#nicholas johnson

Nicholas Johnson

In Perm, when the Bolsheviks came to take Mikhail to be executed, they did not want to take Mr. Johnson since taking him made their plans more complicated. But Mr. Johnson would not let the Grand Duke be taken alone. It is said that the executioners fired at Johnson first and Mikhail tried to interpose himself between the secretary and the bullet. The remains of these two people who were evidently very loyal to each other have yet to be found.

“Chronicling the underappreciated black tradition of bearing arms for self-defense, this book presents an array of examples reaching back to the pre-Civil War era that demonstrate a willingness of African American men and women to use firearms when necessary to defend their families and communities. From Frederick Douglass's advice to keep "a good revolver" handy as defense against slave catchers to the armed self-protection of Monroe, North Carolina, blacks against the KKK chronicled in Robert Williams's Negroes with Guns, it is clear that owning firearms was commonplace in the black community. Nicholas Johnson points out that this story has been submerged because it is hard to reconcile with the dominant narrative of nonviolence during the civil rights era. His book, however, resolves that tension by showing how the black tradition of arms maintained and demanded a critical distinction between private self-defense and political violence. Johnson also addresses the unavoidable issue of young black men with guns and the toll that gun violence takes on many in the inner city. He shows how complicated this issue is by highlighting the surprising diversity of views on gun ownership in the black community. In fact, recent Supreme Court affirmations of the right to bear arms resulted from cases led by black plaintiffs. Surprising and informative, this well-researched book strips away many stock assumptions of conventional wisdom on the issue of guns and the black freedom struggle.”

2020 graduate Nicholas Johnson has become the first Black valedictorian in Princeton University history. Johnson studied operations research and financial engineering. He will begin a Ph.D. program in operations research at MIT in fall 2020. [CNN]

Pharrell Williams featuring Jay Z “Entrepreneur” (2020)

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