Brain drain could undermine the country’s hi-tech economy as liberal families conclude social contract has been broken
This summer, the Nobel laureate Prof Aaron Ciechanover joined a group of prominent Israelis gathered in the ruins of the Nir Oz kibbutz to demand a hostage release and ceasefire deal.
Nir Oz was the worst hit of all the communities targeted by Hamas on 7 October, with a quarter of its residents kidnapped or killed. Twenty-nine are still in Gaza.
If the hostages were not brought back, the basic social contract that underpinned Israeli society would unravel, the 77-year-old professor of medicine warned – with catastrophic consequences for the entire country.
He cited an accelerating “brain drain” of doctors and other professionals as a worrying sign that some of Israel’s elite already feel they no longer have a future in the country. And without them, Israel itself might struggle to have a future.
Ciechanover is a long-term critic of Benjamin Netanyahu and joined protests against his government before the war. But concern about this trend is not limited to political opponents of the Israeli leader. Earlier this year, Netanyahu’s former chair of the National Economic Council, Eugene Kandel, joined forces with the administrative expert Ron Tzur to warn that Israel faces an existential threat.
In a paper calling for a new political settlement, they warned that under a business-as-usual scenario “there is a considerable likelihood that Israel will not be able to exist as a sovereign Jewish state in the coming decades”. (snip)
The problem precedes the 7 Octoberattacks and the war that followed, as demographic and political shifts have prompted some secular, liberal Israelis to question their future in a state increasingly dominated by religious traditionalists.
Noam is a father of three with businesses that include a PR consultancy and a cannabis pharmacy. He expected that his 40s would be a time of “less doing, more enjoying”, after decades of hard work.
Instead, he and his wife spend evenings poring over school options in European countries as they weigh up where to start a new life. The war increased the urgency of the search, but it has been a decision born out of longstanding concerns.
“The main reason we are leaving is that we are seeking a better future for our children. Even if peace can be brokered tomorrow, we still can’t see a future we want to be a part of,” Noam said. “The demographics speak for themselves.”
(Peace History’s links were misdirected for a few days, but the links are back now.)
October 6, 1683 Thirteen Mennonite families from the German town of Krefeld arrived in Philadelphia on the ship Concord. Having endured religious warfare in Europe, the Mennonites were pacifists, similar to the Society of Friends (often known as Quakers) who opposed all forms of violence. The first Germans in North America, they established Germantown which still exists as part of Philadelphia. Modern Mennonite peace activism:
October 6, 1955 Poet Allen Ginsberg read his poem “Howl” for the first time at Six Gallery in San Francisco. The poem was an immediate success that rocked the Beat literary world and set the tone for confessional poetry of the 1960s and later. “Howl and Other Poems” was printed in England, but its second edition was seized by customs officials as it entered the U.S. City Lights, a San Francisco bookstore, published the book itself to avoid customs problems, and storeowner (and poet) Lawrence Ferlinghetti was arrested and tried for obscenity, but defended by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Working on Howl in San Francisco, circa June, 1956 Following testimony from nine literary experts on the merits of the book, Ferlinghetti was found not guilty. Lawrence Ferlinghetti outside City Lights More about City Lights Read Howl Read more about Allen Ginsberg
October 6, 1976 An airliner, Cubana Airlines Flight 455, exploded in midair, killing 73 mostly young passengers including the entire Cuban youth fencing team. The plot was engineered by Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban former CIA agent, who was based in Venezuela at the time. The Posada Carriles file from the National Security Archive
October 6, 1978 346 protestors were arrested at the site of the proposed Black Fox Nuclear Power Plant in Inola, Oklahoma. In 1973 Public Service of Oklahoma announced plans to build the Black Fox plant about 15 miles from Tulsa. It was also near Carrie Barefoot Dickerson’s family farm. She became concerned as a nurse and a citizen about the potential health hazards. Carrie Barefoot Dickerson Through her group, Citizens’ Action for Safe Energy (CASE), and the consistent opposition of informed and persistent allies, the project was canceled in 1982. There are no nuclear plants in the state of Oklahoma, and no nuclear plant has been built in the U.S. since then. Carrie Dickerson Foundation
October 6, 1979 Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant protest – late 1970s Over 1400 were arrested at Seabrook, New Hampshire, the construction site of two new nuclear power plants. The occupation was organized by the Clamshell Alliance. Clamshell history
I will be discussing the Koch brothers in this essay. If you are unfamiliar with them, here is a primer.
“Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”
~John Lewis
I once left an educational conference with nearly a dozen cans of Diet Coke, several boxed lunches, a handful of cookies, and every handout I could get my hands on. I left with every pen, lanyard, and every lesson plan that was out for the taking.
I’m not a hoarder or even participating in minor theft — it was all free. I was attending a Koch-funded Bill of Rights Teacher Institute and I was going to take those folks for every penny I could. The next day, I delivered the cookies and boxed lunches to the teachers’ lounge. I drank the Diet Cokes.
Koch money paid for my day out of school for this seminar by giving me a stipend and paying for my sub while I was out of the classroom. I think it was around $400 in total.
Did I make a dent in a billionaire’s pocketbook? No. Would I participate as a cog in the wheel in their dystopian vision of education? Hell no.
“If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth–certainly the machine will wear out… but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.”
~Henry David Thoreau
I have read enough protest literature to know one thing: don’t be a cog in the wheel. If you see something you don’t like, shut it down. If you can’t shut it down, make the harmful agenda more difficult.
That’s exactly the sort of minor mayhem I have caused for years. Slight chaos. A burr under the saddle. A thorn in the side. A constant irritation.
The older I get, the more brazen I have become in not lending myself to the wrong which I condemn. I applied to the Koch-funded Bill of Rights Teacher Institute after hearing about it at other teacher seminar I had attended.
My last five years of teaching had grown a little tired and monotonous so I applied for summer travel institutes with the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities and others like the summer program at George Washington’s Mount Vernon. All were prestigious and admission was difficult.
I was lucky to be admitted to several.
I love to travel, but what I really loved about these institutes was learning about American History from scholars in the places where history happened. It makes a huge difference. I have learned from scholars across the country.
My lanyard from the George Washington Institute. I have 15 keepsake lanyards from teacher institutes I have attended. I am almost as proud of them as I am my degrees.
Once I found out that Koch money is used to sponsor teacher institutes, I knew I had to go. The Koch brothers —David has since died, while Charles remains— are from Kansas and several seminars happen right over the state line.
By attending these seminars, I was taking up the space of another educator. I was thinking of young teachers who might be indoctrinated by their bullshit. I was using up Koch time and resources and there was no way I would use their material or their instruction in my classroom.
Koch money is funding extremism across the country, especially in their vision of the future when it comes to education. They push for universal school vouchers which defund public schools, but it’s even more insidious than that. The Bill of Rights Institute offers curriculum workshops throughout the country, distributes teaching materials, holds essay contests for students, and displays its wares at the National Council for the Social Studies conference.
In its materials for teachers and students, the Bill of Rights cherry-picks the Constitution, history, and current events to hammer home its libertarian message that the owners of private property should be free to manage their wealth as they see fit. As one lesson insists: “The Founders considered industry and property rights critical to the happiness of society.” This message—that individual owners of property are the source of social good, their property sacred, and government the source of danger—is woven through the entire Koch curriculum.
The material and the professional development are sneaky. A teacher could attend a training and walk out thinking not much about it, but there is an underlying premise…the right to private property (wealth) is the only right that needs any defense. That is exactly the point of the Koch doctrine.
The Koch billionaires spent much of their lives and a good chunk of their fortune pushing anti-tax policies. They helped found the Cato Institute, a right-wing think tank, and helped fund the Heritage Foundation.
Yes, the folks behind Project 2025.
I found it so odd that the Bill of Rights Institute was even funding teacher seminars in the first place knowing that the brothers hate public education.
David Koch once stated, “We advocate the complete separation of education and state. Government schools lead to the indoctrination of children and interfere with the free choice of individuals. Government ownership, operation, regulation, and subsidy of schools and colleges should be ended.”
Good god. Talk about the quiet part out loud. Koch money is hosting seminars to disseminate propaganda directly to public school teachers in an effort to end public schools.
They also fund seminars for students.
I had heard they have a Bill of Rights summer institute for students in high school. A fully-paid trip to Washington, DC. I encouraged my 16-year-old son to apply and he was accepted. He learned to interact with very right-wing topics and children who are being indoctrinated to speak and debate on those topics.
My son came out stronger in his liberal values — he also used up about $2500 in Koch money and took the seat of a student who may have been susceptible to indoctrination.
I do these things to give these oligarchs no rest. No peace. It is my small way of throwing a wrench into the gears.
I work just as hard to be a constant sort of irritation to the Herzog Foundation. A billion dollar Missouri-based company whose mission is to “catalyze Christian education.” In smaller words, they want to send taxpayer money to private religious schools and even push for vouchers for homeschoolers. The less they know, right?
The Herzog Foundation is also on the Board of Advisory for Project 2025.
I once stood in a cornfield with a dozen friends to protest the “school choice” grifter they brought to town. I often tweet out their events and hundreds of folks have signed up to fill the seats. The foundation had to shut down an event and re-register people after I tweeted out the registration link for a Sarah Huckabee Sanders visit. She came to Missouri to sell her school voucher snake oil.
How can I help it if hundreds of folks who have no interest in an event, and have a burner email account, register for Herzog events and break the registration links?
I constantly comment on their social media posts. I write about them. I tell others about their mission. In general, I make a nuisance of myself.
No rest. No peace.
You can do these things too. You can be a burr. A constant irritation. An annoyance.
What can we do about the oligarchs who are taking over our institutions and forcing propaganda into our schools?
We can be counter-friction to stop the machine. We can create good trouble.
Neo-Nazis, the KKK and other hate groups are now routinely visiting Springfield, marching through city streets or distributing recruitment flyers and raising fears of intimidation and violence.
Over the weekend, the Blood Tribe — a violent Neo-Nazi hate group, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) — stood outside Springfield Mayor Rob Rue’s home waiving swastika flags. In a previous march through the city, some carried guns.
Also this weekend, an unidentified group stood outside Springfield city hall with a banner that said “Haitians Have No Home Here” in English and Haitian Creole.
These groups are responding to the growth of Springfield’s Haitian community, an issue that made the national spotlight following unsubstantiated rumors circulated on social media and parroted by politicians that Haitian immigrants were eating Springfield residents’ pets.
Since then, Springfield NAACP president Denise Williams says residents have also reported to her agency flyers being distributed in local neighborhoods from a group associated with the Ku Klux Klan.
“They’re trying to intimidate us. But we’re not a city that’s easily intimidated,” Williams said. “We need to stand together.”
The group, the Trinity White Knights, has a P.O. Box based in Kentucky. The Lexington Herald-Leader reported in September that similar flyers from the same group were distributed in Covington, Ky.
Springfield Police Chief Allison Elliott said the department is aware of the flyers.
Some residents have reported harassment from a group of people purporting to be members of the Proud Boys, which the SPLC designates as a hate group that believes in “Western chauvinism” and “an anti-white guilt agenda.”
Clark County Democratic Party chairman Austin Smith said a volunteer canvassing near the political party’s Springfield headquarters earlier this month was returning to the office to drop off campaign materials when a truck with large flags that appeared to say “Proud Boys” pulled up.
A group of men in the truck, the volunteer told Smith, made “vaguely threatening” statements.
“We’ve had threats and things pour into the office. No bomb threats, but ‘You better watch out.’ ‘We’re watching you.’ So that definitely created a lot of fear,” Smith said.
The party increased security measures for its recent meeting as a safety precaution, Smith said.
Members of the religious group Israel United in Christ (IUIC) were also in Springfield in September, gathering in multiple public places around the city.
The members, clad in purple shirts with the group’s name and logo, were seen marching and passing out literature to passersby.
At one point, group members gathered in the parking lot of Groceryland on South Limestone Street, near the corner of East John St. Members were preaching into a microphone about the organization’s teachings. Members also met with NAACP leaders from Dayton and Springfield.
According to its website, the IUIC is a Bible-based organization that believes people within the Black, Hispanic, and Native American communities represent “the true and historical descendants of the Biblical Israelites.”
SPLC categorizes IUIC as one of the handful of “Radical Hebrew Israelites” groups in the U.S. The SPLC designates these groups as hate groups. IUIC denies that it is a hate group, according to a post on the IUIC Classrooms Facebook page. The newspaper reached out to IUIC but did not hear back.
Williams said the Springfield NAACP chapter has plans to host a virtual community meeting to talk about recent activity in the city.
Springfield’s police chief asked residents to remain vigilant and “say something if you see something suspicious or out of the norm.”
“We know our city has looked a little different lately, and you also may notice an increased public safety presence. We assure you that our top priority has always been and will continue to be safety,” Elliott said. “Safety is a shared responsibility and our officers, along with our public safety partners, take all tips and information seriously.”
Serhiy Kraskov picked up a twig and poked at a small fish floating in the Desna River. “It’s a roach. It died recently. You can tell because its eyes are clear and not blurry,” he said. Hundreds of other fish had washed up nearby on the river’s green willow-fringed banks. A large pike lay in the mud. Nearby, in a patch of yellow lilies, was a motionless carp. “Everything is dead, starting from the tiniest minnow to the biggest catfish,” Kraskov added mournfully.
Kraskov is the mayor of the village of Slabyn, in Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv region. The rustic settlement – population 520 – escaped the worst of Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion. But the war arrived last week in a new and horrible form. Ukrainian officials say the Russians deliberately poisoned the Seym River, which flows into the Desna. The Desna connects with a reservoir in the Kyiv region and a water supply used by millions.
Serhiy Kraskov, the mayor of the village of Slabyn, near the banks of the Desna River in northern Ukraine. Photograph: Alessio Mamo/The Guardian
A toxic slick was detected on 17 August coming from the Russian border village of Tyotkino. According to Kyiv, chemical waste from a sugar factory had been dumped in vast quantities into the Seym. It included ammonia, magnesium and other poisonous nitrates. At the time, fierce fighting was going on in the surrounding area. Ukraine’s armed forces had launched a surprise incursion into Russia and had seized territory in Kursk oblast.
The pollution crossed the international border just over a mile away and made its way into Ukraine’s Sumy region. The Seym’s natural ecosystem crashed. Fish, molluscs and crayfish were asphyxiated as oxygen levels fell to near zero. Settlements along the river reported mass die-offs. Kraskov got a call from the authorities warning him a disaster was coming his way. He spotted the first dead fish on 11 September. “There were a few of them in the middle of the river,” he said.
He returned the following weekend to find the Desna’s banks clogged with rotting fish, stretching out from the shore for three metres into the water. Volunteers wearing rubber boots, masks and protective gloves shovelled the fish into sacks. They found a metre-long catfish. “The stench was terrible. You could scarcely breathe. The river was quiet. Nothing moved apart from a few frogs,” Kraskov said. A tractor took the sacks to an abattoir that used to belong to the village’s Soviet-era collective farm. They were buried in a pit.
Serhiy Zhuk, the head of Chernihiv’s ecology inspectorate, described what had happened as an act of Russian ecocide. “The Desna was one of our cleanest rivers. It’s a very big catastrophe,” he said. Zhuk traced the slick’s route on a map pinned to his office wall: a looping multi-week journey along the Seym and Desna. “More than 650km is polluted. Not a single organism survived. This is unprecedented. It’s Europe’s first completely dead river,” he said. (snip-MORE)
Today’s posts got interrupted by a friend needing my help with an emotional crisis which I was very happy to give, and then my wonderful husband who puts up and supports me through my own crises / helps me through them needing to work in my Pink Palace to get my Pride Flag backdrop done and start moving my shelving around to make things better for me. Hubby is wonderful and truly understands and wants my Pink Palace to be not only a good space for me but a safe space for all my needs. To anyone who has a complaint about my naming my office space my Pink Palace … nicely said get over yourself. This is 2024 and I get to call my spaces what I want … the not nicely way to put it came to mind but instead of voicing it I will say that I left being embarrassed or upset over my being who I am sexually and emotionally behind me over 40 years ago. Hugs. Scottie.
This is what tRump and maga are, gang thugs enforcing their ideas of right and wrong with violence regardless of other people’s rights. This is what the party of tRump is, violence to any who they disagree with. This is brownshirt stuff from Nazi Germany in the 1930s. This is domestic terrorism, the use of violence and harming others to achieve a political goal / gain. This stuff was going away as unacceptable in the US, and now it is back thanks to tRump and his people. Hugs. Scottie
Blaze Pizza’s 96 California pizzerias are known for build-your-own pies rapidly fired in 800-degree ovens, along with Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James’ corporate investments. Last week, its Roseville location made headlines for an uglier reason.
A delivery driver walked into the Highland Reserve Marketplace restaurant about 10:15 p.m. Sept. 19, saw a Pride flag hung by employees inside and tore it down to the ground, according to the Roseville Police Department.
When a manager and employees confronted the man, he reportedly uttered a homophobic slur and left. He then returned with two other men, at least one of them wearing mixed martial arts gloves, and kicked off a brawl with two employees that multiple passersby caught on video.
Read the full article. Police are calling it a hate crime and the attackers remain at large. One of the employees was hospitalized due to his injuries.
I want to thank Ten Bears for this video. I really enjoy history and how it still affects us today. I almost lost the link of his to reblog it as I switch videos to the secondary computer and keep reading and responding on the primary as I watch. I am glad I found the original post as it saved me a lot of work. All I can say is if you are interested in history, electric cars, and why we went to using gas when it was much cheaper and not totally profit driven, please watch this video. Hugs. Scottie.
He feels entitled to take anything he wants without paying for it. He also believes it is better to just due and ignore anyone else’s rights. He is the great cult leader. Hugs. Scottie
Walters has ordered daily bible lessons for Oklahoma’s public school students in all grades. Several dozen school districts are currently defying that edict.
Earlier this month, local outlets exposed Walters for spending state money to fund a national tour of far-right events to “promote himself on the national stage.”
Walters is widely expected to run for governor. Current governor and fellow Christian nationalist Kevin Stitt is term-limited.
Last month around two dozen GOP state lawmakers signed a letter calling for an impeachment probe into Walters for refusing to disclose his spending.
Walters has hired a raft of far-right figures, including Chaya Rachik and Dennis Prager, to help him “turn students to Jesus.” Raichik is reportedly helping overhaul public school libraries.
Imagine all the good that those millions of dollars could be used for. It could be used to pay Oklahoma’s hardworking teachers or provide additional supplies and resources for its struggling schools.
Instead, it’s being used to promote Walters’ Christian nationalist agenda. https://t.co/DE20Pw1846
Please remember the people who first led Israel in the beginning were also terrorist. Many in the Israeli government in the early decades of Israel’s existence were also labeled terrorist. One person’s terrorist is another person’s avowed wonderful member of government. It has been leaked that members of Israel’s government wants to annex another sovereign country’s land and make it Israel’s property. Just like they have in the West bank, and Gaza. In fact some have talked about trying to take part of Egypt. This is because religious fanatics are running the country now and they claim their god gave them the entire area so they simply have the right to take it. And no one can stop them as long as Biden stays in the mind set of the 1950 / 60s/ 70s, because Biden won’t let anyone else strike Israel back to show them their god did not give them permission to take others lands. Bibi has given the middle finger to every US president and he is desperate to get tRump to win by dragging the US into a war in the Middle East. That is his plan to help tRump and hurt Harris. And they bombed an entire area of occupied apartments in Beirut, which is another war crime they committed. Hugs. Scottie
A marketing director of a well-known Swiss brand, said, “When you look at all of them, they scream Chinese-made watch. None of them is worth the asking price. Those blue screws on the tourbillon cage are a dead giveaway that it was partly made in China. You won’t find blue screws on a tourbillon made in Switzerland. And you can pick up a Chinese tourbillon for $100.”
Trump's "Vastly Overpriced" $100,000 "Swiss Watch" Is Probably Made in China, Experts Say https://t.co/neyxxt5J0U
Milei has cut support for welfare programs, soup kitchens, and other efforts to aid the needy.
Milei’s biggest cheerleader is Elon Musk, who has vowed to bring similar policies as the leader of Trump’s supposed “Department Of Government Efficiency.”
Of note, the planned department’s acronym just happens to be the same as a cryptocurrency often promoted by Musk.
Earlier this year Musk posted the below porn-adjacent image in celebration of Milei.
Not only did Hawley vote against the project, the report below notes that in 2019 Trump defunded all such military projects to divert the money to his border wall.
“We can VERIFY: No, Hawley did not secure $100 million for Fort Leonard Wood's military housing.”
Lying about supporting military families? While even voting AGAINST supporting them? That amounts to nothing more than stolen valor.https://t.co/jWt78m2qd4
The party who has people arrested, charged, and found guilty of voter fraud is the Republican Party. Every accusation from them is a confession of their own actions. They are setting it up to challenge the voters will and overturn the vote in that state. Hugs. Scottie
Hancock said that he learned during the trial that Rittenhouse had allegedly used racial slurs in messages sent to his friends and appeared to be looking for an opportunity to use a weapon. “There was a history of things he was doing prior to Kenosha, specifically patrolling the street for months with guns and borrowing people’s security uniforms, doing whatever he could to try to get into some kind of a gunfight,” Hancock claimed.
‘Patrolling the streets for months’: Kyle Rittenhouse confidants reveal new details the jury never knew https://t.co/zDg2esDw0t
The party maybe have evolved into the kind of anti-migrant, anti-Islam populist force that has taken hold across much of Europe, but it began as a political refuge for former Nazis. Not only has the FPÖ not disavowed that past, it embraces it — at least in private — with the leading party figures regularly getting to trouble for paying quiet tribute to their Nazi forebears.
Abrasive and provocative, far-right leader Herbert Kickl has one of the lowest approval ratings among Austria's top politicians, yet he is the frontrunner in Sunday’s parliamentary election, which has at times felt like a referendum on him https://t.co/NAPLJKizYypic.twitter.com/IUoS0CaQoV
As I often remind the haters, almost all of the children in the foster care and adoption system are there due to abuse and abandonment by the heterosexual parents.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing the federal government over its requirement that states provide LGBTQ+ affirming placement for foster care youth. https://t.co/Al87Q9y6L7
September 28, 1836 Cherokee Chief John Ross wrote a letter to both houses of the U.S. Congress stating that the Treaty of New Echota was not negotiated by any legitimate representatives of his nation. Its terms required the Cherokees to relinquish all lands east of the Mississippi River for a payment of $5 million. Ross was the democratically chosen leader of a nation with its own language, its own newspaper, a bi-cameral legislature and a republican form of government.
Cherokee Chief John Ross The Cherokee Nation celebrated its own arts and sports, and produced a wide variety of agricultural and commercial goods. I had twelve political units ranging from northern Alabama to western North Carolina.Writing from north Georgia, Ross said: “The makers of it [the treaty] sustain no office nor appointment in our Nation, under the designation of Chiefs, Head men, or any other title, by which they hold, or could acquire, authority to assume the reins of Government, and to make bargain and sale of our rights, our possessions, and our common country . . . . “ We are despoiled of our private possessions, the indefeasible property of individuals. We are stripped of every attribute of freedom and eligibility for legal self-defence. Our property may be plundered before our eyes; violence may be committed on our persons; even our lives may be taken away, and there is none to regard our complaints. We are denationalized; we are disfranchised. We are deprived of membership in the human family!” Full text of the letter
September 28, 1917 166 people who were (or had been) active in the I.W.W. (Industrial Workers of the World, whose members were also known as Wobblies) were indicted for protesting World War I.They were accused of trying to “cause insubordination, disloyalty, and refusal of duty in the military and naval forces” in violation of the Espionage Act. One hundred and one defendants were found guilty, and received prison sentences ranging from days to twenty years, with accompanying fines of $10,000-$20,000. This was part of a successful U.S. government campaign to cripple the radical union movement. The I.W.W. – A Brief History (U.S.) I.W.W. home
September 28, 1943 In Denmark, underground anti-Nazi activists began systematic smuggling of Jews to Sweden. In just three weeks, all but 481 of Denmark’s 8000 Jews had been moved to safety. Kim Malthe-Bruun, a 21-year-old Danish resistance fighter. Unfortunately one of the ones who did not make it.
September 28, 2005 The lawyer who wrote the original legal complaint in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, Constance Baker Motley, died in New York City. She had led a remarkable career which began at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) where she was their first female attorney. The first black woman to argue before the Supreme Court, she was successful in nine of her ten cases. Motley went on to achieve three more firsts as an African American woman: being elected to the New York State Senate and shortly thereafter to the Manhattan Borough presidency. Finally, Pres. Lyndon Johnson appointed her to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in 1966 where she served until her passing.