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September 20, 2012

  • Judge Issues Certificates of Innocence to Four Men

    Judge Issues Certificates of Innocence to Four Men The men are entitled to nearly $200,000 each under Illinois law by Frederick H. Lowe A Cook County, Ill., judge has issued certificates of innocence to four black men who served long prison terms for a crime that DNA evidence proved they did not commit. On Friday, Judge Paul P.

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  • Obama Camp Fires Back After Romney’s “47%” Diatribe

    Obama Camp Fires Back After Romney’s “47%” Diatribe by Barry Cooper The Obama campaign wasted little time striking back at Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Tuesday. Within hours after a secret videotape emerged of Romney making seemingly disparaging remarks about nearly half the U.S.

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  • Jackson Gets Two Men Freed from a Gambia Prison

    Jackson Gets Two Men Freed from a Gambia Prison by Frederick H. Lowe Two men who were serving long prison sentences in Gambia have left the West African Country after the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr. negotiated their release with the country’s President, Dr.

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  • Feds Hammer Tool Company Because of Its Racist Hiring Practices

    Meyer Tool Inc., a federal contractor that displays on its website photographs of a smiling President George W.

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  • Homes Headed by Single Black Men See Drop in Poverty

    Homes Headed by Single Black Men See Drop in Poverty by Frederick H. Lowe The poverty rate for families headed by single-black men has declined since 2010, while poverty rates for households headed by single white and Asian men have increased.

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  • Transportation Can Help Black Men Find Better-Paying Jobs

    Transportation Can Help Black Men Find Better-Paying Jobs by Frederick H. Lowe The Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, will host a special forum on Wednesday, September 26, in Washington, D.C., focused on black men.

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  • Supreme Court Will Hear Arguments on Affirmative Action

    Supreme Court Will Hear Arguments on Affirmative Action New America Media Q & A  by Khalil Abdullah Editor’s Note: On October 10 the U.S. Supreme Court will hear Fisher v. University of Texas, a case that could upend affirmative action policies nationwide.

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  • FAMU: Drum Major Actively Participated in Hazing

    FAMU: Drum Major Actively Participated in  Hazing Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Capital Outlook by Kanya Stewart (TriceEdneyWire.com) - Robert Champion, Jr.

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  • Statue of Frederick Douglass to Be Placed in Capitol

    Statue of Frederick Douglass to Be Placed in Capitol President Obama must sign the legislation Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Afro American Newspaper (TriceEdneyWire.

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  • Worldwide Employment Outlook Still Bleak for Youth

    Worldwide Employment Outlook Still Bleak for Youth (TriceEdneyWire.com) - The employment outlook for young people worldwide is grim, according to an analysis released September 4 by the International Labor Organization.

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  • Michigan Business Associations Merge

    The Michigan Black Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Black Suppliers on Thursday announced they have merged to increase member access to capital and to help them compete worldwide.

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  • 100 Black Men to Get a New Man

    100 Black Men to Get a New Man Curley M. Dossman, Jr., vice president of community affairs at Georgia Pacific Co., later this month will be installed as chairman of 100 Black Men of America Inc.

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  • IRS Asked to Investigate Texas Church That Called for Obama’s Defeat

    Americans United for Separation of Church and State has asked the IRS to investigate an El Paso, Texas, Roman Catholic church after an item in the church bulletin called for the defeat of President Barack Obama in November’s presidential election. St.

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  • Michelle Obama Will Address the CBC

    Michelle Obama Will Address the CBC WASHINGTON (TriceEdneyWire.com) – For the first time during his administration, President Barack Obama will not be the keynote speaker at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Annual Phoenix Awards Dinner this Saturday, an event that brings to a close the Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference (CBC-ALC).

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  • President Obama Fails to Score a Touchdown With Convention Speech

    President Obama Fails to Score a Touchdown With Convention Speech by A. Peter Bailey (TriceEdneyWire.com) - To use a football analogy, during the Democratic National Convention, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, First Lady Michelle Obama, former President Bill Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden advanced the ball for President Obama to the ten yard-line.

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  • Double Whammy for African Americans

    Double Whammy for African Americans by Julianne Malveaux (TriceEdneyWire.com) - We have learned that African-American unemployment rates stayed level last month with an absurdly high official unemployment rate of 14.1 percent.

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  • The Poor Could Be Strong Swing Vote

    The Poor Could Be Strong Swing Vote by Rev. Jesse L. Jackson (TriceEdneyWire.com) - Nearly 50 million Americans now are in poverty. One in four children will grow up in an impoverished household. Redressing poverty is a national emergency and a moral imperative.

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  • Netanyahu’s “Red Line” Is Just a Red Herring

    Netanyahu’s “Red Line” Is Just a Red Herring by Wilmer J. Leon, III (TriceEdneyWire.com) - News sources have reported that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu requested a meeting with President Obama to discuss tightening restrictions on Iran and that President Obama has rejected his request.

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  • The NorthStar’s Week in Black History

    The NorthStar’s Week in Black History September 20 through September 26 September 20 1943 ----- A German submarine, U-238, torpedoed the Frederick Douglass, a U. S. cargo ship, on this day.

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  • Pennsylvania Voter-ID Law Remanded to a Lower Court

    Pennsylvania Voter-ID Law Remanded to a Lower Court by Frederick H. Lowe The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Tuesday vacated a lower-court decision, upholding the commonwealth’s restrictive voter Photo-ID law, in a case that easily could be called "The Pennsylvania bureaucracy strikes back." Because the law does not meet PennDOT (Pennsylvania Department of Transportation) issuing guidelines, the law faces significant challenges from the bureaucracy, which could block its implementation.

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Black Count book
Photo by Susan M. Miller

The Real Count of Monte Cristo Was a Black Man

Alexandre Dumas wrote the story based in part on his father’s life

The Count of Monte Cristo, one of literature’s most-enduring novels, is based on the real life of a black man, who rose from private to general in the French Army, became a valued aide to Napoleon Bonaparte and later, an object of Napoleon's envy, according to the book, The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, which hit bookstores on Tuesday.

General Alexandre Dumas, was the son of a white French aristocrat and a black slave woman, according to the 414-page book, which is written by Tom Reiss.  

Born Thomas-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie in 1762 on the island of Saint Domingue, Dumas never used his father’s last name. He changed his name to Dumas, his mother’s name.

Dumas, who traveled to France at 14 to attend school, was the father of Alexandre Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo.

The Count of Monte Cristo, published in 1844, focuses on a man who is wrongfully imprisoned, escapes from jail, acquires a fortune and sets about getting revenge on those responsible for his imprisonment.

In real life, Dumas, the father, became ill while confined to an Italian prison for two years. In France, Dumas’s wife, Marie-Louise, pled with authorities to find her husband. When they finally did, they arranged for his release. He died of cancer at the age of 43 in 1806.

Alexandre Dumas
Alexandre Dumas, the son
Initially, Dumas, who was considered a fearless general, was a favorite of Napoleon, who gave Dumas the Army’s most-important assignments. 

At one time, he commanded 50, 000 men. Dumas ran afoul of the rising Napoleon by leaving the army. Napoleon wanted him to remain a soldier, and the soon-to-be emperor of all of France never forgave Dumas.

Reiss’ book is receiving considerably more attention than General Alexandre Dumas: Soldier of the French Revolution, a 202-page work, written by John G. Gallaher and published in 1997 by the University of Southern Illinois Press.

Reiss is an American journalist and novelist who writes for The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.  He is also the author of the highly acclaimed work, The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life (Random House, 2006), the biography of Lev Nussimbaum, a Jew who pretended to be a Muslim during the years before the Holocaust.

The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, received a strong review in Sunday’s The New York Times Book Review.

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