News--- Freedman's Letter To His Former Owner [Part Three: Historical Detection]

Text From HNet--Slavery Discussion Group:

This letter -- which is 100% legitimate -- "makes the rounds" every once in a while over the 147 years since it was first published in an Ohio paper, then copied in the NY Tribune, then in Lydia Maria Child's Freedmen's Book. In fact, it was oft-reprinted in a variety of publications between 1865-67, including in French. Then again during the 1960s/1970s. And again in the internet age.

Jordan (how his name was really spelled) and P.H. Anderson were real people. I've traced them and their story and am writing a book on both men and the letter. It's a fascinating story.

P.H. Anderson was "hip deep" in debt in August 1865 and had written Jordan, who had played a slave "managerial" role at Big Springs, to return I'm sure to help get in the harvest, help recruit back some of the slave laborers who had fled the plantation for nearby towns, and save the old plantation. Jordan didn't return, the plantation was lost, and P.H was dead by 1867.

Jordan and his family lived in Dayton, Ohio, from 1864 until his death in the early 20th century. He worked for the V. Winters mentioned in the letter.

Roy E. Finkenbine
Interim Dean and Professor of History
College of Liberal Arts and Education
University of Detroit Mercy
finkenre@udmercy.edu

Also, David Blight adds:

From: David Blight [mailto:David.Blight@yale.edu]

Dear all:

This is just an addendum to Roy Finkenbine's important interjection here
on the Jordan Anderson letter. It is indeed the real thing, and many
of us have been teaching with it for many many years. The internet
makes it new to new people, which is of course what the internet does.
Leon Litwack reprinted it in full in his book Been in the Storm So Long, which is I believe the first place I saw it. For those who may not have taught the letter, read it out loud to your students. It has a special poignancy when taught that way. And good luck Roy; what a great idea for a book about emancipation and its aftermath in microcosm.

David Blight
Professor of History and Director, the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, Yale University


Text Source: H-NET List for the History of Slavery February 6, 2012

Image Source: The Brightest Man, WikiSource

News--- Freedman's Letter To His Former Owner [Part Two: Historical Detection]

The letter, printed (as others have noted) in The New York Daily Tribune on 22 August 1865 ("Letter from a Freedman to his Old Master," p. 7), is prefaced with, "The following is a genuine document. It was dictated by the old servant, and contains his ideas and forms of expression. -- Cincinnati Commercial."

I've no particular reason to doubt that this letter is what it's claimed to be -- a letter written by a former slave to his former owner -- but it bears noting that a third party had a hand in its creation, at least to the extent that he or she took down Anderson's words. So, perhaps the writing also reflects corrections and revisions made by the person to whom Anderson dictated the text, though Childs prefaces her reproduction with "[w]ritten just as he dictated it." (How she knows this is unclear.)

Also unclear is how this letter arrived at the Cincinnati Commercial; given the time between the penning of the letter (August 7) and its appearance in the Cincinnati paper (sometime before August 22), a copy of the original (if the original had been sent) must've been handed over by Anderson, the person to whom he dictated the letter, or some advocate on either's behalf, and not forwarded by someone in Big Spring, Tennessee. (I should note that it would be interesting to see the letter that elicited Anderson's response.)

Text Source: snopes.com

Image Source: Mississippi Beautiful

News--- Freedman's Letter To His Former Owner. [Part One]

In Rediscovered Letter From 1865, Former Slave Tells Old Master To Shove It

In the summer of 1865, a former slave by the name of Jourdan Anderson sent a letter to his former master. And 147 years later, the document reads as richly as it must have back then.

The roughly 800-word letter, which has resurfaced via various blogs, websites, Twitter and Facebook, is a response to a missive from Colonel P.H. Anderson, Jourdan's former master back in Big Spring, Tennessee. Apparently, Col. Anderson had written Jourdan asking him to come on back to the big house to work.

In a tone that could be described either as "impressively measured" or "the deadest of deadpan comedy," the former slave, in the most genteel manner, basically tells the old slave master to kiss his rear end. He laments his being shot at by Col. Anderson when he fled slavery, the mistreatment of his children and that there "was never pay-day for the Negroes any more than for the horses and cows."

Below is Jourdan’s letter in full, as it appears on lettersofnote.com. To take a look at what appears to be a scan of the original letter, which appeared in an August 22, 1865 edition of the New York Daily Tribune, click here. As Letters Of Note points out, the newspaper account makes clear that the letter was dictated.

Dayton, Ohio,August 7, 1865
To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy,—the folks call her Mrs. Anderson,—and the children—Milly, Jane, and Grundy—go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, "Them colored people were slaves" down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars.

Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor's visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams's Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve—and die, if it come to that—than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.

Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

From your old servant,
Jourdon Anderson.

Text Source: Trymaine Lee [Columnist], Huffington Post

Image Source: Legends of Kansas

News/Opinion: Should Reparations Be Paid to the Descendents of Former Slaves?

Should blacks get reparations?, Allen C. Guelzo, Christian Science Monitor, July 16,2009.

"You wonder why we didn't do it 100 years ago," said Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, after the Senate voted June 18 to endorse a national apology for slavery. "It is important to have a collective response to a collective injustice." And considering the scale and brutality of slavery in American history, Senator Harkin could not be more right. Abraham Lincoln described slavery as "the one retrograde institution in America," and told a delegation of black leaders in 1862 that "your race are suffering, in my judgment, the greatest wrong inflicted on any people."

But one reason why we have waited so long has to do with what many advocates of the apology regard as the necessary next step – reparations to African-Americans by the federal government. Significantly, that's a step the Senate's apology resolution refused to take. "Nothing in this resolution," said Concurrent Resolution 26, "authorizes or supports any claim against the United States; or serves as a settlement of any claim against the United States."

That refusal will inject new acrimony into a slow-burning debate over reparations that has been going on for 40 years. "There are going to be African-Americans who think that [the apology] is not reparations, and it's not action," admitted Tennessee Rep. Stephen Cohen (D), who has been a longtime backer of the apology.

And indeed there are. Randall Robinson, whose book, The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks (2000), demanded "massive restitutions" to American blacks for slavery, insists that an apology is meaningless without reparations payments to African-Americans. "Much is owed, and it is very quantifiable," Mr. Robinson said after the Senate vote. "It is owed as one would owe for any labor that one has not paid for, and until steps are taken in that direction we haven't accomplished anything." Illinois Sen. Roland Burris (D) added: "I want to go on record making sure that that disclaimer in no way would eliminate future actions that may be brought before this body that may deal with reparations."

And on the surface, the case for reparations to African-Americans has all the legal simplicity of an ordinary tort. A wrong was committed; therefore, compensation is due to those who were wronged. But just below that surface is a nest of disturbing complications that undercut the ease with which Robinson, Mr. Burris, and other reparations activists have put their case.

1. Who was legally responsible for slavery? Not the federal government. Slavery was always a matter of individual state enactments, which is what made Lincoln's initial attempts to free the slaves so difficult. When it was written in 1787, the Constitution only obliquely recognized the existence of legalized slavery in the states, and only mentioned it directly when it provided for the termination of the transatlantic slave trade in 1808. Congress twice passed laws regulating the capture of fugitive slaves. But there was no federal slave code and no federal statute legalizing slavery.

Nor was slavery confined only to the 11 Southern states of the old Confederacy. It was legal in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey as late as the 1820s. If reparations are what's in view after an apology, the real target has to be the states; and if reparations are demanded from Alabama, it will want to know why it's more guilty than other states.

2. Who should be paid? At first glance, the answer seems obvious: the slaves. But the victims of slavery are now long dead; it is the heirs of those victims who stand next in line for compensation. Still, the line is a shaky and complicated one, with the chief complication lurking in the genes of African-Americans themselves. Slavery was a system of bondage; it was also a system of forced rape and violent sexual exploitation across the old slave South. The mixed-race offspring of slavery were plain to see on every plantation.

And the long-term result is that the average African-American today has been estimated, in genetic terms, to be approximately 20 percent white – and much of that 20 percent includes the genes of the white slaveholders who originally owned his great-grandparents. By what logic do we pay reparations for slavery to those who, in all too many cases, are literally descendents of the actual slaveholders? And should reparations for slavery include the descendents of those blacks who – like President Obama – did not arrive in the US until after slavery was ended?

3. What about the Civil War? Slavery did not end by evaporation. It took a catastrophic civil war, which cost 620,000 dead – equivalent to nearly 7 million today; it cost $190 billion (in today's dollars) to wage and multiplied the national debt by 400 percent; and it inflicted a casualty rate of 27 percent on Southern white males between the ages of 17 and 45, the very people most likely to own slaves.

At that time, there was no shortage of racists in the North who insisted that the Civil War was being waged only to preserve the Union, not to abolish slavery. But Lincoln knew otherwise, and he charged both North and South with knowing it, too. Slavery "constituted a peculiar and powerful interest" in the South, Lincoln said in 1865, and "all knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war." The war, Lincoln said, was God's instrument for the ultimate reparation – every drop of blood drawn with the lash had been paid for with blood drawn by the sword. The blood-price of the Civil War may not automatically silence the case for reparations on its own. But the case for reparations cannot ignore it, either.

Reparations are held up as a gesture of retroactive justice, righting the wrongs that were done to our great-grandparents and before. Yet there is a deep instinct in the American national psyche that bucks at the notion of defining the present by the definitions of the past, which is one reason why reparations lawsuits have so routinely failed. If it is racial justice we seek, the greater wisdom lies in addressing it directly, for this generation.

Allen C. Guelzo is the Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Era at Gettysburg College, and the author of Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President.

Text Source: Christian Science Monitor, News.Yahoo.com
Top Image Source, Guelzo with John Stewart: Gettysburg College

News---Richmond's 1810 'A Burial Ground For Negroes' Value Set At $3 Million

Slaves' History Buried in Asphalt, Maria Glod, Washington Post, October 27, 2008.

Barely audible over the whirr of traffic, Duron Chavis offered a prayer as he poured water into the earth at the edge of a parking lot between a train trestle and Interstate 95. "We are here to honor our ancestors," Chavis told a group that encircled him one moonlit night this month. "Unfortunately, African Americans have been separated from our blood. We're disconnected from our languages, disconnected from our culture."

For the almost two dozen people gathered here, this nondescript slice of pavement represents a long-hidden heritage. Beneath the blacktop are the graves of slaves and free blacks from the 18th and 19th centuries. The city gallows once stood nearby, where a slave named Gabriel was hanged for planning a revolt. Everyone agrees that the cemetery will be commemorated. But exactly how to do that has led to debate in a city that was once the capital of the Confederacy and still struggles with those ghosts.

The state's largest school, Virginia Commonwealth University, bought the parking lot this year and has agreed to carve out a piece of it for a public memorial. But a prominent anthropologist at the College of William & Mary, along with many residents, contends that the graves probably extend beyond the strip that the university is donating. They are leading a movement to identify and reclaim the entire site. "We want all of it," said Dieyah Rasheed, who lives in nearby Henrico County. "It is sacred to me as a black woman. My ancestors were buried there. They were the ones who built Richmond. They were the nurses. They were the maids. They were the field croppers. They deserve some honor and respect."

The 250-year-old cemetery, used until about 1816, faded from public memory as the city grew up around it. But several years ago, a local historian stumbled on records of its existence. Gabriel was executed there after a failed 1800 rebellion, and some historians believe he could be buried there. Last year, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) symbolically pardoned Gabriel and said his "quest for freedom was part of a great American legacy." In recent years, the city has made efforts to commemorate the trials and contributions of slaves. The Richmond Slave Trail Commission has created a walking tour from the James River port where slaves arrived, to a slave jail that is being excavated. The trail also includes a slavery reconciliation statue that was unveiled last year.

Still, some African Americans note the proliferation of memorials here to the Confederate past. Monument Avenue honors Confederate leaders such as Robert E. Lee, Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson and J.E.B. Stuart. One exception is a statue of black tennis great Arthur Ashe. The drive to preserve the cemetery gained momentum after VCU bought the three-acre downtown lot for $3 million in February. A few months later, as the university took steps to repave the lot and improve its lighting, a small grass-roots protest raised questions about the project's impact on a place of historical interest. Work was halted to allow the state to delve into the land's history.

In June, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources concluded that much of the old cemetery and the site of the gallows lay under the interstate and that old records don't define the burial ground's limits. It's unclear how large the cemetery was. But some graves are believed to extend past the highway and into the parking lot, under 10 to 15 feet of fill. The department, drawing on the work of a local historian, also considered the possibility that the graveyard's edges could be defined by a label on an 1810 map that notes "Burial Ground for Negroes." VCU, citing that interpretation, has agreed to turn over a 50- by 200-foot piece of the lot, worth about $350,000, to the city for a memorial.

But last month, Michael L. Blakey, director of William and Mary's Institute for Historical Biology, said there was no reason to assume the mapmaker's label encompassed the entire cemetery. Blakey called the estimation of the boundary "implausibly small." He estimated that there could be graves under most, even all, of the parking lot, and recommended digging archaeological trenches, which would not disturb the remains, to determine the cemetery's scope. "If it is important to the community," Blakey said, "there is a way to know the truth about the extent of the burials."

VCU officials said they recognize the site's historical and spiritual importance, and that is why they are ceding land for a memorial. But the only practical option is to use the remainder of the lot for student and staff parking because the university is relying on parking fees to pay for the purchase, said Don Gehring, VCU's vice president for government relations and health policy. "We have reached a consensus that this is the most reasonable way to memorialize the site and recognize its significance and at the same time go forward with our purpose for parking," Gehring said. He said VCU would sell the property -- for the $3 million it is paying -- to anyone who wants to preserve the entire site.

Kathleen Kilpatrick, director of the historic resources department, said her staff reviewed available records and research to study the cemetery. "Nothing short of archaeology will determine the actual boundaries," she said. "But I don't want to lose sight of the larger goal, which is how best to memorialize the site. The issue is where we go from here to get it right, to honor the people there and to educate the public." She said the department has agreed to work with the Slave Trail Commission to raise money to buy the land.

To some in the community, ownership of the land is a much deeper question than who holds the deed. "That land does not belong to Virginia Commonwealth University. It belongs to the black community of this city and this country," Phil Wilayto, a member of the Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality, a community group pushing for preservation, said this month at a community meeting. "If this was George Washington's mother buried here, it wouldn't be a parking lot. It would be a nice grassy area," said Chavis, of Richmond. "Though we have moved forward, with Obama running for president, there are still these issues that are with us."

Richmond's is not the first such cemetery to be rediscovered. Freedmen's Cemetery in Alexandria, which opened in 1864 to bury former slaves, was forgotten for years but is now commemorated with a park. At the African Burial Ground in Lower Manhattan, uncovered in the early 1990s in a construction project, more than 400 skeletons were examined and then reburied at a site that has become a memorial.

Blakey, who was scientific director of the excavation and preservation for the New York burial ground, said the decision to excavate and study the Richmond remains should be the community's. Much of the recorded history of slaves was written by owners who considered them property, not people. But the New York graves, Blakey said, offered a glimpse of humanity. "A story is written in things that were placed in the ground," Blakey said. "There is real reverence. Small things matter: the choice that was made to leave a silver earbob in a child's coffin rather than to keep it and use it for the living. That small act has great meaning."

Doug Egerton, a Le Moyne College history professor and author of a book about Gabriel, said the slave was 24 when he plotted to win freedom for slaves by seizing the capital and taking Governor James Monroe hostage. A furious storm disrupted his plan and the plot was uncovered. Gabriel stood more than six feet, unusually tall for the time, Egerton said, and his remains could be under the lot.

"I think in many ways finding the bodies, learning what we can and placing them back with some kind of dignity and honor would be a real signal that Richmond can come together," Egerton said. He noted that there is a statue of George Washington not far from the graveyard. "There's no reason we can't honor Washington on his pedestal, and a mile away honor these people who also fought for freedom."

Text Source: Slaves History Buried In Asphalt, Washington Post, October 27, 2008

Photo: Michael L. Blakey, a College of William & Mary professor, discusses the site of the burial ground at a community meeting this month in Richmond. Photo by Lisa Billings For The Washington Post.

CWL asks, "Who owned the cemetery in 1810?" and can the chain of ownership be documented to 2008? Also, can't a parking lot at a downtown institution of higher education, where parking with limited/controlled access is nearly non-existent, be viewed as equal access to education for descendants of slaves who are enrolled students?

CWL recommends: African American Cemeteries online

News---U.S. House of Representatives Passes Apology For Slavery

House Issues An Apology For Slavery, Darryl Fears, Washington Post Staff, July 30, 2008.

The House yesterday apologized to black Americans, more than 140 years after slavery was abolished, for the "fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow" segregation. The resolution, which passed on a voice vote late in the day, was sponsored by Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), a white Jew who represents a majority-black district in Memphis. Cohen tried unsuccessfully to join the Congressional Black Caucus this year. "I hope that this is part of the beginning of a dialogue that this country needs to engage in, concerning what the effects of slavery and Jim Crow have been," Cohen said. "I think we started it and we're going to continue." Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) is considering introducing a companion measure in the Senate, he said.

Cohen faces a tough fight against airline lawyer Nikki Tinker, who is black, in the Democratic primary Aug. 7. His measure was co-sponsored by 42 members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), the House majority whip; Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), chairman of the Judiciary Committee; and Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. None of those caucus members has endorsed his reelection bid. A total of 120 lawmakers, including two Republicans, co-sponsored the resolution, Cohen said.

In February, the Senate apologized for atrocities committed against Native Americans, and the body apologized in 2005 for standing by during a lynching campaign against African Americans throughout much of the past century. Twenty years ago, Congress apologized for interning Japanese Americans in concentration camps during World War II. Congress has considered a similar apology for the slavery and Jim Crow eras, a gesture long sought by African Americans. Such efforts were always bogged down by concerns that the apology would prompt a greater call for reparations for slavery. In recent years, black activists seeking reparations for slavery have gotten private companies, such as banks, insurers and railroads, to apologize for playing a role in bankrolling, insuring, capturing and transporting slaves.

In 2005, Wachovia Corp. revealed that one bank it acquired had put thousands of slaves to work on a railroad. That same year, JPMorgan Chase apologized for the role that a subsidiary had played in using 10,000 slaves as collateral and accepting more than 1,000 slaves as payments when owners defaulted on loans. Several states, including Virginia, North Carolina, Florida and Alabama, have issued apologies for slavery. "They had a greater moral authority on this issue than the United States Congress," Cohen said. "I'm proud we did this as a part of this Congress."

Source: Washington Post, July 30, 2008

Slave Descendant Takes Reparations Case to United States Supreme Court

On Tuesday, May 22, 2007, the Supreme Court of the United States docketed a petition filed by Deadria Farmer-Paellmann -- the descendant of Africans enslaved in South Carolina -- asking the Court to hear a case against 17 major financial institutions for their role in financing, underwriting and supporting slavery. At issue is whether statues of limitations should be tolled to permit slave descendants to bring actions for restitution against the corporations that allegedly earned profits enslaving Africans in violation of Northern antislavery laws. The case is entitled, Farmer-Paellmann v. Brown & Williamson, No. 06-1533. The defendants in the action include: FleetBoston Financial Corporation, Aetna Inc., JP Morgan Chase Manhattan Bank, New York Life Insurance Co., Lehman Bros, AIG, and Brown Brothers Harriman.

"It is a pivotal moment for African Americans and all people, and we believe the Court should hear the case, said Bruce Afran, counsel for Farmer-Paellmann. Co-counsel Carl Mayer added,"the issues presented are unique and are important in settling a long running injustice."

Farmer-Paellmann originally filed the landmark case on March 26, 2002. It was consolidated with 8 similar actions in the Northern District Federal Court in Chicago, IL in 2003. The consolidated action was dismissed with prejudice by judge Charles Norgle on July 6, 2005. Plaintiffs appealed the case in the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, one of the most pro-business circuits in the country, and secured an unprecedented victory. In the Decision, written by Judge Posner, the Appeals Court ruled in favor of half the case consisting of consumer fraud and fraud claims. It held that companies that lie about their role in slavery are guilty of fraud. However, they affirmed the lower Court ruling that former slaves should have brought their own claims against the companies and therefore, the plaintiffs are not the proper parties to bring the case.

"It was impossible for slaves or ex-slaves to bring this action. No one knew anything about these companies until 2000," said Farmer-Paellmann. It was in January of 2000 that Farmer-Paellmann initiated an effort to identify the names of specific companies that played a role in slavery and asked that they apologize and pay reparations. Prior to that time, books written on the history of slavery never identified any of the defendants as participants in slavery. However, the Appeals Court suggested that books written prior to the 2002 action should have been enough for former slaves to bring their own actions.

Adding to the absence of information identifying the defendants as slave profiteers is the fact that many of the defendants continue to deny that they played a role in slavery. Farmer-Paellmann argues in her petition, "most dastardly were the public false statements made by representatives of the JP Morgan Chase Bank denying, as late as March 5, 2004, that they were at all involved in slavery." Months later, after threat of loosing lucrative vending contracts with the City of Chicago, the bank filed a report admitting to their role in slavery.

"That we had a victory in the Appeals Court renewed my faith in the justice system. I am optimistic that the Supreme Court will hear our case and give us a chance to secure justice," said Farmer-Paellmann.

The court petition has been published to support the litigation by the non-profit Restitution Study Group with additional writings and can be purchased at: www.cafepress.com/rsgincorp.

Source: http://www.rsgincorp.com and e-mail:: rsgincorp@yahoo.com