I grew up five minutes from the Mason-Dixon Line and 45 from Gettysburg, and Hampton’s dad is a rare book dealer with a specialty in Civil War ephemera, so I was tickled yesterday to learn a story we’d never heard before to mark the 150th anniversary of the war over “states’ rights”. [the right to do what? exactly.]

Mohammed Kahn was an Iranian immigrant who fought at Gettysburg, got separated from his unit and thrown into a labor camp because he was “not white enough” to be believed as having to have served for the Union, escaped, got shot, and kept fighting for the the North. We need a movie of this guy stat; read more here: https://www.qasimrashid.com/p/private-mohammed-kahncivil-war-hero-638

Yesterday was also the more recent anniversary of Marian Anderson performing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial — because the DAR wouldn’t let her perform in their building, so Eleanor Roosevelt dropped her membership and planned her own dang show. Now there’s a First Lady who knew how to “be best”. https://mailchi.mp/28daysofblackhistory/marian-anderson?e=49f99b2b0c