The Week of Feb. 12-18

February 12

1793—Congress passes the first Fugitive Slave Law. The law made it easier for a slave owner to re-take control of a slave who had escaped to freedom. Blacks and their supporters were outraged because the 1793 law only required the “word” of a White man before a magistrate to declare any Black person a run away slave and have him or her arrested and placed in bondage. Under the law even Blacks who had earned their freedom or had never been slaves were placed in danger.

TUSKEGEE EXPERIMENT

1900—Legendary poet James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) writes the lyrics to the song “Lift Every Voice and Sing” as part of a birthday tribute to Abraham Lincoln. In time, the song would become the Black National Anthem.

by Virginia Byrne

NEW YORK (AP)—Retired Air Force Lt. Colonel Lee A. Archer, a Tuskegee Airman considered to be the only Black ace pilot who also broke racial barriers as an executive at a major U.S. company and founder of a venture capital firm, died Jan. 27 in New York City. He was 90.

AVIATOR AND BUSINESSMAN—In this December 2008 photo provided by Beverly Herzog, retired Air Force Lt. Colonel Lee A. Archer is shown. Archer, a decorated member of the Tuskegee Airmen, died Jan. 27, in a New York City hospital at the age of 90.

His son, Roy Archer, said his father died at Cornell University Medical Center in Manhattan. A cause of death was not immediately determined.

The Tuskegee Airmen were America’s first Black fighter pilot group in World War II.

by Glen Johnson

BOSTON (AP)—It was bad enough that President Barack Obama lost his filibuster-proof margin in the U.S. Senate to a Republican. Now it turns out he also lost it to a relative.

Genealogists said Jan. 29 that the Democratic president and the newly elected senator from Massachusetts, Scott Brown, are 10th cousins.

COUSINS—This combination of two file photos shows President Barack Obama, left and Massachusetts Sen.-elect Scott Brown.

The New England Historic Genealogical Society said Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, and Brown’s mother, Judith Ann Rugg, both descend from Richard Singletary of Haverhill, Mass.

But with his newfound wealth in 2006—$17 million in a lump sum payment—came a string of hangers-on who constantly hit him up for money. Nine months ago, he vanished.

IDENTIFIED— This undated file photo provided by the Polk County Sheriff’s Office shows Abraham Shakespeare, 43, a truck driver’s assistant who won the lottery and lived with his mother. He was reported missing Nov. 9, 2009.