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Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
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Wilmington, North Carolina once had a thriving Black middle class and an elected interracial government. In 1898 white supremacists used violence to overthrow that government, kill Black residents and drive many others from the city.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
A mesne lord () was a lord in the feudal system who had vassals who held land from him, but who was himself the vassal of a higher lord. Owing to Quia Emptores, the concept of a mesne lordship technically still exists today: the partitioning of the lord of the manor's estate among co-heirs creating the mesne lordships. In an English court of law in 1863 it was claimed that "the lord of the mesne manor pays a rent to a superior lord and that rent empowers him to receive chief rents from certain farms". A mesne lord did not hold land directly of the king, that is to say he was not a tenant-in-chief. His subinfeudated estate was called a "mesne estate" or Afterlehen in the Holy Roman Empire. Traditionally, he is a lord of the manor who holds land from a superior lord and who usually lets some of the land to a tenant. He was thus an intermediate or "middle" tenant, which status is reflected in the Old French word mesne, in the modern French language moyen. The mesne lordship of Potter Newton was probably held in 1166 by Herbert de Arches. Mesne lords continued to exist after the abolition of any further subinfeudation by the statute of Quia Emptores (1290). However, with time and the loss of records (except in the case of former copyhold land), it came to be assumed that most land was held directly of the Crown. The title of a mesne lord remained a legal entity throughout the 19th century; in 1815, Encyclopaedia Londinensis records that a "Lord mesne is the owner of a manor and by virtue thereof hath tenants holding of him in fee, and by copy of court roll; and yet holds himself of a superior lord called Lord Paramount". However, escheat in want of heirs to mesne lords was abolished by the Administration of Estates Act 1925.
A lord paramount, in feudal law, is an overlord who holds his fief from no superior lord. Such a person holds allodial title, owing no socage or feudal obligations such as military service, in contrast to a mesne lord who holds his fief from a superior.
Mesne (an Anglo-French legal form of the O. Fr. meien, mod. moyen, mean, Med. Lat. medianus, in the middle, cf. English mean), middle or intermediate, an adjective used in several legal phrases. A mesne lord is a landlord who has tenants holding under him, while himself holding of a superior lord. Similar ideas are subinfeudation and subcontract. Mesne process was such process as intervened between the beginning and end of a suit. Mesne profits are profits derived from land while in wrongful possession of it. The rightful owner may make a claim to those profits in damages for trespass, jointly with an action for the recovery of the land or in a separate action. The plaintiff must prove that he has re-entered into possession, that he has title during the relevant period, that the defendant has been in possession during that period, and the amount of the mesne profits. The amount recovered as mesne profits need not be limited to the rental value of the land, but may include sums to cover deterioration, reasonable costs of getting possession and other such items. Mesne conveyances are transfers of ownership or possession occurring in intermediate positions in the chain of title between the original owner and the current owner.
In the English feudal system, an overlord was a lord of a manor who had subinfeudated a particular manor, estate or fee, to a tenant. The tenant thenceforth owed to the overlord one of a variety of services, usually military service or serjeanty, depending on which form of tenure (i.e. feudal tenancy contract) the estate was held under. The highest overlord of all, or lord paramount, was the monarch, who due to his ancestor William the Conqueror's personal conquest of the Kingdom of England, owned by inheritance from him all the land in England under allodial title and had no superior overlord, "holding from God and his sword", although certain monarchs, notably King John (1199–1216) purported to grant the Kingdom of England to Pope Innocent III, who would thus have become overlord to English monarchs. A paramount lord may then be seen to occupy the apex of the feudal pyramid, or the root of the feudal tree, and such allodial title is also termed "radical title" (from Latin radix, root), "ultimate title" and "final title". William the Conqueror immediately set about granting tenancies on his newly won lands, in accordance with feudal principles. The monarch's immediate tenants were the tenants-in-chief, usually military magnates, who held the highest status in feudal society below the monarch. The tenants-in-chief usually held multiple manors or other estates from the monarch, often as feudal barons (or "barons by tenure") who owed their royal overlord an enhanced and onerous form of military service, and subinfeudated most to tenants, generally their own knights or military followers, keeping only a few in demesne. This created a mesne lord – tenant relationship. The knights in turn subinfeudated to their own tenants, creating a further subsidiary mesne lord – tenant relationship. Over the centuries for any single estate the process was in practice repeated numerous times. In early times, following the Norman Conquest of England of 1066 and the establishment of feudalism, land was usually transferred by subinfeudation, rarely by alienation (i.e. sale), which latter in the case of tenants-in-chief required royal licence, and the holder of an estate at any particular time, in order to gain secure tenure, and if challenged by another claimant, needed to prove "devolution of title" evidenced by legal deeds or muniments back up the chain of subinfeudations to a holder whose title was beyond doubt, for example one who had received the estate as a grant by royal charter witnessed and sealed by substantial persons. Although feudal land tenure in England was abolished by the Tenures Abolition Act 1660, in modern English conveyancing law the need to prove devolution of title persisted until recent times, due to a "legal fiction" (grounded in reality) that all land titles were held by the monarch's subjects as a result of a royal grant. Proving devolution of title is no longer necessary since the creation of the land registry. There is a requirement to compulsorily register all land transactions on this governmental record, which registration provides a virtually unchallengeable and perfectly secure title of ownership.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Shirley Chisholm, elected in 1968.