Don's Home Page

Under construction

On May 26, 2020 George Floyd, a 46 year old African American, died after a Minneapolis police office kept his knee on Floyd's neck for 9 minutes.
This sparked a series of nationwide and worldwide protests.

A sign carried by one of the marchers in Davis and a effort by the Davis Community Church to do more, prompted me to think about my own sin of omission.

I grew up in white neighborhoods near Sacramento CA and lived in a white neighborhood in Somerset County NJ, although my neighbors in a $1 M house across the street in NJ were a black couple. I didn't have any close black friends, but looking back on my life there several indirect counters with racism and one close personal encounter when I found strong family resistance when I got engaged to an Asian women in 1977.
It was just 10 years after Loving v. Virginia which struck down laws against interracial marriage (miscegenation)

Here's an outline of some areas to cover when I get more time to work on this page.

Family turning from embarrassment to respect and admiration for Joanna.

Joanna - integration.
  Recruited black women to the women's rights organization at Bell Labs.
  Hosting a wedding reception in a new house we built for her black secretaries son.
  A boss at Bellcore and lay minister at a Black church presided over Joanna memorial service.
  
NJ Men's Bible Study
 Nat Gatlin ngatlin@patmedia.net, a black Bell Labs engineer and I were the only 2 openly liberal members of the group. 

LCPC and Roseville Presbyterian Church KKK meetings.
LCPC anti Muslim vs BRPC collaboration.
Samuel Sutphin and LCPC and Robert Finley
Black section of the cemetery at LCPC (were they part of the underground railroad?)


Churchs:
The Presbyterian Church's in Roseville California which was founded by my Great Grandfather and where 4 generations of my family were active members and the Presbyterian Church in New Jersey where I was an active Member and Deacon both had hosted KKK meetings in their early history. Both have left the PC USA to join more conservative denominations of the Presbyterian Church after an issue with same-sex marriage.

Ancestors:
My 3rd Great Grandfather James Finley had slaves in Kentucky in the early 1800's according to my Great Grandmother Martha Emma Finley. She stresses that her father, Andrew Ramsey Finley was not a slave owner and a a northern sympathizer during the Civil War.

As far as I know Isaac Thomas, who was in eastern Tennessee during the Revolution, did not have slaves. His son, John, was a judge in Texas.
In Eastern Tennessee the majority of whites who did own slaves -- most whites didn't own any -- owned few, say five or six.
According to Tennessee in the American Civil War - Wikipedia it was a divided state, with the Eastern counties harboring pro-Union sentiment throughout the conflict, and it was the last state to secede from the Union. It also provided more regiments to the Union than every other Confederate state combined.

I also created a very brief site on slavery and racism at DonsNotes.

Contact Information.