Robert H. Jackson Center Co-Founder Greg Peterson moderates conversation on U.S. Supreme Court Case Plessy v. Ferguson with featured panelists, Phoebe Ferguson and Keith Plessy, descendants of the original case participants.

Greg Peterson holds discussion with Plessy v. Ferguson descendants Phoebe Ferguson and Keith Plessy

The program, “From Vs to &: A Living Legacy,” will take place from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., Tuesday, September 13 at the Center.

The free event features Keith Plessy and Phoebe Ferguson with the conversation moderated by Greg Peterson.

The Plessy vs. Ferguson case was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1896 in which the Court ruled that racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution as long as the facilities for each race were equal in quality, a doctrine that came to be known as “separate but equal.”

Coinciding with this event, the Jackson Center will host the Lemmon Slave Case Exhibit for one week beginning today, September 12. This panel exhibit of the landmark New York State Court of Appeals case features a video narration by James Earl Jones with an introduction by Chief Judge Janet DiFiore. The exhibit is intended to educate the public on the role of the New York courts in paving the way for the abolition of slavery.

Jackson Center President Kristan McMahon said the Continuing Legal Education series will begin at 9:00 a.m., April 1.

U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York Trini Ross will present “The Role of the Federal Prosecutor.” Ms. Ross is responsible for overseeing the prosecution of federal criminal case brought within the 17 counties of Western New York. The Office also represents the United States in all civil matters brought within this territory.

The program will include a reenactment of the play, “The Trial of Al Capone” edited by Scott Leeson Sroka, First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York, and author Paul Heimel.

The program will conclude with an interview by Jackson Center co-founder, Greg Peterson, with Jeremiah McCarthy, the U.S. Magistrate Judge for the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York.

The event is free of charge, but pre-registration is required online at roberthjackson.org/events or by calling 716-483-6646.

The Robert H. Jackson Center honored Co-Founder Greg Peterson for “Founder’s Day” on December 14 as part of the Center’s 20th Anniversary. We’ll hear speeches by board members, former Center Directors, and others as well as a commendation by Mayor Eddie Sundquist.

Randy Sweeney honors Greg Peterson at Robert H. Jackson Center

Randy Sweeney honors Greg Peterson at Robert H. Jackson Center

The Robert H. Jackson Center has honored Founder Greg Peterson for “Founder’s Day” as part of the Center’s 20th Anniversary.

The Center held the recognition ceremony Tuesday night that included speeches by volunteers, board members, former Center Directors, and a commendation by Mayor Eddie Sundquist.

You can hear those speeches, including comments by guest of honor Greg Peterson, by tuning into “Community Matters” December 16 at 5pm on 107.9 WRFA or streaming online at wrfalp.com.

Bob Woodward and Greg Peterson Summer 2018

JAMESTOWN – Following 20 years of leadership and service, Robert H. Jackson Center co-founder Gregory Peterson is retiring from the Robert H. Jackson Center Board of Directors, effective December 14, 2020.

Mr. Peterson co-founded the Robert H. Jackson Center in 2001, along with Elizabeth S. Lenna and Carl Cappa. He has served on the Board since the Center’s inception.

“We are grateful for Greg’s leadership and legacy of outstanding community service,” said Jackson Center President Kristan McMahon. “I want to publicly thank Greg for his Board service and for his dedication to Robert H. Jackson and his legacy. We would not be where we are today without his commitment to the dream of what the Jackson Center could be, his drive and enormous heart to make that a reality, and his heroically-scaled video documentation of everything we have ever done.”

“It has been an amazing 20 years of serving at the Robert H. Jackson Center,” Mr. Peterson reflected. “I look forward to watching the Center’s growth under its current leadership.”

In addition to Mr. Peterson’s service as a Jackson Center Board member, he serves on numerous boards and committees, including The Resource Center Foundation, Jamestown Professional Baseball Executive Committee (of which he is Chairman) and the Business Council of New York State. Greg has also served as a member and former President of the Jamestown Chamber of Commerce, former member and Past President of the Chautauqua Region Community Foundation, and former Board member of the Fredonia College Foundation. A lifelong resident of Jamestown, Mr. Peterson received his undergraduate degree from Allegheny College and his J.D. from The Dickinson School of Law of the Pennsylvania State University. Currently, he is a partner at Phillips Lytle LLP.

“The Jackson Center Board and staff look forward to celebrating Greg and his service over the course of the next year,” said McMahon. “Although December 14th marks his official retirement from our Board, we know he is not going far and that we and our community will continue to benefit from his leadership.”

JAMESTOWN – A book capturing the history of professional baseball in Jamestown has been updated and republished to include additional details since its first launch over 20 years ago.

The Jamestown Tarp Skunks and members of Jamestown Community Baseball held an event Saturday morning at the Robert H. Jackson Center celebrating the official launch of the book “Our Game: From Unknowns to Tarp Skunks, 155 Years (And Counting!) of Baseball in Jamestown, New York.”

A discussion on a new book about the history of baseball in Jamestown NY took place on Saturday, Oct. 3 at the Robert H. Jackson Center, featuring co-authors David Mulei (via webstream) and Scott Kindberg (seated left); Randy Anderson from the Chautauqua Sports Hall of Fame (seated right) and moderated by Greg Peterson (seated, back to camera).

The book is of reprint of the 1998 book “Across the Seams” by Dave Mulei, with new, additional chapters contributed and edited by Scott Kindberg, long-time reporter and current sports editor of the Jamestown Post-Journal.

The event featured a discussion involving Mulei and Kindberg, along with Randy Anderson, Executive Director of the Chautauqua Sports Hall of Fame. It was moderated by Jamestown Community Baseball founding member, attorney and local history buff and baseball fan Greg Peterson.

Kindberg explained that while he helped to choose much of the content that went into covering the 25 additional years of baseball in the community, much of it was actually written by the former Post-Journal Sports editor, the late Jim Riggs.

Image from Jamestown Post-Journal

“Fortunately, Jim clipped out every article and every column he ever wrote. So Randy suggested, ‘Well. Since Jim’s stuff is all cataloged, why don’t we see what we can find that relates to his coverage of the Jammers from 1995 to 2014.’ And then myself and the staff at the Post-Journal picked up the coverage of the collegiate wood bat league from 2015 to the present,” Kindberg said.

The book not only includes coverage of professional baseball in the city until the Jamestown Jammers Single-A team’s departure in 2014, but also the return of baseball by the Jammers’ summer collegiate team the following year and the announced “Jamestown Tarp Skunks” team of 2020.

Anderson also helped to create a database of all players who ever made it to the major league level, explaining those players are an important part of sports history in our area.

“Our guys are in that book. And that’s our job at the Hall of Fame, it’s to honor and preserve the sports legacy of Chautauqua County and nothing says it better than the history of baseball,” Anderson said.

Mulei, who joined the discussion from the New York City area via zoom webstreaming, explained that his original book – along with the expansion provided Kindberg – does more than just cover the year-by-year history of the teams that played, saying it also explains how community leaders and various stakeholders worked to keep it going over the years.

“I think this is a story that is about more than just the game on the field in Jamestown. I think what you have all been part of – that continuum that you’re on – is crucial and essential. I think it’s a playbook for other folks in other towns committing to other projects and things that are bigger than themselves,” Mulei said.

In addition to the release of the new book, Peterson said that the Chautauqua Sports Hall of Fame also has posters now available for sale that feature the baseball cards of all major league players who ever played for a Jamestown team, from the early 1940s all the way to the present day. That includes Hall-of-Famers Nellie Fox and Randy Johnson, along with an estimated 180 others.

Many of the cards were provided by Jamestown’s “Mr. Baseball” – Russ Diethrick.

“Russ was gracious enough to extend to the Chautauqua Sports Hall of Fame his collection [of baseball cards]. His collection has now been captured for the first time in posters, which are for sale. That is a collection of folks who played baseball in Jamestown and came to go on to the majors,” Peterson said.

The book and two separate posters featuring the baseball players who made it to the “Big Show” are all now available for sale at the Chautauqua Sports Hall of Fame.

Local attorney and Jackson Center board member Gregory Peterson (left) talks with Dr. Allida Black, nationally recognized Eleanor Roosevelt scholar and also a self-described Harry Potter freak.

JAMESTOWN – A nationally recognized historian considered the foremost scholar on the political and social work of Eleanor Roosevelt is in Jamestown Thursday and Friday to participate in an event involving the Robert H. Jackson Center and several area school districts.

Dr. Allida Black is scheduled to appear at the Reg Lenna Center for the Arts Friday for the Jackson Center’s 15th annual Young Readers Program, which uses literature to engage young people with their world by inspiring them to read and hone their analytical skills and writing ability.

Black, who describers hereself as a “Harry Potter Freak,” is in town to share with students the relationship between the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that was ushered forward by Eleanor Roosevelt, the work of groups such as Amnesty International, and J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series.

Prior to her appearance on Friday, Black also appeared at the Jackson Center Thursday night as part of the awards ceremony for local students who won this year’s essay contest. She took some time out to talk with WRFA and explained why it’s important for her to participate in the Young Readers program.

“I love the Robert H. Jackson Center. It’s one of my favorite places in the country. And I’m a Harry Potter freak,” Black explained. “Very few people really understand the connection between Harry Potter and human rights. So I am here to honor Justice Jackson, J. K. Rowling, and Eleanor Roosevelt by talking about human rights and all of its iterations. Whether it’s in the glorious, magical word of Harry Potter or in the complex magic of human struggle.”

Black added that while some people may not realize it, the Harry Potter series is intended to focus on and teach the issue of Human rights for all.

“I think if you understand what human rights are, then [Harry Potter] is essential. It’s a story of kids finding their voice, of kids learning to manage joy, of kids wanting to combat fear to stand up and create a world where evil, torture, bigotry, hunger, homelessness and war don’t exist. I mean, Doubledore’s army is an army for human rights,” Black said.

Dr. Allida Black

During Thursday night’s event at the Jackson Center, Black also sat down for an interview with local attorney and Jackson Center board member Greg Peterson to discuss Eleanor Roosevelt and the ongoing effort to raise awareness of the need for human rights for all people, regardless of who they are or where they are from.

Black also spent time explaining the connection between Justice Robert Jackson, who was the chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials following World War II and Eleanor Roosevelt, who used her status as the country’s former first lady to elevate the Human Rights issue to the international stage following the war. That included her effort to establish the first ever world-wide recognized Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was accepted by the United Nations in December 1948.

Black said that Roosevelt saw the human rights issue as something that needs to continue moving forward in order to help prevent the atrocities of World War II from being repeated.

WRFA also asked Black how Mrs. Roosevelt would respond to the current political climate in both the U.S. and around the globe, and whether or not there is some backsliding taking place regarding the human rights effort.

“Democracy’s history is really like a rubber band. Democracy expands and it contrasts and expands and contrasts. But it only expands when people have the courage to act. Right now a lot of us talk but we don’t act. So what I hope we see is that people have the courage of their convictions, the courage to question, and the courage to reach out to people whom they may disagree with, but to figure out how to keep the conversation going,” Black said, adding, “Eleanor would say two things. She would say compromise is good as long as you compromise up. Another thing she would say is, ‘Staying aloof is not a solution. It is a cowardly evasion.'”

Dr. Allida Black is the Managing Director of the Allenswood Group, LLC, a collaborative founded to empower individuals and strengthen democracy through civic engagement, grassroots activism and education. Her career spans public service and the academy. She helped found the Voter Empowerment Project, trained aspiring women candidates across the nation and developed a mentoring program for the State Department and the UN High Commission for Human Rights. She has also managed the Women’s Political Participation Team for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. A Research Professor of History at The George Washington University and Editor Emeritus/Advisory Board Chair of The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, Dr. Black has written/edited ten books and several articles on women, politics, and human rights, and created the highly acclaimed fdr4freedoms Digital Initiative, a web-based education program dedicated to the Four Freedoms. Allida Black has a Ph. D from George Washington University.

JAMESTOWN – The Jamestown Jammers collegiate league baseball team won’t be taking the field in 2019.

That was the news delivered Wednesday during a press conference at Russell E. Diethrick Jr. Park as the owners of the collegiate team – ROC Ventures – announced the team would be going dark next year, with a plan to transfer ownership as a donation to a soon-to-be-created nonprofit group called Jamestown Community Baseball LLC in time for the start of the 2020 season.

Officials and community members announced on Wednesday, Oct. 25 that the Jamestown Jammers would be transitioning to new ownership and as a result the team would go dark iin 2019 to reorganize.

Jamestown Jammers Manager and community relation representative for ROC Ventures Anthony Barone said the decision had nothing to do with finances as the team had strong community support through sponsorship and attendance. Instead, the decision was because the Milwaukee-based owners wanted to focus on another baseball team closer to its home base.

“ROC Ventures and its other sports and entertainment interests are based in the Milwaukee area. We’ve created a new professional baseball team called the Milwaukee Milkmen. They’ll begin playing in the legendary American Association, a professional baseball league during the 2019 season,” Barone said. “It’s a great opportunity for ROC to take aim at a new venture in a professional atmosphere.”

The Jammers play in the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League – a summer league intended to help college players hone their skills while they are out of school. Led by Barone, the Jammers won the league pennant this past summer.

PGCBL president Robert Julian said that while local interests were hoping to have the ownership transfer in time for the 2019 season, his suggestion was to let the team go dark for one year in order to allow for the development of a sound business plan to ensure success in future years.

“The prudent thing for this community would be to go dark in 2010, which is not uncommon in our league. It is an important component built into our league bylaws,” Julian explained. “It is a tactic that allows communities and teams to reorganize and do so under a circumstance where they’re not under tremendous financial and management pressure to field a team immediately when the circumstances are not fully in place.”

Julian said the annual operating budget for a team in the league is about $150,000 to $200,000. He said because a nonprofit group would be taking over, it may be easier to run the team because the drive for profit is taken out of the equation.

“We will work with the city and the local group on the timing and the transition to ensure the new owners have every chance to build a successful team and product here at Diethrick Park,” Barone said.

Barone and Julian were joined by Jamestown Mayor Sam Teresi, baseball enthusiast and local attorney Greg Peterson, Chautauqua Sports Hall of Fame director Randy Anderson, and retired city parks director and long-time baseball supporters Russ Diethrick, who the stadium is named after.

The stadium is owned by the city and Mayor Teresi said his executive budget released earlier this month already accounted for the Jammers going dark in 2019, although those details were never brought up in his budget presentation on Oct. 9, nor when the city parks department met with the city council to go over the budget numbers on Oct. 15.

Peterson also said that anyone who wants to assist with the new nonprofit group should reach out, adding that their help will be needed and appreciated since it will be a community-wide effort to make the new ownership group a success.

The group is expected to be created and a new business plan in place by the middle of next spring.

“The process is already under way to create the appropriate structure. Conversations are under way with folks to add to the group on both counsel and also on an investor basis,” Teresi said.

Falconer Mayor James Rensel (left) and other village officials during the village board’s August 2018 board meeting.

FALCONER – The effort to clean up rubble from a fire that broke out nearly a year-and-a-half ago in the village of Falconer continues to move forward and village officials are starting to consider possible development options for the vacant space.

On Monday night Falconer Mayor James Rensel provided an update on the matter during the village’s monthly board meeting.

Local business owner Brian Nelson was on hand for the meeting and asked for an update on how things were proceeding with removing the remaining rubble and debris from the March 22, 2017 arson fire at 42 W. Main Street.

Rensel said a required court proceeding on the matter took place last week that should help to move the clean up effort along.

“We went through the court process last week and and go the property encumbered to the extent where I think we’re almost ready to get a shovel down. Once the shovel is in the ground I just don’t want to have to stop for something that just wasn’t done correctly or we forgot to dot an ‘i’ or cross a ‘t’ so last Tuesday at court we took another step forward to get a shovel in the ground and we are getting closer to that,” Rensel said, although he wasn’t able to offer a specific timeline of when the debris would finally be removed.

Fire crews work to contain a major fire on W. Main St. in the village of Falconer on Wednesday, March 22, 2017. (Photo courtesy of Andy Palermo, Jamestown, NY)

Village attorney Greg Peterson also said that the village is working with the Chautauqua County Land Bank, which will provide funding for the debris removal once all legal issues have been worked out. The Land Bank’s assistance is necessary because the owner of the building didn’t have adequate insurance to cover the remediation costs. As a result, the village has been working on getting the matter addressed for more than a year.

Officials add that some developed interest has already been expressed for the property and they will continue working on identifying a new use for the vacant space in the coming weeks and months.

“We’re working on that as far as developing a village plan with the [Greater Falconer Area Economic Development Committee]. We’re encouraged because when we do get the property cleaned up, there are people who are interested in development so we’re pursuing those and setting the village development plan so it’s not done helter skelter,” Rensel said.

The March 22, 2017 arson fire resulted in 15 displaced residents and several businesses being impacted. No injuries were reported. It was one of several fires in the area that was allegedly set by Jonathan Young. His local arson cases are still awaiting prosecution, due to other charges that were also filed against him in Pennsylvania that were only recently addressed with a plea agreement.