Week of May 7-13

May 7

1800—On this date the founder of the settlement, which would grow to become the city of Chicago, Jean Baptiste Pointe Du Sable, sold his property and left the settlement. The Haitian-born frontier trader and businessman would die 18 years later in St. Charles, Mo.

1878—Black inventor, J.R. Winters, receives a patent for his designing of the fire escape ladder.

ROBERT SMALLS

WASHINGTON (NNPA)—President Barack Obama needs only to turn over in his bed to be reminded of all the Black women who are powerfully qualified to be U.S. Supreme Court justices.

If first lady Michelle Obama was not his wife, some legal scholars say she would be a clear and obvious candidate for the short list to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens.

Yet, when Stevens announced his retirement April 9, not one Black woman immediately surfaced as a so-called “short-list” candidate despite the fact that no Black woman has ever served on the high court. Now the name of former Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears began circulating as one that the president is seriously considering. The National Bar Association has put forth the name of Justice Ann Claire Williams, the first African-American ever appointed to the Seventh Circuit and the third African-American woman ever to serve on any United States Court of Appeals.

by James Patterson

(NNPA)—K.L. is seven years old and here are the things that she is not responsible for:

Her mother is a prostitute.

She lives with her mother in a trailer park.

Her mother invites different men to their home.

Her mother, 22, is accused of using a social networking site on the Internet to proposition a strange man: sex in exchange for money.

JACKSON, Tenn. (AP)—A White supremacist has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for conspiring to kill then-presidential candidate Barack Obama and dozens of other Black people.

U.S. District Judge J. Daniel Breen April 22 sentenced 19-year-old Paul Schlesselman of Helena-West Helena, Ark. He had pleaded guilty in January.

GUILTY—This undated photo obtained from a MySpace webpage shows Daniel Cowart, 20, of Bells, Tenn. holding a weapon. The Tennessee White supremacist pleaded guilty, March 29, to charges that he plotted to kill then-presidential candidate Barack Obama and dozens of other Black people in 2008.

Twenty-one-year-old co-defendant, Daniel Cowart of Bells, Tenn., also pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing.

Authorities have described the pair as White supremacist skinheads who hatched a plan to go on a cross-country robbery and killing spree that would end with an attack on Obama in 2008.