In that 1799 incident the Supreme Court of North Carolina acquitted the teen who had confronted a black man on a public road. The teen told that man to get off the road or he would shoot him with a shotgun.
That man walked to the other side of the road where the teen blocked him again. The teen shot the man after "the negro shoved him with some violence to the other side of the road" according to the court record"that exhibited shades of the black brute stereotype.
NC's Supreme Court ruled the shooting manslaughter not murder -- a crucial ruling for the teen because NC law barred punishment for manslaughter in the "malicious killing of a slave." Incidentally, NC law at that time deprived free blacks of rights just like slaves.
"There is enough evidence of probable cause here to arrest Zimmerman," said Benjamin Crump, the attorney for Trayvon Martin's family. "Race is the elephant in this room."
For the rest of this article by Linn Washington Jr. in ThisCantBeHappening!, the new independent Project Censored Award-winning online alternative newspaper, please go to: www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/1105
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