1963 – Mahalia Jackson prompts Martin Luther King Jr. to improvise “I Have a Dream” speech


If the legendary gospel vocalist Mahalia Jackson had been somewhere other than the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963, her place in history would still have been assured purely on the basis of her musical legacy. But it is almost impossible to imagine Mahalia …read more

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President Woodrow Wilson picketed by women suffragists


On August 28, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson is picketed by suffragists in front of the White House, who demand that he support an amendment to the Constitution that would guarantee women the right to vote. Wilson had a history of lukewarm support for women’s suffrage, although …read more

Citation Information

Article Title

President Woodrow Wilson picketed by women suffragists

AuthorHistory.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/president-woodrow-wilson-picketed-by-women-suffragists

Access Date

August 27, 2022

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 24, 2021

Original Published Date

November 16, 2009

on this day 8/28


1609 – Delaware Bay was discovered by Henry Hudson.

1619 – Ferdinand II was elected Holy Roman Emperor. His policy of “One church, one king” was his way of trying to outlaw Protestantism.

1774 – The first American-born saint was born in New York City. Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton was canonized in 1975.

1830 – “The Tom Thumb” was demonstrated in Baltimore, MD. It was the first passenger-carrying train of its kind to be built in America.

1833 – Slavery was banned by the British Parliament throughout the British Empire. 

1907 – “American Messenger Company” was started by two teenagers, Jim Casey and Claude Ryan. The company’s name was later changedto “United Parcel Service.”

1916 – Italy’s declaration of war against Germany took effect duringWorld War I.

1917 – Ten suffragists were arrested as they picketed the White House. 

1922 – The first radio commercial aired on WEAF in New York City. The Queensboro Realty Company bought 10 minutes of time for$100.

1922 – The Walker Cup was held for the first time at Southampton, NY. It is the oldest international team golf match in America.

1939 – The first successful flight of a jet-propelled airplane took place. The plane was a German Heinkel He 178.

1941 – The Football Writers Association of America was organized.

1963 – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his “I Have a Dream” speech at a civil rights rally in Washington, DC. More than 200,000 people attended. 

1972 – Mark Spitz captured the first of his seven gold medals at the Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany. He set a world record when he completed the 200-meter butterfly in 2 minutes and 7/10ths of a second.

1981 – “The New York Daily News” published its final afternoon edition.

1990 – Iraq declared Kuwait to be its 19th province and renamed Kuwait City al-Kadhima.

1995 – The biggest bank in the U.S. was created when Chase Manhattan and Chemical Bank announced their $10 billion deal.

1996 – A divorce decree was issued for Britain’s Charles and Princess Diana. This was the official end to the 15-year marriage.

1998 – The Pakistani prime minister created new Islamic order and legal system based on the Koran.

2004 – George Brunstad, at age 70, became the oldest person to swim the English Channel. The swim from Dover, England, to Sangatte, France, took 15 hours and 59 minutes.

2008 – In China, the Shanghai World Financial Center officially opened. The observation decks opened on August 30.

2014 – Google announced its Project Wing. The project was aimed at delivering products across a city using unmanned flying vehicles.

Emmett Till ~ never forget


mr till was born on

 

EMMETT TILL

(Photo: AP Photo/Chicago Tribune)

While visiting family in Money, Mississippi, 14-year-old Emmett Till, an African American from Chicago, is brutally murdered for flirting with a white woman four days earlier. His assailants–the white woman’s husband and her brother–made Emmett carry a 75-pound cotton-gin fan to the bank of the Tallahatchie River and ordered him to take off his clothes. The two men then beat him nearly to death, gouged out his eye, shot him in the head, and then threw his body, tied to the cotton-gin fan with barbed wire, into the river.

Till grew up in a working-class neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, and though he had attended a segregated elementary school, he was not prepared for the level of segregation he encountered in Mississippi. His mother warned him to take care because of his race, but Emmett enjoyed pulling pranks. On August 24, while standing with his cousins and some friends outside a country store in Money, Emmett bragged that his girlfriend back home was white. Emmett’s African American companions, disbelieving him, dared Emmett to ask the white woman sitting behind the store counter for a date. He went in, bought some candy, and on the way out was heard saying, “Bye, baby” to the woman. There were no witnesses in the store, but Carolyn Bryant–the woman behind the counter–claimed that he grabbed her, made lewd advances, and then wolf-whistled at her as he sauntered out.

Roy Bryant, the proprietor of the store and the woman’s husband, returned from a business trip a few days later and found out how Emmett had spoken to his wife. Enraged, he went to the home of Till’s great uncle, Mose Wright, with his brother-in-law J.W. Milam in the early morning hours of August 28. The pair demanded to see the boy. Despite pleas from Wright, they forced Emmett into their car. After driving around in the Memphis night, and perhaps beating Till in a toolhouse behind Milam’s residence, they drove him down to the Tallahatchie River.

Three days later, his corpse was recovered but was so disfigured that Mose Wright could only identify it by an initialed ring. Authorities wanted to bury the body quickly, but Till’s mother, Mamie Bradley, requested it be sent back to Chicago. After seeing the mutilated remains, she decided to have an open-casket funeral so that all the world could see what racist murderers had done to her only son. Jet, an African American weekly magazine, published a photo of Emmett’s corpse, and soon the mainstream media picked up on the story.

Less than two weeks after Emmett’s body was buried, Milam and Bryant went on trial in a segregated courthouse in Sumner, Mississippi. There were few witnesses besides Mose Wright, who positively identified the defendants as Emmett’s killers.

On September 23, the all-white jury deliberated for less than an hour before issuing a verdict of “not guilty,” explaining that they believed the state had failed to prove the identity of the body. Many people around the country were outraged by the decision and also by the state’s decision not to indict Milam and Bryant on the separate charge of kidnapping.

The Emmett Till murder trial brought to light the brutality of Jim Crow segregation in the South and was an early impetus of the African American civil rights movement.

history.com

March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom


On August 28, 1963, one-hundred years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, approximately 200,000 to 250,000 people arrived in Washington, D.C., and peacefully marched down Constitution and Independence Avenues to the Lincoln Memorial, to rectify, in the words of A. Philip Randolph, “old grievances and to help resolve an American crisis.” Precipitating factors included the subjugation of African Americans to Jim Crow segregation and laws in practically every sector in society, a disproportionate level of high unemployment and unequal wages, and other forms of legal, economic, and social inequality.

A. Philip Randolph,…at the Lincoln Memorial, during 1963 March on Washington. United Press International, 1963. New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection. Prints & Photographs Division

The marchers, representing rural and urban areas from every corner of the nation, arrived by train, plane, bus, and car. Newspapers reported that the marchers were young and old; black, white, and brown. They were sharecroppers and socialites. The marchers were prayerful, jubilant, and tearful; embraced each other throughout the day and sang traditional spirituals such as “Oh Freedom,” “Ain’t Gon’ Let Nobody Turn Me Round,” and “We Shall Overcome.” These supporters of the March were in Washington to introduce ten levels of demands, of which the first was the demand for comprehensive and effective civil rights legislation that would guarantee all Americans: (1) access to all public accommodations, (2) decent housing, (3) adequate and integrated education, and (4) the right to vote. Other demands included: withholding Federal funds from all programs in which discrimination exists; a massive federal program to train and place all unemployed workers –black and white—on meaningful and dignified jobs with decent wages.

Signs Carried By Many Marchers, during the March on Washington, 1963. Mary S. Trikosko, photographer, [Aug. 28, 1963]. U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection. Prints & Photographs Division

The six primary organizers and organizations for the March were: (1) James Farmer, National Director of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), (2) Reverend Martin Luther King, President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), (3) John Lewis, Chairman of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), (4) A. Philip Randolph, President of the Negro American Labor Organization, (5) Roy Wilkins, Executive Secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and (6) Whitney Young, Executive Director of the Urban League. These leaders of prominent civil rights organizations came together to commemorate the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation and to call attention to the atrocities African Americans were still experiencing. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King gave his iconic “I Have a Dream”External speech on this occasion.

Copy of Photograph Showing Left to Right: John Lewis, Whitney Young, A. Philip Randolph, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., James Farmer, and Roy Wilkins. Bill Sauro, photographer, July 4, 1963. U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection. Prints & Photographs Division.

The 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom drew attention to the systemic racism and the discrimination which African Americans still experience in education, housing, and jobs. It also called for Federal legislation to guarantee the right to vote for all Americans.

View of the Huge Crowd from the Lincoln Memorial…during the March on Washington. Warren K. Leffler, photographer, [Aug. 28, 1963]. U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection. Prints & Photographs Division

Learn More

  • Explore the Rosa Parks Papers to discover additional primary sources about the March on Washington. For example, in a Subject File folder on the March, read the Organizing Manual and other materials created by the organizers.
  • Listen to A. Philip Randolph, the organizer of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, at the National Press Club two days before the March, where he explains the reasons for the March on Washington (listen to 05.00-14.09), how it serves as a model against racial bias, what it will achieve in motivating people to do something about the problem of abolishing racial violence in America, and its goal to “highlight the idea of the struggle of Negroes in America to achieve the transition from second class citizenship, to first class citizenship,” and…“bring world pressure upon the United States of America to step up the struggle to wipe out race bias.”
  • Read Protests That Changed America: The March on Washington to review selected reasons the March on Washington is considered “the most significant protest for social justice in the nation.”
  • Experience the March on Washington through images found in the collections of the Library’s Prints & Photographs Division. Selections are included in the online exhibit, A Day Like No Other: Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington.
  • Explore the history and lyrics of the song “We Shall Overcome.” Read “Tracing the Long Journey of “We Shall Overcome”.
  • Search on the term civil rights leaders in Today in History to read more about the lives of civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, James Baldwin, Booker T. Washington, and Mary Church Terrell.
  • Explore the Civil Rights History Project. Included are interviews of several people who participated in the March on Washington as well as many other aspects of the Civil Rights movement to obtain justice, freedom and equality for African Americans. This collection seeks to record and make widely accessible interviews with people who participated in the struggles.
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