The Official Black History Thread!!!! (GREAT READ)

Justice Julia Sebutinde: First African female sworn in as International Court of Justice Judge

In March 2012, Justice Julia Sebutinde from Uganda, officially started her term as a judge at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague hence becoming first African woman to sit on the UN Court.

According to an ICJ statement, “her career objective is to contribute to world peace through the adjudication and settlement of legal disputes at national, regional and international levels.’’

Before joining the ICJ, she conducted judicial inquiries into high-profile corruption cases in Uganda and was a judge prosecuting against the former Liberian president Charles Taylor at a special court in Sierra Leone.

With Sebutinde, three female judges currently sit on the UN court bench, the other two being Judge Xue Hanqing from China and Judge Joan Donoghue from the U.S.

She was born in Central Uganda to Mr. and Mrs. Semambo, a civil servant and a housewife. She attended Lake Victoria Primary School in Entebbe in the 1960s. She then joined Gayaza High School and later, King’s College Budo, before entering Makerere University, to study law. Julia Sebutinde graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Laws (LLB) in 1977. She obtained the Diploma in Legal Practice, from the Law Development Center in Kampala, in 1978. In 1990, she enrolled in the University of Edinburgh for the degree of Master of Laws (LLM), graduating in 1991. In 2009, in recognition of her body of work and contribution to International justice, she was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws (LLD), by the University of Edinburgh.

Julia Sebutinde first worked in the Ministry of Justice in the Government of Uganda from 1978 until 1990. After graduating from the University of Edinburgh in 1991, she worked in the Ministry of the Commonwealth in the United Kingdom. She later joined the Ministry of Justice in the Republic of Namibia, which had just attained Independence at that time. In 1996, she was appointed Judge of the High Court of Uganda. In that capacity, she presided over three commissions of inquiry related to the following government departments: Corruption in the Uganda Police Corruption in the Uganda People’s Defence Force Corruption in the Uganda Revenue Authority. In 2005 Justice Julia Sebutinde was appointed, with secondment from the Uganda government, to the Special Court on Sierra Leone, established by the United Nations. She was later appointed the Presiding Judge in Courtroom II, currently responsible for hearing the case against former Liberian strongman, Charles Taylor. In that position she refused to attend a disciplinary hearing against Taylor’s lawyer, a behaviour which amounts to serious judicial misconduct, but that remained unsanctioned by the Special Court for Sierra Leone.

In the ICJ judges election, 2011, Sebutinde is one of eight candidates for five vacant judicial seats on the International Court of Justice. She was nominated by the national groups of Croatia, Denmark, and Uganda in the Permanent Court of Arbitration. In the election, a successful candidate needs an absolute majority of votes both in the United Nations General Assembly and in the United Nations Security Council.On the first day of voting, four candidates were elected but the fifth position was not filled. When voting adjourned, Sebutinde had failed to receive a majority of votes in the Security Council (6 out of 15, compared to 9 for incumbent Abdul Koroma), but received a majority in the General Assembly (97 out of 193 votes, compared to 96 votes for Koroma). When balloting resumed on 13 December 2011, Sebutinde received an absolute majority of votes in both the Security Council and the General Assembly, and thus was declared elected.

She is a member of the Uganda Women Lawyers Association (FIDA) - Uganda; the National Association of Women Judges (NAWJ) and the Uganda Christian Lawyers Association (UCLA). She is also a good-will ambassador for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Programme, which addresses reproductive health, population development strategies and advocacy

Claudette Colvin (born September 5, 1939) is a pioneer of the African-American civil rights movement. In 1955, she was the first person arrested for resisting bus segregation in Montgomery, Alabama, preceding the better known Rosa Parks incident by nine months.

She was among the five women originally included in the federal court case, filed on February 1, 1956 as Browder v. Gayle (1956), and testified before the three-judge panel that heard the case in the United States District Court. On June 13, 1956, the judges determined that the state and local laws requiring bus segregation in Alabama were unconstitutional. The case went to the [United States Supreme Court], which upheld their ruling on December 17, 1956. Three days later, the Supreme Court issued an order to Montgomery and the state to end bus segregation in Alabama.

Montgomery's black leaders did not publicize Colvin's pioneering effort for long because she was a teenager and became pregnant while unmarried. Given the social norms of the time and her youth, the NAACP leaders worried about using her to represent their movement.^[1][2]

Contents [hide] 1 Biography 1.1 Court trial 1.2 Personal life 2 In popular culture 3 See also 4 References 5 Further reading 6 External links

[edit] Biography

Colvin was born and grew up in Montgomery, Alabama.^[3] In 1955 Colvin was a student at the segregated Booker T. Washington High School in the city.^[4] She was returning home from school on March 2, 1955 when she got on a Capital Heights bus downtown. She relied on the city's buses to get to and from school.

She sat in the middle section. If the bus became so crowded that all the "white seats" in front were filled and a white person was standing, the rule was that the blacks were supposed to leave these seats and move to the back, and stand if needed. When a white woman got on the bus and was standing, the bus driver, Robert W. Cleere, ordered Colvin and two other black passengers to get up and move to the back. When Colvin refused, she was removed from the bus and arrested by two police officers.^[5] This was nine months before the Montgomery Improvement Association decided to stage a similar event that they had secretary Rosa Parks famously instigate and was arrested for the same offense.^[1] Her arrest preceded that of Rosa Parks by nine months.

When Colvin refused to get up, she happened to be thinking about a school paper that she had written that day. It was about the local custom that prevented blacks from using the dressing rooms and trying on clothing in department stores.^[6]

"The bus was getting crowded and I remember the bus driver looking through the rear view mirror asking her to get up for the white woman, which she didn't," said Annie Larkins Price, a classmate of Colvin's. "She had been yelling it's my constitutional right. She decided on that day that she wasn't going to move."^[7] Colvin was handcuffed, arrested and forcibly removed from the bus. She shouted that her constitutional rights were being violated.^[1][5] Price testified for Colvin in the juvenile court case. Colvin was convicted of violating the segregation law and assault.^[7] "There was no assault," Price said.^[7]

[edit] Court trial

In the larger federal case filed as Browder v. Gayle, on May 11, 1956, Colvin, along with Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, and Mary Louise Smith, testified in the United States District Court hearing before a three-judge panel about their actions.

During the trial, Colvin described her arrest:

"I kept saying, 'He has no civil right... this is my constitutional right... you have no right to do this.' And I just kept blabbing things out, and I never stopped. That was worse than stealing, you know, talking back to a white person."^[6]

The case was appealed by state and local officials to the United States Supreme Court. On November 13, 1956, the case was heard by the Supreme Court who affirmed the District Court's ruling. In December, the Supreme Court declined to reconsider and on December 20, 1956, it ordered Montgomery and Alabama to end bus segregation in the state.^[8]

In 2005, Colvin told the Montgomery Advertiser that she would not have changed her decision to remain seated.

"I feel very, very proud of what I did. I do feel like what I did was a spark and it caught on."^[9] "I'm not disappointed," Colvin said. "Let the people know Rosa Parks was the right person for the boycott. But also let them know that the attorneys took four other women to the Supreme Court to challenge the law that led to the end of segregation."^[8]

[edit] Personal life

In 1956, Colvin gave birth to a son, Raymond. He was so light-skinned (like his father) that people frequently said she had a baby by a white man. Colvin "left Montgomery for New York in 1958,^[10] because she had difficulty finding and keeping work after the notoriety of the federal court case overturning bus segregation. (Similarly, Parks left Montgomery for Detroit in 1957.)^[8]

In New York, the young Colvin and Raymond first lived with her older sister, Velma Colvin. She got a job as a nurse’s aide in a nursing home in Manhattan, where she worked for 35 years. She retired in 2004.^[1] Colvin never married.^[1] While living in New York, she had a second son, who became an accountant in Atlanta, married and had his own family. Raymond Colvin died in 1993 at age 37 in New York.^[1]

carolina cutie wrote: Thanks Purp! Don't mess with Lumbee Indians. I mean that back then as well as 2013. Some of my friends are Lumbee and they have stories for days.

yes!