The Story of Stanley “Tookie” Williams

In researching my photo essay topic: The Story of Stanley “Tookie” Williams, I encountered many dilemmas. Since I was limited to only five photos, I had to be extremely selective to ensure that I provided a fair and balanced narrative of his story. In deciding whether to include and/or eliminate certain photos, I had to ask a series of questions. Am I trying to slant/bias the reader of this story? Do I have a subconscious agenda I am trying to promote?

I enjoyed considering the merits of each photo carefully. What impression do I give if I use a color picture as opposed to a black and white photo? Will readers unfamiliar with the story of Stanley “Tookie” Williams judge him more harshly if I include a picture of him smiling in lieu of a picture of him looking remorseful? The same type questions arose in consideration of which protest rally photos should I include. Do I want readers to see the people’s message? Do I want a picture that better illustrates the large numbers of “Tookie’s” protesters/supporters? Is it important to show the caliber of some of his supporters? Additionally, I needed to determine whether or not the protestors were there specifically for Stanley “Tookie” Williams or were they basically there protesting against the death penalty.

I enjoyed creating this photo essay because there were so many decisions to make. The only slight frustration I encountered was there were some images I wanted to include that were not photographs, but images that had been created and/or manipulated using computer software.

This particular essay was easy because there were not too many photographs in existence from which to choose. Stanly was imprisoned as a one-dimensional character; he was incarcerated at a young age and stayed behind bars for the remainder of his life. Therefore, he did not have many photo opportunities. I used the Google Search Engine to locate images of Stanley “Tookie” Williams, the Crips, and “that governor” from California.

Mourners paying their respects at the funeral home on December 19, 2005, the day before the funeral. AP/Ric Francis

Dead at 51, Stanley “Tookie” Williams co-founded one of the most violent and deadly gangs in America, was convicted of four murders, served twenty-four years in prison, became a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, children’s author and a vocal advocate against gang violence. He maintained his innocence up until his death. William’s funeral was held in 1,500-seat Bethel AME Church in LA. The service lasted four hours. In a recording played to mourners, Williams said, “The war within me is over. I battled my demons and I was triumphant.”

The lethal injection table at San Quentin State Prison./flickr

Stanley “Tookie” Williams spent over twenty five years on death row, including six and a half years in solitary confinement. Williams was due to be executed December 13, 2005. According to San Quentin Operational Procedure No. 770, authorities began admiistering the lethal injection at 12:01 am. Thirty four minutes later, Inmate CDC# C29300, better known as Stanley”Tookie” Williams, was pronounced dead.

San Questin rally to protest the execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams. SF Bay Area IMC

Over 2000 people, most of whom are opposed to William’s death, demonstrate outside San Quentin State Prison, William’s cause was heralded by prominent figures ranging from the likes of the Reverend Jesse Jackson and Professor Angela Davis to Snoop Dogg and Jamie Fox. William’s case set off intense debate over the merits of capital punishment and the true indicators of redemption. Their message was the same: his initiatives and anti-gang message from behind bars meant his life was worth saving. Clemency was rejected by Governor Schwarzenegger.

An alleged victim of Williams’/jtf

In 1979, though he maintained his innocence, Williams was convicted of murdering four people during two separate robberies. They included 23-year-old Albert Owens, a clerk at a Pico Rivera 7-Eleven, and motel owners Yen-I Yang, 76, his wife, Tsa-Shai Yang, 63, and their visiting daughter, Yee-Chen Lin, 43. Allegedly, Williams’s shot Yee-Chen Lin (pictured above) at close range with a shotgun. Williams’ made a number of accusations at the trial including, but not limited to: prosecutorial misconduct, no credible evidence (i.e. fingerprints, boot prints, eyewitnesses, etc.) obtained from the crime scene, biased jury selection, and ineffective assistance from counsel.

During the L.A. riots, the Crips pose for a picture. AP/Susan Ragan

The Crips is a gang co-founded by Stanley Tookie Williams III and two teenage friends in 1969 in South Central Los Angeles. Initially the group was called the Baby Avenues, Over time, they came to be known as the Crips. The organization originally stood for, Community Revolution in Progress and was intended to continue the revolutionary ideology of the 1960s. However, the group lacked leaders with political knowledge or experience. Without an agenda for social change, the group’s focus shifted to protecting themselves from other gangs in the area; they grew increasingly violent in the process.

The History of Valentine's Day & Commentary

Valentine’s Day History
As the story goes, Emperor Claudius (of Rome) wanted to have a large army. However, many of the men did not volunteer to serve in this army. Claudius assumed it was because the young men were in love and had families that they did not want to serve. As a result, he made it illegal for men to marry. Valentine, the Roman priest, did not agree with the emperor’s decree and continued to marry couples in secret. One day, Valentine’s secret dealings were discovered. Valentine was captured and imprisoned. While incarcerated, many of the townspeople continued to express their support for Valentine through small acts such as throwing roses and notes into his cell window. One of Valentine’s major supporters during this time of imprisonment was the daughter of one of the prison guards. They talked regularly and encouraged each other. The day Valentine was scheduled to be beheaded, on February 14, 269 A.D., he left a note for the prison guard’s daughter. He signed the note "Love from your Valentine." http://www.pictureframes.co.uk/pages/saint_valentine.htm. This is one explanation of the origins of Valentine’s Day.
Another source explains that Valentine’s Day originated as the eve of the ancient Roman festival, Lupercalia. Lupercalia was an ancient pagan festival in honor of Lupercus, the Roman God of Fertility. The original festival was held on the 15th of February in the Lupercal, a cave where Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Rome, were said to have been nurtured by a she-wolf. On this day, priest assemble at the cave and sacrifice goats and dogs—animals known for their strong sexual instinct- to the god of fertility. After the ceremony, the young Roman men would slice the goat's hide into strips, dip them in the sacrificial blood and run through the streets, slapping the women and the crops with them. Roman women liked being touched with the blood, goat hides because they believed that the strips would make them more fertile and make childbirth easier in the coming year.
As part of this pagan tradition, there was a lottery aspect to festival wherein the young women in the city would write their names on a piece of paper and place it in a big urn. Arbitrarily, the men would pick a woman's name and she would become his date for the remainder of the evening, typically the remainder of the year. These matches often ended in marriage. Over the years, the Catholic Church eventually substituted the names of women with the names of dead saints to shift the general population’s focus away from lustful, fleshly desires to more spiritual ones. Toward the end of the 5th century, Pope Galesius decided to dedicate the Eve of Lupercalia to the martyred Roman priest, Valentine.
Despite these efforts, the pagan ideals persisted as the British and French people recalled the ancient Roman traditions. Additionally, the bird mating season coincidentally began around the same date, February 14th. So February 14th continues to be a day associated with love, and its many different forms of expression. This is the history of Valentine as recorded on the following website: http://www.witchology.com/contents/february/valentines_static.php

Valentine’s Day Commentary
As I do customarily when researching a topic, I type the topic into Google. For this project, I typed “history of valentine” into Google and received results for about 4, 740,000 sites. So finding information on the history of Valentine’s Day was not difficult. The most difficult aspect of this research project was deciding where to start and where/when to end.
Since I am a firm believer in the idea that “Seeing History is Believing History”, I am usually hunting for pictures and videos of various historical events to bring into the classroom to supplement the textbook. For this reason, I clicked on “Images” on the Google screen to see if I could find something to help students visualize the history of Valentine’s Day.
The initial site was not wholly devoted to Valentine’s Day. The site is maintained in the United Kingdom. Although the homepage is actually about picture frames, there is a section on their site dedicated to the history of Valentine’s Day, the Valentine Story, and Valentine traditions. I assume the nice image that appeared on Google images was there promoting their frame, not really Valentine’s Day. Nevertheless, the site told the history of Valentine’s Day through the first person perspective, which I found interesting.
The second interesting Valentine’s Day image I found was a drawing of a she-wolf nursing Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Rome. This photo led me to my second source entitled, www.witchology.com which is a website dedicated to the study of Witches and Witchcraft, a site maintained by Dr. Leo Ruickbie. This site traced the origins of Valentine’s Day back to the ancient Roman fertility festival called Lupecalia. Dr. Ruickbie’s site was given more credence because of his distinguished credentials. He obtained a Masters in Sociology and Religion from Lancaster University and became the first person to obtain a doctorate in Sociology of Modern Witchcraft. Furthermore, Dr. Ruickbie has published books, conducted public speaking engagements, been interviewed internationally, and was commissioned to conduct special research assignments by BBC.
Overall, I think the research was painless. However, I did verify the major components of the Valentine’s Day story against a couple other websites. The stories were consistent. I was satisfied.

Internet African History Sourcebook: Website Review

The Internet African History Sourcebook (IAHS)http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/africa/africasbook.html is a website designed for educational purposes. The African History (Sourcebook) site is actually one of eight subsets created from three major online sourcebooks. The major sourcebooks are entitled Ancient History Sourcebook, Medieval Sourcebook, and Modern History Sourcebook. The IAHS website has eight other history sourcebook subsets included on its main page listed as follows: East Asian, Indian, Islamic, Jewish, LGBT, Women’s, Global, and Science. The three major source books and the eight sourcebook subsets comprise the only hyper-linked heading section on this website, with one additional hyperlink to Halsall Home.
The redeeming quality of this site is that it links to the Halsall Home Page, a link which provides useful background info and additional guidance and resources (i.e. a search function) to make the Sourcebook experience an enjoyable one. The entire Internet History Sourcebooks Project [IHSP] was designed to provide easy access to primary sources and other teaching materials to the serious minded researcher in a non-commercial environment, meaning without excessive advertising or layout. This site, as well as the others, was developed and is edited by Paul Halsall with the aid of numerous other contributors. The web space and server support is provided by Fordham University, the History Department at Fordham University, and the Fordham Center for Medieval Studies, which lends credibility to the overall project.
The sites are maintained by Paul Halsall. However, it is more accurate to say that these sites are not, this spite specifically, maintained (well) by Paul Halsall. The IAHS site was last updated February 20, 2007, almost a year ago. The information on this particular main page remains static. Additionally, the Link Exchange (LE) Fast Counter does not work properly. Apparently this function is no longer supported because the website LE Fast Counter is stated to record the number of visits since June 10, 1998, approximately ten years ago, there is nothing provided.
The layout design is basic. There are three basic colors used: red, yellow, and green. The text is in black with links in blue. There is a kente cloth design banner that runs alongside the left border of the webpage. The colors in the kente cloth are red, yellow, and green. These colors may or may not draw upon the symbolic meanings of Akan kente colors. Red means political and spiritual moods, bloodshed, and/or sacrificial rites. Yellow means preciousness, royalty, wealth, and/or fertility. Green means vegetation, planting, harvesting, growth, and/or spiritual renewal. The background color for the rest of the webpage/website is a dull, shade of yellow.
There are no advertisements or banners on the main webpage which is supposedly an enhancement to the site. There is only one visual image, which is a (recurring) picture on the website, to the left of the major topic headings on this page. According to the Contents heading, which functions as a Table of Contents to the Webpage, there are thirteen major headings on this page.
The main page is very easy to navigate, since there is only one page dedicated to this particular site. Any link beyond the main page directs the user away from the African History Sourcebook website, without a link or option to return to the main page. This transition is obvious because every identifiable facet of the site changes, including the background, the color scheme, etc. The only way to return to the main page is to hit the computer’s back button. There is no back button implanted on the subsequent webpage. Each click on the IAHS main page holds uncertainty and suspense, much like a roll of the dice.
This uncertainty includes the reliability of the content as well as the credibility of the author/contributor/website. Whether or not the links worked at all was also uncertain. For example, the link to H. Kamuzu Banda (former President of Malawi): Apology to People of Malawi, Jan 4th 1996 [At Geocities] is a dead link.
Many of the links from this webpage directs users to other sites, non-discriminately. Some of the links direct the user to university websites (e.g. UGA, Fordham University, etc.), some to amateur websites (e.g. Mr. Dowling.com), some to professional websites (e.g. the Humanities & Social Sciences Online (HNet), The Atlantic Monthly (Online), and government run websites such as kenyaweb.com) , some credible(e.g. PBS), some suspect (e.g. geocities.com), and some to sites that require as much time and energy to verify the source as it takes to research the information originally sought after.
In a simplified attempt to make rhyme or reason of this site, there is a brief notes section prior to the Contents section which attempts to explain the coding system of the various links.
Aside from the links directly to documents, there are links labeled 2D to indicate the information provided is a secondary review, discussion, or article on a given topic. The links labeled MEGA lets users know they are being directed to a mega site which tracks resources on specified topics. Finally, there are links coded WEB which directs users to purportedly websites focused on a specific issue, offering serious educational value.
Though the site is not aesthetically enticing or organized to be user-friendly, there is much valuable information contained within its immediate and referenced pages to substantiate its existence and usefulness to the scholar and the scholarly.

Four Different Approaches to History on the Internet

How do these four websites represent different approaches to history on the Internet?
The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War (VOS) is a concise, yet comprehensive website with a purposeful and deliberate agenda. Offering tens of thousands of newspaper articles, 1,400 letters and diaries, full census records from 1860, forty-five Geographic Information System (GIS) maps, and more than 700 photographs and images, VOS represents the new genre of historical websites. This new genre is called “invented archives” because the site not only archives primary sources but also interprets, however slightly, historical evidence. This interpretive feature certainly leaves the door open for (historical) argument. The archive of primary sources is extremely organized into three sections: The Eve of War, The War Years, and The Aftermath. There is not a single story being told on this website. The primary evidence included on this site is extensive which allows visitors considerable leeway with respect to historical interpretation. These pieces can be used as a valuable resource for teaching. This website provides practical ideas for educators and others to effectively utilize and incorporate the wealth of information contained within the site. The various text and visual documents provide the “stuff” from which plausible and probable theories of this time period can be made. Serious scholarly research and academic discourse is possible because the sources have been authenticated and the information has been organized logically. It is necessary to revisit this site often because the site offers so many pieces to the “puzzle of the past”.
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/vshadow2/
The History Channel (HC) has a highly commercialized look and feel. Across the bottom of the home page there is a large banner advertising three DVDs for $30. Despite the commercials to buy cars, the magazine subscription offers, and DVD sales advertisements, there is a lot of exciting history contained within the site. This website is successful in making history fun. The site definitely caters to young people because there are numerous video games that allow visitors to fight against various martial artists, play Sudoku, and other (fun) games. There are numerous other features that make visitors want to return often to the website (e.g. e-cards). There are community discussion boards available to discuss topics such as wars, sports, and religion. Without commenting yet on the veracity of the comments on these discussion boards, the feature itself has attracted thousands of comments.
The History Channel offers a lot of videos and television programs. There is a listing on the website of show times for various historical programs that will be shown on the History Channel. It is obvious that the History Channel caters to a younger audience often creating simulations of past events, including large sections entitled Extreme History, Modern Marvels, and . HC is a good resource for presenting visual concepts; providing both audio and video stimulus for the younger generation accustomed/responsive to media stimulation since birth. Mysteries of history are appropriately included on this site (e.g. UFOs.). HC merges the past and the present, offering historical footage with contemporary interpretations. This is not a site for a serious historian because there were no primary documents or artifacts included on the site. The serious historian will be sorely disappointed, possibly even angered, with the inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and plain “fabrications/speculations” of some of the videos presented on the History Channel, however, kids will have blast learning about the past. HC succeeds in capturing its audience, the adolescents.
http://www.historychannel.com
Do History is a semi-instructive and interactive website that encourages readers to recreate/interpret the past based on the surviving fragments from the diary of the eighteenth-century midwife Martha Ballard and Laural Thatcher Ulrich’s study of it. This experimental resource allows for a lot of personal interpretation. The site is designed to teach the basic skills and techniques historians need to interpret the past in the present. In addition to the diary Martha Ballard left behind, there is a timeline of relevant events, historic maps and pictures, and a current day walking tour to help readers understand Martha’s life in relation to history and geography. This site is helpful for writers or movie producers who want to recreate the nuances of a particular time period to get a certain feel for the mindset or atmosphere of a certain period. This site is designed for a particular purpose without much incentive to return to the site.
http://www.dohistory.org
National Museum of American History (NMAH) presents history through tangible objects that can be seen, felt, heard, etc. Although the (NMAH) site boasts more than three million objects, the site does not seem to offer very much. This may be a matter of website design or simply the nature of museum culture, the need to rotate exhibits over a cyclic period of time. This site seems like an acceptable supplementary site, a site to enhance a primary research projects. The NMAH search engine is not as helpful as other history-themed websites. The objects are definitely the focus of this website. The unpredictability of the exhibits and collections featured in the museum makes it a secondary research site at best. With objects ranging from an old billiard set, a fake passport, and an old pacman game, the NMAH seems to be the perfect site for collectors and the seekers of nostalgia. Traditional historians would be better served looking elsewhere.
http://americanhistory.si.edu/index.cfm

Blog Review: Cliopatria

Cliopatria, a site enjoying its fifth year in existence, is a blog created for both serious and amateur historians, as well as laypersons interested in reading and discussing current events. The site follows the common blog format. Each blog entry on Cliopatria has a date header, a title, the time stamp/permalink, the name of the author, a comments option, and the trackback option. Cliopatria is actually a group blog, meaning there are numerous contributors to the site.
The blog is well organized. In the left column, there are numerous departments such as: news, HNN articles, Hot Topics, Roundup, Blogs, Books, Features, HNN Videos, HNN Podcasts, Student Shortcuts, Teacher’s Lounge, and Jobs. Each department offers a wealth of resources.
Since the site covers a myriad of topics and time periods, there are numerous categories/departments from which to begin your search. Moreover, these categories are designed to “take the guess work” out of finding the appropriate level of historical rigor within the site. For example, students would immediately be drawn to the Student Shortcut Department, which offers links on Doing Research on the Web, 9-11, United States History, World History, Science and Technology, Applying to College, etc. On the other hand, teachers would be drawn to the Teacher’s Lounge, wherein there is a Syllabus Finder, Classroom Lesson Plans for the K-12 and K-16 Teachers, and a Technology in the Classroom Link.
The site is informative for historians with either a liberal or conservative orientation. I detected no bias to either extreme, regarding volume. Both sides were represented, equally. Consistent with the culture of blogging, many bloggers submitted frequently, apparently omitting the typical peer review formalities. In order to maintain some semblance of integrity within the site, Cliopatria has a Contributing Editors link that allows users to read and verify the bloggers’ credentials. Bloggers posting regularly included a blogging professor from Princeton University, a Stanford educated blogger, and bloggers serving on various historical/research advisory boards.
Fortunately, I did not detect a particular agenda being pushed by the site. The contributing editors cover a variety of topics and offer equally compelling intellectual opinions/insights. In Chronicle Careers, Ivan Tribble states “blogging was not a good idea for graduate students and junior faculty members . . .”. However, there are serious intellectuals foregoing this well-intentioned cautionary advice and are publishing maniacally. There are posts added throughout the day from as early as 1:54 AM to 2:00 PM.
The posts have varied considerably over the course of the week. Cliopatria is updated daily, multiple times a day. However, the site is easy to follow over the short and long term. The site has an Archive Section which catalogues itself (e.g. articles, previous blogs, etc.) monthly, organized by both month and year. This archive section offers sixty links, covering the twelve months in a five year period. Cliopatria, the blog, exists as a part of George Mason University’s History News Network. This may be responsible for the high volume of traffic which visits the site regularly.
The blog offers up to date information. There are numerous links with current pictures, clear videos, and audio/podcast options. There are many incentives to return to the site daily such as: Top Young Historian, History Doyens, On This Day in History, and Quote/Unquote of the Day. This blog is highly recommended!!!

Rodney King

In the words of the infamous Rodney King, "Can we all just get along?"