFORE GOING THROUGH THE DOOR-OF-NO-RETURN”
I've returned through the door of no return
On Goree Island
I've returned through the door of no return
On Goree Island Oh I remember I once dressed as a king
Decked in fine robes and everything
The blood that's in my veins is pure royalty
I ruled many kingdoms and ruled many dynasties
Then all of a sudden I was in a state of shock
Caught and thrown on the auction block
Just like Jesus I was flogged and mocked
Now human cargo yes they said I wasn't coming back Door Of No Return - by Steel Pulse
The remnants of the slave castles and forts off Africa’s Western shores serve as stark architectural reminders of man’s inhumanity to his fellow man. Many historians over the years have remarked that It’s just not possible to write about the Slave Castles off the coast of Western Africa, without first describing the brutality of the trans-Atlantic African slave trade. The brutal profit driven trans-African slave trade saw the captured and soul crushing sale of millions of Black Africans for profit. African slaves were uprooted and transplanted to a strange new world leaving a broken family tree with branches to a land they’d never return to.
On a personal note, one of my bucket list items is to visit one of these fortresses of sorrow where the story of my ancestors began. This diary is a brief look at some of the research I’ve done looking at the history of Africa’s Slave Castles.
The trans-Atlantic slave trade of Africans began around the latter half of the 15th century when Europeans first captured and sold black Africans from along the gulf of Guinea to white traders as porters and servants. This area of the African continent was later divided up among the Belgians, the British, the Dutch, the French, the Germans, the Portuguese and the Spanish as colonial holdings.
European slave traffickers built castles along the Western coast of Africa close to the ocean to facilitate the easy transfer of their human cargo onto slave frigates. The conditions of these castles reflected the dehumanizing attitudes towards Black Africans. But the modern era of trans-African slavery didn’t begin with these castles.
By the end of the Middle Ages slavery had become rare in Northern Europe, but wasn’t unknown in Orthodox Eastern Europe and Southern Europe around the Mediterranean. Europeans in these regions had more contact with non-Christian societies in the Middle East and North Africa, and started to develop a belief system that denied the basic humanity of non-Christians. For example some Italian maritime states remained involved in the slave-trade throughout the Middle Ages.
But the only Christian European areas (outside of Russia) where agricultural slavery was economically important was the southern reaches of the Iberian peninsula (Spain and Portugal), where slaves from wars with Muslims, both in the Reconquista and Christian attempts to expand into North Africa, were conscripted into labor. In the 14th century these Iberian plantation had begun to supplement their labor forces with slaves taken from Arab sub-Saharan African slave traders (Black Kos, Week In Review — The Arab slave trade in Africa). Unfortunately these same nations of Spain and Portugal became the leaders in the Age of Discovery, and took with them their slave-making attitudes to their new territories in the Americas.
Canary Islands, of the Coast of Morocco
Europeans had been aware since the times of antiquity of the Canary Islands, about 70 miles off the continental African coast in the Atlantic Ocean . The Guanches, a people related to the North African Berber peoples, lived at subsistence levels on the Canary Islands with only intermittent contact with outsiders. In 1402 the Spanish began the process of conquest, in what can now be viewed as a dress rehearsal for their conquests of the New World. The Spanish invasions lasted until the final defeat of Guanches resistance at Tenerife in 1496, and was accompanied by the removal of the majority of the Guanche’s as slaves.
There were a number of Catholic Church injunctions against the enslavement of the Guanches but they had no effect. In 1435 Pope Eugene IV condemned the enslavement of other Christians, in Sicut Dudum, in which he explicitly forbading the enslavement of the Guanches. Under threat of excommunication, the pope ordered everyone involved fifteen days from receipt of his papal bull "to restore to their earlier liberty all and each person of either sex who were once residents of said Canary Islands... These people are to be totally and perpetually free and are to be let go without the exaction or reception of any money. In March 1425 a papal bull was issued that threatened excommunication for any Christian slave dealers and ordered Jews to wear a "badge of infamy" to deter, in part, the buying of Christians. In June 1425 Martin anathematized those who sold Christian slaves to Muslims. Traffic in Christian slaves was not banned, purely the sale to non-Christian owners.
James Island Fort controlled the Gambia River. It is presumed that Kunta Kinte, the main character of Alex Haley's Roots, was confined in this fort until he was taken to the New World.
Pope Pius II (1458 to 1464) and Pope Sixtus IV (1471 to 1484) followed with additional papal bulls condemning the enslavement of Christian Canary Islanders. Historian Rodney Stark comments that the fact that slavery continued on the Canary Islands despite the issuance of Sicut dudum is more evidence of "the weakness of papal authority" at the time rather than an indication of "indifference of the Church to the sin of slavery" pointing out that after the prohibition slavery only continued on the recently baptized. In 1462 Pope Urban VIII in the Apud Raynaldum in Annalibus Ecclesiasticis ad ann n.42 who referred to those covered by the prohibitions of Pius II as "neophyte Christians".
But the action of the popes mentioned above happened after Pope Martin V had already authorized a crusade against Africa in 1418. That authorization coupled with a later bull (1441) sanctioning the Portuguese trade in African slaves meant the cat was already out of the bag. Ten black African slaves were presented to Pope Martin in 1441 by Prince Henry of Portugal as Pope Martin supported colonial expansion.
After this “gift” to the Pope, the Portuguese sought confirmation from the Vatican that they could enslave infidels on crusades. In 1452 Nicholas V issued the papal bull Dum Diversas to King Alfonso V of Portugal which included the following words: "we grant to you...full and free permission to invade, search out, capture and subjugate the Saracens and pagans and any other unbelievers and enemies of Christ...to reduce their persons into perpetual slavery". In 1454 Pope Nicholas explicitly confirmed the rights granted to King Alfonso V in Dum Diversas in Romanus Pontifex by which he granted to Alfonso "...the rights of conquest and permissions previously granted not only to the territories already acquired but also those that might be acquired in the future". Thus with blessings of the Catholic Church, the kingdom of Portugal launched the trans-Atlantic slave trade in full. They were joined shortly afterwards by Spain, with other Western European nations soon joining the frenzy.
To ensure a constant supply of slaves, the Europeans instigated conflicts between the tribes which led to continuous wars. The ensuing wars produced able-bodied men, children-bearing women and even children who were yoked together and held for weeks in the dungeons of the slave castles until ships arrived–ships that took the slaves to North, Central and South America as well as the Caribbean.
Ft. Amsterdam, Abandze, Ghana
For example in the infamous Cape Coast Castle (in modern Ghana), the underground dungeon was a space of terror, death, and blackness, before the perilous voyage across the Atlantic in the hold of a slave scooter. These dungeons stood in direct contrast to the European’s living quarters in commanding heights of luxurious clean white stained stone in the upper reaches of the castles above. The basements of these imposing fortresses were often the last memory slaves had of their homeland before being shipped off across the Atlantic, as this signified the beginning of their journey. Slaves were beaten and tortured, and many succumbed to disease. Today at Cape Coast Castle, on top of the sediment of decayed bones, flesh and excrement that has congealed over centuries stands a shrine to Nana Tabir, the local rock god. This shrine is maintained by a traditional African priest, who accepts monetary offerings towards prayers of atonement.
At the start of the trans-Atlantic slave trade the need for the slaves appeared to be driven by basic economics; Whites needed lots of free labor to work their colonial possessions in the Americas, and as the Native Americans there succumbed to disease and mistreatment, they surmised Blacks would fill that labor void (See Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas ). But racism later came to be used as justification for this most evil of human economic systems.
“Door of no return” — Thick heavy wood, crude iron straps. slave dungeon, St. George's Castle, Ghana
The stay in these dank dangerous dungeons usually lasted about four to six weeks, with punishment and abuse that was both physical and mental. The men and woman were separated, with some of the women used as house slaves in the castles, instead of being sent to the dungeons (a practice later brought to the New World). Conditions in the castle were wretched, and the slaves were packed in their cells like sardines in a can. One of the purpose of the extended stay under these dreadful conditions was to break the warrior spirit of the men (many of whom were captured soldiers) so by the time the ships arrive, they would be more docile on the trans-Atlantic journey. Their captivity in the slave dungeons was a prelude of what was to come on the slave ship on the other side of the infamous door-of-no-return.
Europeans who came to the Gold Coast (modern Ghana) built castles, forts, and fortified trading posts. Nearly every Western European nation engaged in serious competition for the resources of the African continent. But the inter-European rivalry paled in comparison to the bitter competition they engineered among the native African kings and chiefs.
The Europeans initially paid each African kingdom monthly rents to gain footholds of small land holdings to build their castles and forts. Then they first started buying prisoners (trading them for weapons) and eventually encouraged their trading partners to raid nearby African nations in exchange for more goods. This created an almost 300 year period of perpetual war, as African kingdoms were trapped in a cycle of having to sell slaves to buy weapons to defend themselves against other kingdoms who also had to raid to buy slaves. Europeans employing this divide-and-conquer strategy which always started as “mutual beneficial commerce” until it evolved it into colonial conquest and the slave trade.
British officials in 1820 leave the castle by hammock and by basket.
Credit From “The Door of No Return”
But slavery alone wasn’t the only resource European traders sought. Gold was sought out as the precious metal was the standard international currency for conducting trade in the 15th and 16th century. What is now the nation of Ghana was named The Gold Coast for the large reserves of gold contained there. The combination of gold and slaves created the ideal place for the Europeans to build permanent lodgings: castles for both “Black” gold (slaves) and natural gold. The Gold Coast was located more strategically than any other African coastal area.
Soon Western Africa formally only referred to as the “Land of the Blacks,” became in the imagination of European monarchs a fertile and populous lands ripe for exploitation. They sought the rich gold of the Gold Coast (Ghana), the Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire), the Pepper Coast (Sierra Leone ), but no land was a profitable as the Slave Coast (Slave Coast) along the Bight of Benin.
The entire western African coast was called "the White man's grave" due to the vast numbers of deaths from contracting sicknesses such as Yellow fever, malaria, heat exhaustion, and gastro-entero diseases. In 1841, 80% of British sailors on expeditions up the Niger river were infected with fevers. Between 1844 and 1854, 20 of the 74 French missionaries in Senegal died from local illnesses and 19 more died shortly after arriving back to France. Never the less the huge profits attracted so many different European nations that castles (and forts) became a necessary form of survival and protection, just as castles were in Europe, in addition to the access it gave them to profitable market and the sea.
La Maison des Esclaves, Goree Island —
During the period of active, trans-oceanic slave-trading, about 40 slave castles were built along the coast of West Africa–from Senegal to Ghana (formerly Gold Coast) however, slaves that were brought, bought and housed therein were also from the interior of the continent. In addition to Cape Coast Castle, other castles and forts included Elmina Castle, Osu Castle aka Fort Christiansborg, Bunce Island and Goree Island. Sometimes villages and towns would arise around the castles and forts which were considered the focal point of the settlement–the civic center. The plan called for traders to purchase, capture or barter for the slaves, imprison them in the castles and finally transfer them to waiting ships as the ships arrive to begin the slaves’ last ride along the infamous Middle Passage. The castles were dubbed “warehouses of Black humanity.”
The Cape Coast Castle was built initially for commercial trading between Africans and Europeans. (It was similar to the American Indians “greeting” the Pilgrims on the other side of the world). It was first built in timber and later rebuild in stone. Its ownership changed many times as the Europeans battled for dominancy of the region. At various times, it was occupied by the Dutch, the Swedes and the British (1664), who used it as the seat of their colonial administration. (It is important to note that though the British boasted about abolishing the slave trade, they kept a colonial grip on countries throughout the world infusing them, including parts of Africa, with their white superiority agenda. So too, did their European brethren.) Not until 1957 did Ghana achieved its independence.
Elmina Castle latrines
In the slave dungeons, there were housed hundreds and sometimes thousands of slaves simultaneously awaiting transportation. Slaves were imprisoned in sparse conditions forced to eat and sleep in the same place. There were no toilet facilities in slave castles; slaves were forced to urinate and relieve themselves in the same places they slept. A channel in the floor would carry the waste away from their cells to the exterior of the building. Captives were given no bathing facilities and there was barely enough ventilation to keep them alive in the hot tropical climate. The conditions broke the spirits of many slaves and left them too to weak to organize revolts.
Elmina Castle was established prior to Cape Coast Castle centered around a fishing village port. Before the slave trade thrived at Elmina, the village was a hub of commercial and social activity centering around a fort that had been built by the Portuguese. As the commercial impetus for slaves was became apparent, the castle was built in anticipation of the pending mass trafficking of the “Black gold” cargo. Although the Portuguese were the first ones who entered the trans-Atlantic slave enterprise on a mass scale, the British took it to a new level. The British became innovators in the business making it a highly specialized and more profitable industry.
The operation of Elmina Castle was used as the model from which many of the other castles along the Slave Coast took their lead. These castles were the last place millions of Africans would see of their homeland. The slave trade continued for over three centuries and at the peak of the trafficking, the average castle would account for approximately 30,000 bodies per year. And to fully understand the scope of this human atrocity, life in the slave castle was a mild microcosm of the slaves’ future–the journey across the oceans was the beginning of eternal slavery, for those who survived the voyage. Leaving the dungeons was definitely not what it was thought to be.
In order to keep the castles’ dungeons filled with a consistent flow of Black bodies, Europeans employed many devious means to secure slaves, the basis of the Atlantic triangular trade. Finished goods and other imports were brought to the Coast of West Africa, on the first leg of the triangle. On the second leg, slaves, usually housed in the castle dungeons, were transported to the Americas, Brazil, and the Caribbean to be sold. The ships then returned to Europe filled with rum, tobacco and huge profits on the third leg of the triangle.
One of the way-stations along the route was Goree Island. Goree was one of the first places in Africa settled by the Europeans. Today the island is more significantly known as a memorial to the slave trade. Goree island was more of a transient port-of-call than a permanent location, and it was never a major slave port. But never the less a great deal of slave trading occur there. Today Goree Island has been visited by many prominent world leaders to dramatize the horrors of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
x YouTube Video
Although not as well known internationally as Goree, Bunce Island was the site of one of the largest slave castles on the West African Coast. It is located in modern Sierra Leone. Bunce’s location was considered vitally and strategically important as a shipping port for slaves; as it was West Africa’s largest harbor,
Bunce Island, in Sierra Leone, was a British slave trading post in the 18th century. Abandoned in the mid-1800s, it is one of the most authentic slave trading facilities still in existence = CNN
Later on as Europeans proclaimed the abolition of slavery, the former slave castles became residential rather than commercial. But Europeans still occupied most of Africa and brutally enforced their will on Black Africans. During the infamous Berlin West African Conference of 1884-1885 Europeans divide up laid claim to virtually all of Africa. Parts of the continent had been “explored,” but now government representatives of European countries went in to expand their stranglehold. The Berlin conference laid the groundwork for the now familiar geopolitical division of Africa. Many of the former slave castles became civic centers from where Europeans administrated their colonial possessions.
The only upside to the castles becoming civic and governmental centers is that in many cases this helped to preserve them to the present day. Today thousands of visitors, especially members of the African diaspora visit these historic castles and other sites that once served as trading posts for their ancestors. After visiting one site in 1991, former Secretary of State, General Colin Powell said, “I am an American but today, I am something more … I am an African too. I feel my roots here in this continent.”
President Barack Obama finishes an address following a tour with his family of Cape Coast Castle in Ghana on July 11, 2009
When President Barack Obama visited the Cape Coast slave castle in 2009, it was the first time many in the wider world saw an African slave castle. Like many parts of the Obama presidency his visit had a special resonance. The idea that the US President of could visit a slave castle and emotionally identify with the people who were enslaved there captivating the world.
Other famous African Americans have returned to their ancestral homeland of Africa to visit the facilities which was the last place their enslaved ancestors saw on the continent, it has tended to be an overwhelmingly gripping emotional experience. Famously comedian Steve Harvey was no exception to this overwhelming experience. Harvey was seen in the widely circulated photograph of him, breaking down during his visit in his August 2019 visit to Elmina Castle, Ghana.
Steve Harvey at Elmina Castle, Ghana
Unlike more modern human tragedies, like the Holocaust, there were no photograph taken during the confinement of Africans in trans-Atlantic slave trade castles. What we do know about the brutal treatment there has come through slave diaries, family stories, ancient drawings and scrolls, archaeological diggings. But the slave castles still stand along the coast of western Africa, a grim testament and reminder of the evil that man’s love for money will cause them to loose their own humanity. The motive for greater and greater profits by Europe’s elites caused millions of Africa’s children to be uprooted and brought to strange lands under nearly unspeakable horrors and conditions.
But in another fateful twist the slave castles serve as window into family trees. With modern DNA family ancestry testing these castles serve as markers where people of African decent can trace their roots. Rather than the random marauding slave raiding many American think of or were taught when they think of the slave trade; slave ships tended to follow distinct and repeated routs. Sailors didn’t wander all over the vast seas they wanted the certainty slave castles established. So today if black people in the Americas can trace their genetics and know where in the Americas their family were first taken too (for example South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Jamaica, Haiti, etc.) they can usually trace the slave ships back to the point they left Africa. Also since each fort tended to gather slaves from a distinct region (usually up from a nearby river most slave castles were built near them), if you can trace your ancestry back to a particular slave castle you can narrow your ethnic origins even more. Because of modern technology slave castles now serve as markers of family origin. People of African descent through out the African diaspora looking to get in touch with their roots have made Slave-Trade Tours in West Africa a growing tourist attraction. Today the beauty and tragic history of these castles are now a unique part of the fabric of world history that make all of us in the USA what we are today.
Sources:
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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The actor opened up about how he is treated differently by people who claim to support the show. The Root: Stranger Things' Caleb McLaughlin Addresses Racism From Fans During Comic Con Appearance
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Stranger Things actor Caleb McLaughlin made a recent appearance at Heroes Comic Con in Belgium on Sunday (Sept 25) and discussed the racism he’s experienced from fans of the show. He has portrayed Lucas Sinclair on the popular Netflix series since 2016. But because he’s Black, he claims to have received different treatment from those who say they support the show.
McLaughlin also described the toll racism took on him throughout his career. “My very first Comic Con, some people didn’t stand in my line because I was Black. Some people told me: ‘Oh, I didn’t want to be in line because you were mean to Eleven,’ even now some people don’t follow me or don’t support me because I’m Black.”
He went even deeper and described that when he’s overseas, you can feel the bigotry. “It’s hard to talk about and for people to understand but when I was younger it definitely affected me a lot...you’re like ‘why am I the least favorite? The least amount of followers? I’m on the same show as everybody from Season 1.
“My parents had to be like ‘it’s a sad truth but it’s because you’re the Black child on the show.’ Because I was born with this beautiful chocolate skin, I’m not loved? With my platform I want to spread positivity and love because I do not give hate back to people who give hate to me.”
x here's caleb talking about how he had to deal with racism just because he was "the black kid who was mean to eleven in season 1" and felt like it was important to share his thoughts on that :) #StrangerThings #TUDUM #CalebMcLaughlin @HComicConBE pic.twitter.com/JZoXS9aaBW — L ☾ met timothée (@spideychaIamet) September 25, 2022
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A recent survey conducted by HBCU Connect on behalf of Microsoft found that about 95% of the 200 respondents made up of HBCU students and alumni expressed interest in careers in the gaming industry. The Grio: Xbox seeks to draw Black talent to the gaming industry with ‘Project Amplify’
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Gaming is one of the most popular forms of entertainment, yet statistics show that Black talent is underrepresented in the industry when compared to the U.S. population. Xbox is looking to change that with its new “Project Amplify” video series.
According to an Xbox news release, in contrast to the country’s 13% Black population, only 2% of video game industry professionals are Black.
While Black specialists appear to be lacking in numbers, it’s not because they’re uninterested.
A recent survey conducted by HBCU Connect on behalf of Microsoft found that out of 200 respondents, about 95% of college students and alumni from Historically Black Colleges and Universities nationwide expressed interest in careers in the gaming industry. Thirty-four percent of respondents said they were particularly interested in program management roles, 24 percent in engineering roles and 18 percent in gaming development roles.
Xbox has since developed “Project Amplify” in an effort to magnify Black voices within their own company. The goal is to use real-life experiences from Black leaders and employees at Xbox to inspire, educate and motivate young people nationwide to pursue careers in the gaming industry.
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Being a woman is one thing. Being a Black woman in the anime community is quite another. The Root: Gaming Vet April Bowler Weighs in on Racism in the Anime Community
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The gaming/anime world has been adopted by Black nerds for decades now, with a few pioneers leading them including streaming gaming veteran April Bowler. She’s the moderator for The Official Hip-Hop/Anime/Gaming Community, growing the Facebook group by over 20,000 members. Yet, navigating the anime/gaming world was accompanied by the harsh realization that white supremacists pollute that space.
In a 2021 study by the Extremism and Gaming Research Network, it was found that games like Call of Duty and and others with open lobbies are often spaces where extremist groups find recruits and terrorize non-white gamers. In another report from the Anti-Defamation League, 53 percent of online gamers said they experienced harassment based on their race or gender. Even on streaming platforms like Twitch, users of color formed a petition to ban “hate raids” of racist trolls in response to being terrorized.
Bowler experienced the harassment first-hand, being exposed to both the racism and sexism of the online space. Though, she took measures to keep her identity hidden in the game lobbies.
“On Call of Duty, for instance - racism galore. Sexism too. You don’t know if they really have these views or [if] they’re just trying to troll the lobby. Either way, it’s unacceptable. That sort of behavior and verbal abuse shouldn’t be allowed on the games,” Bowler said. “I’ve never heard a woman in a COD lobby say these things. We’re more quiet and try not to get our voice out there so we don’t get attacked for being a woman.”
Though they can’t tell her race off of her voice alone, Bowler said she’s witnessed Black men be harassed by racist players who assume they’re Black by the way they speak. All gamers and streamers can really do is delete the comments, report the users and try to avoid them.
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Hundreds of thousands of people are suffering in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, and Niger due to government failures to invest in preventive infrastructure. Yahoo: Heavy floods ravage West Africa farmlands
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Nigeria rice farmer Adamu Garba squelched barefoot through his paddy fields, surveying damage from devastating floods that have destroyed farmland across the north of the country.
Parts of West and central Africa have been battered by floods ravaging farms like Garba's rice plots, wiping out crops and risking worsening food insecurity in a region already struggling with economic fallout from the Ukraine war.
Just in Nigeria, constant heavy rains caused the worst flooding in a decade, killing more than 300 people since the start of the rainy season and displacing at least 100,000, according to emergency officials.
"It is devastating but there is nothing we can do, we just have to be strong," Garba told AFP at his farm near the city of Kano, where he normally harvests 200 bags of rice.
"Now in the condition we find ourselves we are not sure we will harvest half a bag here."
Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) spokesman Manzo Ezekiel said flooding has been unprecedented due to continuous rainfall with 29 of the country's 36 states affected.
"Thousands of farmlands have also been destroyed. The figures will rise further because we are still experiencing torrential rains and flooding," he said.
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This policy needs a serious rethink. Foreign Policy: Who Speaks English?
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Early this year, a bug seemed to have bitten Olumuyiwa Igbalajobi, a postdoctoral fellow in mycology at Canada’s University of British Columbia. As a native of Nigeria, he often found himself fielding questions from young people from his country about how to further their studies in the West.
Among the many barriers they reported facing, from absurdly difficult to obtain visas to the scarcity of financial assistance, one seemed especially irksome: Students from Nigerian universities were commonly being told that they had to pass an English language test as part of their application just for the mere honor of being considered. Since then, with some success, Igbalajobi has led a social media campaign to prod universities in Canada and the United States with such requirements to lift them for Nigerian students.
“I didn’t want to jump to the conclusion that this was a case of racism, but right from the start I felt that this is not right,” he said in an interview. “When I was young and in school, we were penalized for speaking what was called the “‘vernacular,’” meaning any of Nigeria’s many Indigenous languages. “To get into any Nigerian university you must have passing grades in English. And here we are being asked once again to prove our worth. It’s insulting.”
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The 52-year-old Jackson will, like every other new justice since 1972, sit in a chair that once belonged to John Marshall. The Grio: Jackson set to make Supreme Court debut in brief ceremony
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Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is making her first appearance on the Supreme Court bench in a brief courtroom ceremony three days ahead of the start of the high court’s new term.
President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and their spouses are expected Friday at the invitation-only ceremonial investiture for Jackson, the first Black woman on the Supreme Court.
During the ceremony the 52-year-old Jackson will follow the custom of every other new justice since 1972 and sit in a chair that once belonged to John Marshall, who served as chief justice for 34 years in the early 1800s.
Marshall also was a slaveholder, perhaps adding a special poignancy to Jackson taking her place in his onetime possession. She is only the third Black justice in the court’s history, along with her new colleague Justice Clarence Thomas and the late Justice Thurgood Marshall.
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WELCOME TO THE FRIDAY PORCH
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