In politics and governance, Douglass worked for the U.S’ diplomacy efforts abroad—particularly in the Caribbean. He was often in some leadership or ambassador role that made use of his speaking, diplomacy and writing abilities.

Taking different government postings worked for Douglass since they often weren’t dramatically different from each other.  He could also engage in public speaking when he felt. The one role that was very different from the others was the time he spent as U.S. Marshall.

It should also be noted that this was a time when Black people were put in civil service positions very often by a Republican controlled government. Black civil servants were met with mixed reactions from the Black community.

Many roles were vital to getting Black politicians in a position of power. This allowed them to impact policy to help in the betterment of Black life. However, there were roles that were perceived as placeholders or feel good roles for Republicans.

ROLE AS RECORDER OF DEEDS

His posting as Recorder of Deeds went through the Senate 47-8 on May 17, 1881. It was something of a departure from the more active positions he’d taken before. In some ways, it was similar to another posting he’d taken four years earlier as U.S. Marshall.

The nature Frederick Douglass’ role as Recorder of Deeds is documented, but not really discussed for two main reasons. It isn’t a role that heralds great deeds since tasks were similar to those of a county clerk. Also, Douglass had a tendency to stay at a post for a short period before being given another. This role put him in direct contact with those he wanted to help the most. Douglass would step down as Recorder of Deeds in 1886 to resume speaking full time.

SOURCE:
https://ordinaryphilosophy.com/2016/08/

1540 – Afghan chief Sher Khan defeated Mongul Emperor Humayun at Kanauj.

1630 – Italian Jesuit Niccolo Zucchi saw the belts on Jupiter’s surface.

1681 – Louis XIV sent an expedition to aid James II in Ireland. As a result, England declares war on France.

1756 – Britain declared war on France, beginning the French and Indian War.

1792 – The New York Stock Exchange was founded at 70 Wall Street by 24 brokers.

1814 – Denmark ceded Norway to Sweden. Norway’s constitution, which provided a limited monarchy, was signed.

1875 – The first Kentucky Derby was run at Louisville, KY.

1877 – The first telephone switchboard burglar alarm was installed by Edwin T. Holmes.

1881 – Frederick Douglass was appointed recorder of deeds for Washington, DC.

1926 – The U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires was damaged by bombs that were believed set by sympathizers of Sacco and Vanzetti.

1932 – The U.S. Congress changed the name “Porto Rico” to “Puerto Rico.”

1939 – The first fashion to be shown on television was broadcast in New York from the Ritz-Carleton Hotel.

1940 – Germany occupied Brussels, Belgium and began the invasion of France.

1946 – U.S. President Truman seized control of the nation’s railroads, delaying a threatened strike by engineers and trainmen.

1948 – The Soviet Union recognized the new state of Israel.

1954 – The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled for school integration in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka. The ruling declared that racially segregated schools were inherently unequal.

1956 – The first synthetic mica (synthamica) was offered for sale in Caldwell Township, NJ.

1973 – The U.S. Senate Watergate Committee began its hearings.

1975 – NBC TV bought the rights to show “Gone With the Wind.” The one time rights cost NBC $5,000,000.

1980 – Rioting erupted in Miami’s Liberty City neighborhood after an all-white jury in Tampa acquitted four former Miami police officers of fatally beating black insurance executive Arthur McDuffie. Eight people were killed in the rioting.

1985 – Bobby Ewing died on the season finale of “Dallas” on CBS-TV. He returned the following season.

1987 – Eric ‘Sleepy’ Floyd of the Golden State Warriors set a playoff record for points in a single quarter with 29.

1987 – An Iraqi warplane attacked the U.S. Navy frigate Stark in the Persian Gulf, killing 37 American sailors. Iraq and the United States called the attack a mistake.

1990 – Kelsey Grammer was sentenced to 30 days in jail for DWI.

1996 – U.S. President Clinton signed a measure requiring neighborhood notification when sex offenders move in. Megan’s Law was named for 7-year-old Megan Kanka, who was raped and killed in 1994.

1997 – Rebel leader Kabila declared himself president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire.

1997 – Sylvester Stallone and Jennifer Flavin were married in London.

1998 – New York Yankees pitcher David Wells became the 13th player in modern major league baseball history to throw a perfect game.

1999 – Eric Ford, a tabloid photographer, was sentenced to 6 months at a halfway house, 3 years probation and 150 hours of community service. The sentence stemmed from a charge that Ford had eavesdropped on a call between Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman and then sold a recording of the conversation.

1999 – Alex Trebek received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

2000 – Thomas E. Blanton Jr. and David Luker surrendered to police in Birmingham, AL. The two former Ku Klux Klan members were arrested on charges from the bombing of a church in 1963 that killed four young black girls.

2000 – Austria, the U.S. and six other countries agreed on the broad outline of a plan that would compensate Nazi-Era forced labor.

2000 – It was announced that Terra Networks SA and Lycos would be merging with the new name to be Terra Lycos. Terra made the deal happen with the purchase of $12.5 billion in stock.

2001 – The U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp based on Charles M. Schulz’s “Peanuts” comic strip.

2002 – Legoland Deutschland opened in Günzburg, Germany.

2006 – The U.S. aircraft carrier Oriskany was sunk about 24 miles off Pensacola Beach. It was the first vessel sunk under a Navy program to dispose of old warships by turning them into diving attractions. It was the largest man-made reef at the time of the sinking.

2007 – Trains crossed the border dividing North and South Korea for the first time since 1953.

2016 – The U.S. Senate approved legislation that would allow families of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to sue the government of Saudi Arabia.

on-this.day.com

May 17
1792 – Two dozen merchants and brokers established the New York Stock Exchange. In good weather they operated under a buttonwood tree on Wall Street. In bad weather they moved inside to a coffeehouse to conduct business.
May 17, 1875 – The first Kentucky Derby horse race took place at Churchill Downs in Louisville.
May 17, 1954 – In Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that segregation of public schools “solely on the basis of race” denies black children “equal educational opportunity” even though “physical facilities and other ‘tangible’ factors may have been equal. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” Thurgood Marshall had argued the case before the Court. He went to become the first African American appointed to the Supreme Court.
May 18
1980 – Mount St. Helens volcano erupted in southwestern Washington State spewing steam and ash over 11 miles into the sky. This was the first major eruption since 1857.
1998 – In one of the biggest antitrust lawsuits of the 20th century, American software giant Microsoft Corporation was sued by the U.S. Federal government and 20 state governments charging the company with using unfair tactics to crush competition and restrict choices for consumers. The lawsuits alleged Microsoft used illegal practices to deny personal computer owners the benefits of a free and competitive market and also alleged Microsoft extended its monopoly on operating systems to “develop a chokehold” on the Internet browser software market.

Birthday – Hollywood director Frank Capra (1897-1991) was born in Palermo, Sicily. His quintessential American films were affectionate portrayals of the common man and examined the strengths and foibles of American democracy. Best known for It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), It Happened One Night (1934) and You Can’t Take It with You (1938).
Birthday – Pope John Paul II (1920-2005) was born (as Karol Wojtyla) in Wadowice, Poland. In 1978, he became 264th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, the first non-Italian elected in 456 years and the first Polish Pope.
May 19
1943 – During World War II in Europe, Royal Air Force bombers successfully attacked dams in the German Ruhr Valley using innovative ball-shaped bouncing bombs that skipped along the water and exploded against the dams. The dams had provided drinking water for 4 million persons and supplied 75% of the electrical power for industry in the area.

Birthday – Black nationalist and civil rights activist Malcolm X (1925-1965) was born in Omaha, Nebraska (as Malcolm Little). While in prison he adopted the Islamic religion and after his release in 1952, changed his name to Malcolm X and worked for the Nation of Islam. He later made a pilgrimage to Mecca and became an orthodox Muslim. He was assassinated while addressing a meeting in the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem on February 21, 1965.
Birthday – African American playwright Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965) was born in Chicago, Illinois. She is best known for A Raisin in the Sun (1959) a play dealing with prejudice and black pride. The play was the first stage production written by a black woman to appear on Broadway. She died of cancer at the age of 34. A book of her writings entitled To Be Young, Gifted, and Black was published posthumously.
May 20 
May 20, 325 A.D. – The Council of Nicaea, the first ecumenical council of Catholic Church was called by Constantine I, first Christian Emperor of the Roman Empire. With nearly 300 bishops in attendance at Nicaea in Asia Minor, the council condemned Arianism which denied Christ’s divinity, formulated the Nicene Creed and fixed the date of Easter.
May 20, 1862 – President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act opening millions of acres of government owned land in the West to “homesteaders” who could acquire up to 160 acres by living on the land and cultivating it for five years, paying just $1.25 per acre.
May 20, 1927 – Charles Lindbergh, a 25-year-old aviator, took off at 7:52 a.m. from Roosevelt Field, Long Island, in the Spirit of St. Louis attempting to win a $25,000 prize for the first solo nonstop flight between New York City and Paris. Thirty-three hours later, after a 3,600 mile journey, he landed at Le Bourget, Paris, earning the nickname “Lucky Lindy” and becoming an instant worldwide hero.
May 20, 1932 – Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. She departed Newfoundland, Canada, at 7 p.m. and landed near Londonderry, Ireland, completing a 2,026-mile flight in about 13 hours. Five years later, along with her navigator Fred Noonan, she disappeared while trying to fly her twin-engine plane around the equator.

May 21
May 21, 1881 – The American Red Cross was founded by Clara Barton. The organization today provides volunteer disaster relief in the U.S. and abroad. Community services include collecting and distributing donated blood, and teaching health and safety classes.
May 21, 1991 – Former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in the midst of a re-election campaign, killed by a bomb hidden in a bouquet of flowers. He had served as prime minister from 1984 to 1989, succeeding his mother, Indira Gandhi, who was assassinated in 1984.

May 22
May 22, 1972 – President Richard Nixon became the first American president to visit Moscow. Four days later, Nixon and Soviet Russia’s leader Leonid Brezhnev signed a pact pledging to freeze nuclear arsenals at current levels.
May 22, 1947 – Congress approved the Truman Doctrine, assuring U.S. support for Greece and Turkey to prevent the spread of Communism.

Birthday – Laurence Olivier (1907-1989) was born in Dorking, England. Considered one of the most influential actors of the 20th Century, he was honored with nine Academy Award nominations, three Oscars, five Emmy awards, and a host of other awards. His repertoire included most of the major Shakespearean roles, and films such as The Entertainer, Rebecca, Pride and Prejudice, The Boys from Brazil, Marathon Man and Wuthering Heights. He was knighted in 1947 and made a peer of the throne in 1970.
May 23

Birthday – The first American female attorney Arabella Mansfield (1846-1911) was born near Burlington, Iowa (as Belle Aurelia Babb). She was certified in 1869 as an attorney and admitted to the Iowa bar, but never practiced law. Instead she chose a career as a college educator and administrator. She was also instrumental in the founding of the Iowa Suffrage Society in 1870.
May 24
1844 – Telegraph inventor Samuel Morse sent the first official telegraph message, “What hath God wrought?” from the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., to Baltimore.
May 24, 1881 – A boating disaster occurred in Canada when Victoria, a small, double-decked stern-wheeler carrying over 600 passengers on the Thames River keeled over then sank, killing 182 persons.
May 25 
1787 – The Constitutional Convention began in Philadelphia with delegates from seven states forming a quorum.

May 25, 1994 – After 20 years in exile, Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn returned to his homeland. He had been expelled from Soviet Russia in 1974 after his three-volume work exposing the Soviet prison camp system, The Gulag Archipelago, was published in the West.

Birthday – American author and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) was born in Boston, Massachusetts. His works include: Nature (1836), Essays, First Series (1841), Essays, Second Series (1844), Poems (1847, 1865), Representative Men (1850), English Traits (1856), The Conduct of Life (1860), and Society and Solitude (1870).
May 26
1940 – The Dunkirk evacuation began in order to save the British Expeditionary Force trapped by advancing German armies on the northern coast of France. Boats and vessels of all shapes and sizes ferried 200,000 British and 140,000 French and Belgian soldiers across the English Channel by June 2nd.

*Birthday – Interpretive dancer Isadora Duncan (1878-1927) was born in San Francisco. She revolutionized the entire concept of dance by developing a free-form style and rebelled against tradition, performing barefoot in a loose fitting tunic. She experienced worldwide acclaim as well as personal tragedy. Her two children drowned, her marriage failed, and she met a bizarre death in 1927 when a scarf she was wearing caught in the wheel of the open car in which she was riding, strangling her.

May 27
1937 – In San Francisco, 200,000 people celebrated the grand opening of the Golden Gate Bridge by strolling across it.

Birthday – Legendary Wild West figure Wild Bill Hickok (1837-1876) was born in Troy Grove, Illinois. He was a frontiersman, lawman, legendary marksman, army scout and gambler. On August 2, 1876, he was shot dead during a poker game by a drunk in the Number Ten saloon in Deadwood, in the Dakota Territory. In his hand he held a pair of eights and a pair of aces which became known as the ‘dead man’s hand.’

May 28
1961 – Amnesty International was founded by London lawyer Peter Berenson. He read about the arrest of a group of students in Portugal then launched a one-year campaign to free them called Appeal for Amnesty. Today Amnesty International has over a million members in 150 countries working to free prisoners of conscience, stop torture and the death penalty, and guarantee human rights for women.

Birthday – All-around athlete Jim Thorpe (1888-1953) was born near Prague, Oklahoma. He won the pentathlon and decathlon events at the 1912 Olympic Games and also played professional baseball and football.
May 29
1453 – The city of Constantinople was captured by the Turks, who renamed it Istanbul. This marked the end of the Byzantine Empire as Istanbul became the capital of the Ottoman Empire.
May 29, 1660 – The English monarchy was restored with Charles II on the throne after several years of a Commonwealth under Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell.
May 29, 1787 – At the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia the Virginia Plan was proposed calling for a new government consisting of a legislature with two houses, an executive chosen by the legislature and a judicial branch.
May 29, 1865 – Following the American Civil War, President Andrew Johnson issued a proclamation granting general amnesty to Confederates. The amnesty excluded high ranking Confederates and large property owners, who had to apply individually to the President for a pardon. Following an oath of allegiance, all former property rights, except slaves, were returned to the former owners.

Birthday – American revolutionary leader Patrick Henry (1736-1799) was born in Studley, Virginia. He is best remembered for his speech in 1775 declaring: “I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.”

Birthday – John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963) the 35th U.S. President was born in Brookline, Massachusetts. He was the youngest man ever elected to the presidency and the first Roman Catholic. He was assassinated in Dallas, November 22, 1963, the fourth President to killed by an assassin.
May 30
May 30, 1922 – The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., was dedicated. The Memorial was designed by architect Henry Bacon and features a compelling statue of “Seated Lincoln” by sculptor Daniel Chester French.
May 30, 1943 – During World War II in the Pacific, the Aleutian Islands off the coast of Alaska were retaken by the U.S. 7th Infantry Division. The battle began on May 12 when an American force of 11,000 landed on Attu. In three weeks of fighting U.S. casualties numbered 552 killed and 1,140 wounded. Japanese killed numbered 2,352, with only 28 taken prisoner, as 500 chose suicide rather than be captured.

May 31

1862 – During the American Civil War, the Battle of Seven Pines occurred as Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston’s Army attacked Union General George McClellan’s troops in front of Richmond Virginia and nearly defeated them. Johnston was badly wounded. Confederate General Robert E. Lee then assumed command, replacing the wounded Johnston. Lee renamed his force the Army of Northern Virginia.
May 31, 1889 – Over 2,300 persons were killed in the Johnstown flood in Pennsylvania. Heavy rains throughout May caused the Connemaugh River Dam to burst sending a wall of water 75 feet high pouring down upon the city.
Birthday – American poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was born in Long Island, New York. His poem Leaves of Grass is considered an American classic. His poetry celebrated modern life and took on subjects considered taboo at the time.

(Photo and picture credits: Library of Congress and U.S. National Archives)

He was the last survivor of three Klansmen who were convicted, years later, in the killing four black girls in 1963, a case that was a turning point in the civil rights struggle.

After Mr. Blanton’s conviction in 2001, Bill Baxley, who had prosecuted Mr. Chambliss as Alabama’s attorney general in 1977, wrote an angry opinion article in The New York Times asserting that the F.B.I. had not been forthcoming in the Chambliss case and had not revealed the existence of the tapes.

“For more than two decades, Mr. Blanton and Mr. Cherry evaded indictment and prosecution because the F.B.I. held back these recordings,” Mr. Baxley wrote. “This was evidence we desperately needed in 1977 — evidence whose existence F.B.I. officials had denied. Had it been provided in 1977, we could have convicted all three of these Klansmen.”

nytimes.com

Burning Buildings, Liberty City Riot, 1980Fair use image

The 1980 race riots in Miami’s Liberty City and Overtown neighborhoods was sparked after the acquittal of four White Miami-Dade police officers who beat a Black motorcyclist to death then attempted to hide the crime. On May 17, 1980, the mostly-Black neighborhood erupted in violence after an all-white, all-male Tampa jury didn’t find sufficient evidence to convict the cops.

The incident that sparked the rioting occurred on December 17, 1979 when Arthur McDuffie, a U.S. Marine veteran and businessman, was riding his Kawasaki motorcycle through the neighborhood. The Miami-Dade officers gave chase claiming McDuffie was going 80-plus miles per hour. Officers said after McDuffie lost control of his bike he sped off on foot. According to the officers’ initial reports, McDuffie was involved in a scuffle with the cops with a reported six to eight officers present at the scene.

Later testimony by Officer Charles Veverka revealed that the cops struck McDuffie with nightclubs and their fists until he lay still. Veverka also said that one of the cops ran over McDuffie’s bike with their car to make it appear he had a bad wreck. Another officer, William Hanlon, claims he was the cop who choked McDuffie to the ground while officer Alex Marrero struck him with a heavy-duty flashlight.

The cops who testified in exchange for immunity were given lesser charges, save for Hanlon, who says he was the cop who ran over the motorbike. Mark Meier, another officer who testified against the defendants in the Tampa trial, said that McDuffie actually surrendered at one point. Two other officers, Herbert Evans, Jr. and Ubaldo Del Toro, were charged as accessories to the crime but both walked as well. On May 8, the judge in the case acquitted Del Toro and said that state prosecutors failed to make a case despite the testimonies.

On May 17, the jury acquitted the remaining cops, leading to the riots. Liberty City residents began rioting and burning cars, while reportedly attacking whites in the street. Gov. Bob Graham called in the National Guard. In three days of rioting, 17 were reported dead and over 1,000 arrested. The area was declared a disaster zone. Then President Jimmy Carter came to Miami and asked the community to quell the tension and take action before he would approve much needed federal assistance.

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