You are here
The switching of robes and hoods
Primary tabs
- speakerDr. Katie Cannan is the Annie Scale's Rogers, professor of
- speakerethics and theology at Union City.
- speakerI'll ask Katie, please, to stand in the dean of of the theology
- speakerfaculty, John Carroll, and I'll ask the dean, please,
- speakerto administer the oath to Professor Canon
- speakerKatie.
- speakerThis is a delight to welcome you and this and this official way.
- speakerWill you please repeat after me?
- speakerI do sincerely accept my responsibilities.
- speakerI do sincerely accept my responsibilities
- speakeras any scale's. Rogers Professor of Christian Ethics.
- speakerIs there any scale? Rogers, professor of Christian Ethics
- speakerof Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education
- speakerof Union Theological Seminary and the Presbyterian School of Christian
- speakerEducation and engage to perform the
- speakersame and engage to perform the same
- speakerwith diligence and
- speakerdiligence and devotion
- speakerinfluenced by a desire to promote the glory
- speakerof God, influenced by a desire to promote the glory of
- speakerGod and the good of the Church and the good of the church.
- speakerI do solemnly
- speakerpromise. I do solemnly promise
- speakerby the assistance of the grace of God, by
- speakerthe assistance of the grace of God, to
- speakerbe diligent, to be diligent in continuing my growth and development
- speakerand continuing my growth and development,
- speakerboth personal and professional,
- speakerboth personal and professional.
- speakerAnd to maintain that department
- speakerand to maintain a department
- speakerin all respects becoming my position,
- speakerin all respects becoming my
- speakerposition and agreeable and agreeable to my ordination engagements,
- speakerto my ordination engagement and
- speakerthat.
- speakerI am honored and delighted to be asked to introduce my esteemed
- speakercolleague, Dr. Kati Janiva Canon Keddie joined the
- speakerfaculty at Union PSC in 2001 as the Annie Scale's Rogers,
- speakerprofessor of Christian Social Ethics, the chair into which she has
- speakerjust been inaugurated.
- speakerPrior to that, she taught on the faculties of Temple University,
- speakerthe Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard Divinity School,
- speakerUnion Theological Seminary in New York City and New York
- speakerTheological Seminary.
- speakerShe received her undergraduate degrees at Barbara Scotia College in Concord,
- speakerNorth Carolina, and her master of divinity degree from Johnson
- speakerC. Smith Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia.
- speakerAfter that, she went to study at the other union seminary, the one further north
- speakerwhere she wrote a dissertation on resources for constructive ethic for black
- speakerwomen with special attention to the life and work of Zora Neale Hurston.
- speakerWho will hear more about this morning.
- speakerKatie is a path breaker in so many ways.
- speakerShe's a first, first, first.
- speakerKatie was the first African-American woman ordained in the United Presbyterian
- speakerChurch. She was the first African-American woman to receive
- speakera Ph.D. from Union Theological Seminary in New York in theology.
- speakerAnd she's the first African-American woman to serve on the faculty of Union
- speakerTheological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education.
- speakerShe is Katie is the recipient of many, many awards and honors, and
- speakerif I were to read through the list, we would be here all morning just listening to the
- speakerlist that I could take out of her seat. KVI Among some of the more important
- speakerones are the Edler Hawkins Award by the National Black Presbyterian Caucus,
- speakerthe Mary Ingram Bunting Fellowship of Radcliffe College, Harvard University,
- speakerand three awards from the Rockefeller Foundation, most recently one to be a scholar
- speakerin residence at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia at their Center for the
- speakerStudy of Black Literature and Culture.
- speakerKitty is the author and editor of six books and hard at work on the 7th.
- speakerHer most recent book is Teaching Preaching Isaac R.
- speakerClarke and Black Sacred Rhetoric.
- speakerShe's justly famous for her book, Black Womanist Ethics, because
- speakershe's the founding mother of womanist theology in the United States, another pathbreaking
- speakeractivity in her life.
- speakerShe's written numerous articles and book chapters, again, too numerous to mention
- speakerhere on subjects ranging from Afrocentric ethics to preaching to
- speakertransformative grace and Presbyterian black Presbyterian tradition.
- speakerShe's currently at work on a new manuscript, which she has entitled The Pounding
- speakerof Soundless Heartbeat's, a Womanist Mapping of the Transatlantic Slave
- speakerTrade. Katie has lectured widely across the United States in the world,
- speakerincluding at Harvard University, Yale, Princeton Seminary, Wellesley Smith, Amitay,
- speakerUniversity of Wisconsin, Marquette, Emory, Duke, Boston University, The
- speakerGraduate Theological Union in Berkeley and many other places.
- speakerShe's a much in demand speaker.
- speakerShe's been around, as I've come to know Katie, a little better since she joined our
- speakerfaculty, that I can also say that she's a wonderful, warm, generous human
- speakerbeing, a great colleague, someone who you can rely on, someone who has
- speakercontributed so much already to our institutional life here.
- speakerWe're truly blessed to have her among us.
- speakerAnd I could say just as a moment of personal privilege, that I knew Katie through
- speakerher books and I knew Katie from one of my doctoral students a couple of years ago
- speakerwho who was working on womanist theology.
- speakerAnd I said to her, I like it that you're working on feminist theology, but I'm not really
- speakerthe person to be able to help you most with that.
- speakerAnd so she went up to Philadelphia and took some classes with Katie and came back
- speakerwith these wonderful reports about Katie's teaching and what a what a wonderful mentor
- speakershe was. But where Katie first made a personal impression on me was
- speakerat the meeting of the General Assembly that happened a few years ago in
- speakerCharlotte. And I happened to be there for another reason and heard her speaking at a
- speakerpriest assembly meeting.
- speakerAnd I'm not going to tell the story that she told, which many of you will have heard
- speakerbefore. But Katie is a kind of, among other things, sort of folk
- speakertheologian who makes wonderful points through telling stories, I think.
- speakerAnd she made such an impression on me at that day that I thought, Temple
- speakerUniversity, we've got to get this woman back in the Presbyterian school.
- speakerSo I was waiting and searching for the way to get her back in
- speakerour Presbyterian institution. So it's just, for me, a wonderful
- speakerdelight and and truly a blessing that she is now a colleague here.
- speakerAnd I think she has much to contribute in the years ahead.
- speakerSo I hope you'll join me in welcoming her.
- speakerShe's speaking this morning on the topic, the switching of robes and hoods, the ethical
- speakerpractices of Zora Neale Hurston.
- speakerPlease join me in welcoming Katie Canid.
- speakerGood morning.
- speakerI want to thank all the students who are here.
- speakerWe've just finished an intensive, high impact January term.
- speakerWe started on January 5th and we ended last Friday.
- speakerThis week, everybody supposed to be at the lectures.
- speakerI welcome all the LUMS and next Monday we start again.
- speakerSo taking some oxygen, I especially thank my colleagues.
- speakerI can't find I said last night to a group that it's great to be working
- speakerin a place where you want it. And from the day I interviewed here, I
- speakerreally didn't want to be in Richmond.
- speakerBut when Dean Carroll met me at the train station, I said, Oh, I feel God's fist in my
- speakerback.
- speakerI know this is a call. I know it's a call.
- speakerI know it's a call. And then I met with the search committee and it just kept getting
- speakergood and good and good.
- speakerAnd then I felt the library and I say, there is a heaven on earth.
- speakerAnd those of you who read the article in The Richmond Times know that
- speakerlibraries I couldn't go to as a child.
- speakerThe libraries are sanctuaries for me and we have one of the best in the United States.
- speakerI said in a faculty meeting that each member of my family wanted to meet each individual
- speakermember of one of my colleagues. I like for my family to stand so that my colleagues
- speakerwill know during the reception who they are to meet.
- speakerSo you will be busy for one hour from 10 to 11, each one would like to
- speakermeet each one of you.
- speakerThe switching of robes and hoods, the ethical practices of Zora
- speakerNeale Hurston.
- speakerMy guess is that some of you are slightly puzzled, questionably intrigued,
- speakersomewhat baffled or caught in the intellectual quandary when you read
- speakerand hear the title for this inaugural lecture, the switching of robes and Hoods,
- speakerthe ethical practices of Zora Neale Hurston.
- speakerOthers of you may wonder if the title of this inaugural lecture is a semantic paradox,
- speakera some kind of oxymoron full of ambiguity
- speakeror just a mixed up verb, a quibble that aimlessly befuddles the brain
- speakerwhen we ask ourselves how is it humanly possible to swerve
- speakerand to sashay, to divert and digress, to deviate
- speakerand try? Lelliott did the exact and to meander, to twist and turn
- speakerin. All that we were asked to do is participate in a simple, swift motion
- speakerof putting this academic hood on top of this academic gown that
- speakeris worn to show our rank and our office.
- speakerWell, the switching of brotherhood in this lecture has to do with a judge
- speakerwho switches his role in the Court of Justice for the symbolic hood
- speakerof the KKK, the hood of white supremacy.
- speakerI imagine now you must be wondering, well, how did Zora Neale Hurston,
- speakerthe most prolific black woman in the United States from 1925
- speakerto 1960, get mixed up in this type of swerving and sashaying,
- speakerthis diverting and digressing, deviating and try lelliott and zigzagging
- speakerand meandering, this twisting and turning and turning of robes and
- speakerhoods. Our story begins like this.
- speakerAt 11 thirty four a.m.
- speakeron Sunday, August 3rd, nineteen fifty two, four shots
- speakerwere fired in Live Oak, a farming town in the state of Florida.
- speakerAs a result of these four shots, Dr. Clément Lucroy Adams Junior
- speakerbecame the most prominent white man ever slain by a black woman and a southern
- speakercommunity. It is not Dr. Adams story that I'm concerned with
- speakerin this lecture, however, but the story of the woman who fired that 32
- speakercaliber, nickel plated Smith and Wesson pistol
- speakernamed Ruby Daxam McCullin.
- speakerWe have McCullin story because of the work of Zora Neale Hurston and reporting
- speakerthe McCullin trial for the Pittsburgh Courier newspaper.
- speakerIt is essential to keep in mind that the Pittsburgh Pittsburgh Courier, formerly
- speakerINC on May 10th, 1910, was a nationally distributed
- speakerweekly newspaper, is pages address the culture, media and
- speakerthe social political issues of fundamental importance to black communities all
- speakeracross this country, from coast to coast, from the Atlantic to the Pacific
- speakerOcean. Therefore, Hurston's account of the Rubin Jackson McCullin trial
- speakerconstitutes a cautionary tale about injustice and one of this
- speakercountry's most famous murder cases.
- speakerAs a Christian social ethicist, I find this story to be of utmost importance
- speakerbecause it plays it in dramatic relief.
- speakerNot only the trial itself, a trial that shook the foundations of racial
- speakersegregation, but Hurston's moral agency invites each of us to wrestle
- speakerwith new possibilities for human existence in the midst of the existing social
- speakerorder. It invites each of us to wrestle with new possibilities
- speakerfor human existence in the midst of the existing social order.
- speakerIn other words, the trial of Ruby Jackson McCullen offers of the view
- speakera woman is eschatology, a progressive theology regarding the end
- speakertime closely associated with authentic ethical discipleship.
- speakerWhat I'm saying is that eschatology from a woman's perspective starts
- speakerwith the black woman's experiential realities as
- speakera point of departure, and in turn we as God fearing women and men,
- speakeras youth and adults, we no longer yearn for pie in the sky and a sweet
- speakervine back when we die.
- speakerBut rather, we live and work and have our being with the embodied hope of
- speakerexperience, that little heaven right here on earth.
- speakerThis type of woman is eschatology, demands that we seize human possibilities in
- speakerthe here and now, morning by morning and day by day.
- speakerThe bottom line fundamental essence of woman eschatology, as best
- speakersummed up in the words of an organic intellectual atheel the
- speakerof the first order, a black church woman known by many folks far near
- speakeras Miss. And this is how my mama talks about eschatology
- speakerdo something because the time we know now, we will soon know it no more.
- speakerYes, this is the first ethical lesson that we must consider related to the switching of
- speakerrobes and hoods. Do something and if that doesn't work, then do something
- speakerelse but do something, because the time we know now, we will soon
- speakerknow it no more.
- speakerFurthermore, let us examine the moral agency absorbing the person who is not
- speakeronly one of our great American novelists, but her son was also an essayist,
- speakera short story writer and an anthropologist.
- speakerAll in all, Hurston published four novels, two books of folklore and autobiography
- speakerand numerous short stories and essays.
- speakerBut she was never able to gain permission to interview Ruby Jackson.
- speakerMcCullin Hurston knew the McCullin struggle to be saved from death in the electric
- speakerchair needed to be exposed to the eyes of many others.
- speakerIn other words, Hurston understood the seriousness about first eschatological mandate
- speakerthat if we desire to live as authentic, trustworthy, responsible human beings
- speakerand we find ourselves in situations where injustice is the order of the day,
- speakerthen we must do something. Because the time we know now, we will soon know it
- speakerno more. And the sensitive reading of Hurston's biography, we discovered
- speakerthe husband was employed by the Pittsburgh Courier to cover the McCullin trial
- speakerduring a period in her son's life when she was plagued by health problems, including
- speakera tropical virus contracted from drinking impure water.
- speakerDuring one of her research trips, person also suffered from gall
- speakerbladder problems and irritated colon.
- speakerAnd yet her son fought to save McCullin from the electric chair at a time
- speakerwhen her own life was full of dire financial circumstances.
- speakerSo much so, that son had to decline an invitation to speak at a
- speakerforum in Boston because he had no winter coat.
- speakerIn essence, we must be doers of justice and lovers of mercy as we walk humbly
- speakerwith our God, even when the details in our own lives are not in tip top
- speakershape.
- speakerAnd her son's distinct voice and powerful prose, she wrote 20 stories
- speakerfrom October 11th, 1952, until May 3rd, 1953
- speakerfor the Pittsburgh Courier newspaper stories that embodied justice, making
- speakerstrategies regarding this negative landmark in interracial relations.
- speakerThis overall narrative of the trial of Ruby McCullen takes place within Historical
- speakerperiod in which there were numerous changes in African-American life
- speakerbetween World War Two and the Korean War.
- speakerMarian Anderson sang at the Lincoln Memorial for seventy five thousand
- speakerafter her concert at Constitutional Hall, which prevented by the Daughters
- speakerof the American Revolution.
- speakerPresident Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order forbidding
- speakerracial and religious discrimination in government training programs and defense
- speakerindustries, and yet within the same time period, white
- speakermob violence, bloody race riots and hate strikes broke out in northern
- speakerand southern cities like.
- speakerLooming large in the historical background of the 1950s was considerable
- speakerracial segregation in public and private facilities.
- speakerIt's like the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
- speakersaid racist segregation meant that no matter how heavy our bodies were
- speakerwith fatigue, we could not obtain lodging in the motels along the highway
- speakernor in the hotels in the cities.
- speakerLike detectives, African-Americans had to discern gigantic as well as
- speakerManute extensions of the social framework of racism,
- speakereven to the point of deciding in which gas stations we could refuel, making
- speakersure we never risk acting in any way that might be detrimental to the health and safety
- speakerof our family members.
- speakerIt's important to note that at least 5000 African-Americans have
- speakerbeen left in the United States of America.
- speakerDuring a 50 year stretch, lynchings occurred approximately approximately every
- speakertwo and a half days, as a matter of fact, the Tuskegee Institute
- speakerreported the 1952 was the first year in 71
- speakeryears of tabulation that there were no lynchings in the United States of America.
- speakerSo there is talk of a framework in place.
- speakerWe can now turn to the second ethical lesson that can be found in the details
- speakerof Hurston's narrative shortly after the shooting at eleven thirty four
- speakera.m. on Sunday, August 3rd, 1952, Ruby
- speakerMcCallum was hustled out of love of Florida under heavy police
- speakerguard because a hastily formed mob attempting to grab
- speakerher. Her husband, Sam McCullin, a tobacco farmer,
- speakera successful insurance agent and a gambling kingpin,
- speakerfled town with three of the children.
- speakerThe children were daughters Kay McCullin, 11 years old, Sonya
- speakerMcCollum, seven years old, and 15 month old Loretta Jackson
- speakerAdams McCullin.
- speaker19 year old Sam Jr. was attending college on the West Coast at
- speakerUCLA. The strain of the tragedy was too great for Sam Senya
- speakerwhen he arrived at the home of Ruby's mother mother.
- speakerIn another part of the state, Sam McCullough suffered a fatal heart attack.
- speakerHe died on Monday, August 4th, the day after the shooting.
- speakerTo probe the connection between the murder of Dr. Adams on Sunday and the sudden
- speakerdeath of Ruby McCullough's husband, Sam on Monday, the story in the newspaper
- speakerpaints the following portrait exhibit A, a five
- speakerfoot, one inch thirty seven year old, soft spoken black woman,
- speakertrained educator, mother of four, wife of the wealthiest
- speakerblack man in Live Oak, Florida, who had an estate worth more than two
- speakerhundred thousand dollars in 1952.
- speakerAnd Exhibit B, a fat potbellied six foot to
- speakerinstall two hundred seventy pound forty four year old white physician
- speakerwho had just been elected by a landslide to the Florida Senate and was now considered
- speakerto be the most famous, the most powerful and the most beloved man
- speakerin Swanwick County, Florida.
- speakerHurston's newspaper articles allow us to ask a series of ethical questions.
- speakerDid Dr. Adams have Sam McCullough's future in the palm of his hand with
- speakera grip so tight that Sam could not squat about anything that the doctor did,
- speakerno matter what it was, including Dr. Adams taking Mrs. McCullen
- speakerto be his mistress?
- speakerIs it true that Sam came home earlier than expected one day and found Dr.
- speakerAdam in bed in his house?
- speakerThe sexual intimacy negate racial bigotry.
- speakerIs it realistic to assume that African-American females can claim bodily
- speakerintegrity? Other parts of the world know that men do not understand
- speakeramong black women kill in order for our know to be understood.
- speakerFew African-Americans of a certain generation can forget that indelible
- speakercharacter Mark on race relations was defined by white men wielding an
- speakerinordinate amount of power and in any black community with
- speakerthe assumption that any black female was available for their possession.
- speakerNor can we forget that survival demanded that no black man, no black
- speakerwoman or black child say or do anything against such assumption.
- speakerThis illicit practice was an unwritten antebellum law that declared
- speakera white man's right to a black woman's body, whether she was married or not.
- speakerSo when we see why the vast majority of African-Americans across this country
- speakereagerly followed the McCullin trial was because in many forms and in
- speakermany fashions, they applauded the courage of this single black woman named Ruby
- speakerJackson McCullin, who dared to defy the white man's self-appointed
- speakersexual provocative.
- speakerIn essence, the second ethical lesson and Zauner versus practices related
- speakerto womanless eschatology can be summed up in the words of an organic intellectual
- speakeratheel ethicists of the first order, a black church woman known
- speakerby folks Fornier as Mouskouri, where in my mama would often say
- speakerwhatever writes The devil is back with a vengeance, crawl around to its belly,
- speakerwhatever writes the devil's back when the venture crawl around to its belly.
- speakerNow, the third and final ethical lesson in this justice making practices in the life
- speakerand work of Zora Neale Hurston focuses on the trial judge who was named
- speakerHal Adams.
- speakerNo blood relation to the slain doctor, Leroy Adams, but Judge Adams
- speakerwas an honorary pallbearers at Dr. Adams funeral.
- speakerAs the listening audience, I invite each and every one of you to discern
- speakerat what point in this story this Judge Adams switches robe for Hood,
- speakerat what point does Judge Adam change his garment of justice for a life denying
- speakerdeath and hood of oppression?
- speakerAs I mentioned earlier, Zora Neale Hurston never got to talk face to face with
- speakerRuby Jackson McCullom because Judge Adams did not.
- speakerAll members of the press access to the defendant said that this case is
- speakernot going to be tried in the newspaper with clarity and directness.
- speakerThat one associates with prophetic utterance herself goes out of her way to critique
- speakerwith perfect candor the judge's single criterion for mental
- speakercompetence. Does Ruby Jackson, Macara McCullin know right
- speakerfrom wrong to Adams?
- speakerNever asks whether it's ever right for a black woman to kill a white man.
- speakerIs it always wrong no matter the circumstances?
- speakerFor all of Judge Adams self-proclaimed position of high moral ground,
- speakerJudge Adam dispensed with McCullough's First Amendment rights and announced
- speakerthat he did not want to use lengthy technical testimony.
- speakerHe wanted reasonable progress in the case and he wanted none expert witnesses.
- speakerFor instance, there was a complete refusal on the part of the court to omit any
- speakertestimony that might might have spotlighted the relations between Ruby McCullen
- speakerand Leroy Adams. Indeed, almost every instance Judge Adams
- speakersustained the state's objection to removing McCollum past six
- speakeryears association with Dr. Adams on the grounds
- speakerof it being irrelevant and immaterial to the present issue that
- speakerAdams ruled out any testimony regarding the doctor's association with McCullin
- speakerother than his private patient and private physician.
- speakerMcCullough's defense team complained that the court refused to admit testimony
- speakerconcerning the birth certificate for the 15 month old baby, Mrs. McCullen,
- speakerwhich he said was fathered by Dr. Adams.
- speakerDr. Leroy Adams had even signed his name on the birth certificate as the father of the
- speakerbaby, nor the judge.
- speakerAdams allowed the baby, but rather Jackson Adams McCollum, who was present
- speakerin the courtroom to be viewed by the jury.
- speakerThe judge would not permit any description of the biracial child into the record.
- speakerIn addition, a juror was not allowed to hear testimony of any maltreatment
- speakerof Rueben McCollum or any altercations between McCullin and Adam,
- speakerhow he used to hit and slap and shake her at various times,
- speakeror even they say Dr. Adams would tear into Ruby like a lion and then and
- speakerthen inject her with shots of morphine.
- speakerEven though the trial judge, Judge Adams, claimed that there would be no outside
- speakerinterference in its effort to assure a quiet and orderly trial,
- speakerZora Neale Hurston understood that the judge had no power over the avalanche
- speakerof skewed images and slanted speculations of the people who lived in and
- speakeraround love. OK, so Herson ask the question to the folk in
- speakerthe community. What may Rubick Jackson?
- speakerMcCullin killed Leroy Adams.
- speakerSome folk replied that Rubin McCullom was a jilted lover who gave
- speakerbirth to the doctor's daughter and was once again two months pregnant and was now
- speakerbeing cast aside by the doctor because he'd been elected to the state Senate.
- speakerThat's McCollum was caught up in the scorned woman's woman syndrome with hell
- speakerhath no fury implications.
- speakerOther people said that McCullough was a hypochondriac, pretending physical sickness
- speakerand emotional depression for her own ulterior motive.
- speakerOne or two neighbors mentioned that Ruby McCollum with Entrapped in an intimate triangle
- speakerof fear. Nevertheless, Ruby McCollum gives us a different story
- speakerwhich Herson allows us to hear.
- speakerMcCollum testified that Dr. Adams solicited a relationship with her
- speakerafter he delivered her. Second-order McCullough said that she had submitted
- speakerto the doctor because she was afraid of him.
- speakerOn that fateful Sunday morning, Mrs. McCullin had gone to Dr. Adams office for medical
- speakertreatment. The doctor suggested intimacy, but she told her
- speakerattorneys that she refused because her arm was aching.
- speakerDr. Adams became enraged.
- speakerMcCullough says she produced the pistol.
- speakerShe and the doctor started to struggle. The gun went off.
- speakerMcCullen admitted that she was in a daze and she could not recall exactly
- speakerwhat happened, even though she shot him four times.
- speakerFurthermore, the defense attorneys attempted unsuccessfully to get a change
- speakerof venue for this case in order that the trial would not be in order
- speakerto trial, could be held in another county instead of in the Swannee
- speakerCounty courthouse that was located directly across the street from the doctor's
- speakeroffice where the crime was committed.
- speakerMcCullough's attorneys argued in the closing moments of the case that the state
- speakerfailed to prove first degree murder.
- speakerThe state had not prove premeditation and excluded all evidence
- speakerthat might be helpful to the defendant.
- speakerThe defense attorneys asked for a second degree, however, on
- speakerSaturday afternoon, December twenty seven nineteen fifty two,
- speakereven after Ruby McCullen and a thin, low voice buried her soul in a
- speakervain attempt to save her life, she was convicted.
- speakerMcCullin, so-called jury of her peers, was an all white, all male
- speakerjury of 12 with two alternates.
- speakerSix of the jurors had their family members have been patients of Dr. Adams
- speakerand a trial that began four and a half months earlier.
- speakerRuby Jackson McCollum was found guilty of playing Dr. Lee Adams Junior
- speakerand sentenced to death in the electric chair.
- speakerThe reason given for the murder was a heated argument about a six
- speakerdollar bill from Dr. Adams for professional services, even
- speakerthough the contended medical bill of six dollars was not produced as evidence.
- speakerA recommendation of first degree murder with no mercy make the death penalty
- speakermandatory under Florida law.
- speakerLater, the Florida Supreme Court overturned the conviction due to suppressed
- speakerand excluded evidence.
- speakerAnd Ruby Jackson McCollum was at that time declared mentally incompetent
- speakerand committed to the criminally insane section of the Florida State Hospital
- speakerearly in 1974.
- speakerMcCollum was released from the hospital into the custody of her family
- speakerafter a 20 year fight to free her.
- speakerAll in all, Ruby Jackson McCullough spent 22 years in confinement,
- speakertwo years in a Swan Lake County courthouse jail and 20 years in the criminally
- speakerinsane section of the Florida State Hospital.
- speakerTwice the usual jail time for a person sentenced to life imprisonment for murder
- speakerin the 1950s.
- speakerThat's his third and final ethical lesson in Zauner versus justice making
- speakerpractices related to womanless eschatology can be summed up
- speakerin the words of an organic intellectual atheel ethicist.
- speakerThe first order, a black church woman known by many foreign leaders, Miss
- speakerKareem Gray. And my mama often says, let's get over this hurdle
- speakerbecause there's another one coming.
- speakerAnd with the next hurdle, let us jump a little bit higher.
- speakerLet's get over this hurdle, because there's another one coming.
- speakerAnd with the next hurdle, let us jump just a little bit higher.
- speakerWe are sisters and brothers, you have it, you've had the basic tenets of the story
- speakerthat I will be debunking and Maskin and disentangling to my sabbatical
- speakerleave in 2005 and the manuscript that I'll be working on for the next several years
- speakerto come. Then you heard this coverage of the rulings and court
- speakerprotocol of the ruling McCullin trial shows us how one woman strategic use
- speakerof another woman's sexual persona was used in the fight for justice in the mid
- speaker20th century. This story allows us to observe the change of fortune
- speakerof a black woman in distress said, simply because racial segregation
- speakerdemanded the nonstop switching of robes and hoods.
- speakerWhat is most unique to this narrative is how Harrison, who was living in dire
- speakerexistential circumstances, seize the initiative in a timely and clever
- speakernewspaper writing campaign in an effort to live authentically as
- speakera duo of justice.
- speakerThere's no need for Zora Neale Hurston to state her ethics and theological language.
- speakerBut we can speak of last things the rapture, imminent Parousia and living as
- speakerif each day is judgment day without referring to something beyond this
- speakerworld. And this is what her son does.
- speakerShe mobilizes her readers to resist the oppressive character of the established
- speakersocial order called by calling our attention to the fact.
- speakerFact number one, the time we know now, we will soon know it no more.
- speakerHurston's unwellness strategy exposed multilayered complexity so
- speakerthat we are gathered here today.
- speakerWe, too, can engage in our own soul searching as to what does it mean in the daily
- speakerlives of our lives to take seriously fact?
- speakerNo to whatever writes the devil's bet with adventure crawl around
- speakerto its belly. Especially when we understand that the belly is the crawl,
- speakerthe belly is the more the belly is the gizzard, the belly is the innermost recesses
- speakerof our beingness. To make the same point.
- speakerAnother way to say that unless evil is named and eradicated, we
- speakerwill be destroyed.
- speakerIn this context, the meaning of eschatology emerging from Hurston's ethical
- speakerpractice is not the type of Christian social ethics that stores of
- speakeracts of good behavior to cash in on the other side of death.
- speakerBut instead, this woman is eschatology, invites each and every one of us
- speakerto face life front and center, morning by morning and day by day.
- speakerBearing in mind, fact number three, let's get over this hurdle, because there's another
- speakerone coming. And with the next hurdle, let us jump just a little bit higher.
- speakerWell, until her death on May 30th, 1992, Ruby
- speakerJackson, McCullin had no recall of the shooting, no memory of the
- speakertrial, no recollection of her 20 years and the insane asylum.
- speakerAnd when asked how she coped with such a life changing hairdo, it is only fitting
- speakerand proper that we close this session with the words of Ruby Jackson, McCullin.
- speakerThe Lord helps me not to cry.
- speakerThe Lord helps me not to think about it, and I help myself by
- speakerpraying. Lord helps me not to cry.
- speakerHas me not to think about it, and I help myself by praying.
- speakerThank you.
