The BulleTin • Thursday, March 4, 2021 A3
TODAY
Today is Thursday, March 4, the 63rd day of 2021. There
are 302 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
In 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt took office as America’s
32nd president.
In 1789, the Constitution of the United States went into
effect as the first Federal Congress met in New York.
In 1797, John Adams was inaugurated the second pres-
ident of the United States.
In 1863, the Idaho Territory was created.
In 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated
for a second term of office; with the end of the Civil War
in sight, Lincoln declared: “With malice toward none,
with charity for all.”
In 1974, the first issue of People magazine, then called
People Weekly, was published by Time-Life Inc.; on the
cover was actor Mia Farrow.
In 1987, President Ronald Reagan addressed the nation
on the Iran-Contra affair, acknowledging that his over-
tures to Iran had “deteriorated” into an arms-for-hos-
tages deal.
In 1998, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that sexual ha-
rassment at work can be illegal even when the offender
and victim are of the same gender.
In 2015, the Justice Department cleared Darren Wilson,
a white former Ferguson, Missouri, police officer, in the
fatal shooting of Michael Brown, a Black 18-year-old,
but also issued a scathing report calling for sweeping
changes in city law enforcement practices.
In 2018, former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his
daughter were found unconscious on a bench in the
southwestern English city of Salisbury; both survived
what British authorities said was a murder attempt
using a nerve agent.
Ten years ago: Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s
regime struck back at its opponents with a powerful
attack on Zawiya, the closest opposition-held city to
Tripoli, and a barrage of tear gas and live ammunition to
smother new protests in the capital. NASA launched its
Glory satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Cali-
fornia on what was supposed to have been a three-year
mission; however, the rocket carrying Glory plummeted
into the southern Pacific several minutes after liftoff.
Five years ago: Bud Collins, the tennis historian and
American voice of the sport in print and on TV for de-
cades, died in Brookline, Massachusetts, at age 86.
One year ago: The House easily passed an $8.3 billion
measure aimed at speeding the development of coro-
navirus vaccines, paying for containment operations
and beefing up preparedness. Italy closed all schools
and universities and barred fans from sporting events.
Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg dropped
out of the Democratic race for president.
Today’s Birthdays: Actor Paula Prentiss is 83. Movie
director Adrian Lyne is 80. Singer Shakin’ Stevens is 73.
Author James Ellroy is 73. Singer Chris Rea is 70. Movie
director Scott Hicks is 68. Actor Catherine O’Hara is 67.
Actor Patricia Heaton is 63. Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn.,
is 63. Actor Steven Weber is 60.Sen. James Lankford,
R-Okla., is 53. Gay rights activist Chaz Bono is 52. Jazz
musician Jason Marsalis is 44. Actor Jessica Heap is 38.
Actor Scott Michael Foster is 36. TV personality Whitney
Port is 36. Actor Margo Harshman is 35. Actor Josh Bow-
man is 33. Actor Andrea Bowen is 31.
— The Associated Press
LOCAL, STATE & REGION
Oregon moves to ban display of nooses
BY ANDREW SELSKY
The Associated Press
SALEM — Greg Evans, a Black
man who joined a parade of wit-
nesses urging Oregon lawmakers
to ban the display of nooses, said
the issue was personal for him: A
member of his family had been
lynched over a century ago in
South Carolina.
“He was killed basically for of-
fending a white man,” Evans, a
member of the Eugene City Coun-
cil, testified Tuesday. “He was hung
by a noose. His body was riddled
with bullets, and then he was set
on fire.”
Louisiana, Virginia, California,
New York, Maryland and Con-
necticut previously criminalized
the display of nooses. The bill un-
der consideration in Oregon would
make intimidation by display of
a noose a misdemeanor punish-
able by up to a year in prison and a
$6,250 fine.
In Virginia, displaying a noose in
public places is now a felony, with
a maximum prison term of five
years. The state Supreme Court,
ruling in the case of a man who
hung a life-sized, black mannequin
in his front yard, said in 2018 that
the law also applies to private prop-
erty. Two Black families lived in the
neighborhood, including
one next door.
Last month, a noose was
placed on the recycling
container of a mixed-race
couple in Eugene, and
their car was spray-painted
with a racial epithet, Evans
Evans
said in an interview. He
believes most people who
place nooses are fully aware of the
pain it causes Black people.
“Some are just kids that are igno-
rant, that are playing a joke,” Evans
said. “But it’s not a joke. It’s not a
prank. This is serious business.”
In a 2017 report, the nonprofit
Equal Justice Initiative described
lynchings as “violent and public
acts of torture that traumatized
Black people throughout the coun-
Beth J. Harpaz/AP file
In 2018, visitors look at markers bearing the names of lynching victims at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in
Montgomery, Alabama. Some states have already criminalized the display of nooses. Oregon’s bill, if passed, will make in-
timidation by display of a noose a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison and a $6,250 fine.
try and were largely tolerated by
state and federal officials. These
lynchings were terrorism.”
A year later, the organization
that’s committed to challenging ra-
cial and economic injustice opened
the National Memorial for
Peace and Justice in Mont-
gomery, Alabama. It bears
the names of lynching vic-
tims, but Evan’s ancestor
is not among them. He
was one of the uncounted
lynching victims whose
deaths weren’t recorded by
officials or newspapers.
Walter Graham was only a teen-
ager when white men dragged
him from his home in Blacksburg,
South Carolina, in 1915, Evans
said, recounting the story passed
down by three generations of his
family.
After killing Graham, the mob
burned down the home of the ex-
tended family. A short while later,
they joined an exodus of Black
people terrified by the epidemic of
lynching.
The Equal Justice Initiative says
“terror lynchings” fueled the mass
migration of millions of Black peo-
ple from the South throughout the
first half of the 20th century. It doc-
umented 4,084 racial terror lynch-
ings in 12 Southern states. The
NAACP says it knows of 700 more.
Evans said the noose is a symbol
of white supremacy that conveys
the message: “The white man is still
in charge and remember your place
in this society.”
One of the witnesses at the hear-
ing Tuesday for the Oregon bill de-
scribed the effect of the placement
of a noose in May at a Portland
State University construction site.
“It was shocking and terrorizing
for our community. Staff and fac-
ulty were not only afraid to go to
our new building but were afraid
to attend PSU in general,” faculty
member Kelly Cutler told the Ore-
gon Senate Committee on Judiciary.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler
and city commissioners urged the
committee to support the bill, say-
ing it “opens the door for legal rem-
edies” against intimidating people
with nooses in Oregon, where re-
cords show hate crimes and bias in-
cidents increased 366% in 2020.
“The harm to communities im-
pacted by the display of a noose
should not be understated,” the city
leaders wrote.
A Republican on the judiciary
committee, Dallas Heard, who is
white, asked what would happen
if antifa protesters came to the Or-
egon State Capitol and hanged an
effigy of him.
“What would the state’s action
through this law be in enforcement
of this law on that group … who
did something like that against my-
self under the First Amendment
right to protest?” Heard asked.
The committee chairman sug-
gested Heard speak to legislative
counsel to get clarity.
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