Today in history —> On this day in 1965, Martin Luther King led 3200 people on the third (and successful) civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama…
#CivilRights #MartinLutherKing
Category: U.S. History
Bloody Sunday
Today in Civil Rights History:
1965 – Bloody Sunday: A group of 600 civil rights marchers are brutally attacked by state and local police in Selma, Alabama.
Watch this excellent video:
1913 March on Washington
Today in Women’s Rights —-> 1913 – Thousands of women march in the Woman Suffrage Procession in Washington, D.C.
Here’s a photo of the procession, with the women all in white. They finally won the right to vote in 1920 when Tennessee became the last state needed to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
The Day the Music Died
Today in History —> It was this day in 1959 that became “the day the music died,” as rock musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson were killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa. Waylon Jennings was also on the tour, and it’s likely that he gave up his seat to The Big Bopper at the last moment. The crash is of course was immortalized in the song “American Pie” by Don McLean.
Above the wreckage of “the day the music died.”
#MusicHistory #DayTheMusicDied #AmericanPie
Serum Run to Nome
Today in “sports” history —> On this day in 1925, diphtheria serum was carried by dogsled to Nome, Alaska in the famous 5.5-day Serum run to Nome. This inspired the Iditarod race which is still run today.
#Iditarod #SerumRun
Greensboro Four
Today in 1960 – Four black students stage the first of the Greensboro sit-ins at a lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Here are the four brave students at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College who, adopting the now-obsolete nonviolent tactics of Gandhi, sat quietly at the white part of the lunch counter while they were reviled. There were no arrests, and students kept coming every day, swelling the seated and then spreading to other segregated facilities. Four years later, the Civil Rights Act declared such segregation illegal.
Democratic Party Symbolized As A Donkey
Today in History —> On this day in 1870 – A political cartoon for the first time symbolizes the Democratic Party with a donkey (“A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion” by Thomas Nast for Harper’s Weekly).
Here’s the cartoon. Andrew Jackson’s enemies twisted his name to “jackass” as a term of ridicule regarding a stupid and stubborn animal. However, the Democrats liked the common-man implications and picked it up too, therefore the image persisted and evolved.
Common Sense
Today in 1776 – Thomas Paine publishes his pamphlet Common Sense:
It’s hard to find first editions of this famous 47-page pamphlet urging independence of the colonies (only three in decent condition have been auctioned since 1945), but this one sold in 2013 for $545,000.
Today in History —> Butterfly McQueen
Notable born on this day in History —> Born today in 1911 Butterfly McQueen, American actress and dancer.
You may remember McQueen as the slave “Prissy” in the movie Gone with the Wind, famous for saying “I don’t know nothing about birthing babies.” She couldn’t even attend the film’s premiere in Atlanta in 1939 because the theater was segregated.
McQueen never married or had children.
In July 1983, a jury awarded McQueen $60,000 in a judgment stemming from a lawsuit she filed against two bus terminal security guards. McQueen sued for harassment after she claimed the security guards accused her of being a pickpocket and a vagrant while she was at a bus terminal in April 1979.
McQueen died at age 84 on December 22, 1995, at Doctors Hospital in Augusta, from burns sustained when a kerosene heater she attempted to light malfunctioned and burst into flames.McQueen donated her body to medical science and remembered the Freedom From Religion Foundation in her will.
“As my ancestors are free from slavery, I am free from the slavery of religion.”
“They say the streets are going to be beautiful in Heaven. Well, I’m trying to make the streets beautiful here … When it’s clean and beautiful, I think America is heaven. And some people are hell.”
~ Butterfly McQueen
19th Amendment Ratified
On August 18th of 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing women the right to vote, is ratified by Tennessee, giving it the two-thirds majority of state ratification necessary to make it the law of the land. The amendment was the culmination of more than 70 years of struggle by woman suffragists. Its two sections read simply: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex” and “Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” In January 1918, the woman suffrage amendment passed the House of Representatives with the necessary two-thirds majority vote. In June 1919, it was approved by the Senate and sent to the states for ratification. Campaigns were waged by suffragists around the country to secure ratification, and on August 18, 1920, Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the amendment, giving it the two-thirds majority of state ratification necessary to make it the law of the land…
#NineteenthAmendment #RightToVote #WomenSuffrage
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