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Mary McLeod Bethune was an educator, civil rights activist, stateswoman, and philanthropist. Born in 1875 to parents who had been enslaved, Bethune developed an early belief in the power of education and attended college – a rare achievement for African American women at the time. In 1904, she started a private school for African American girls in Florida that later grew to become Bethune-Cookman College. Bethune went on to become a leading advocate for black Americans, particularly women, and founded the National Council of Negro Women in 1935. A close friend of President Franklin Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor, she served in the “Black Cabinet”, an advisory board to the Roosevelt Administration on issues facing African Americans. Bethune died on May 18, 1955.
U.S. Rep. Shirley Chisholm, was the first black woman elected to the U.S. Congress and the first major-party African American candidate for president. Born to immigrant parents from Guyana and Barbados on November 30, 1924, she distinguished herself early as a dedicated student and skilled debater. She graduated from Brooklyn College in 1946 and later earned a master’s degree in elementary education from Columbia University. After working as an educator, Chisholm launched her political career, winning a seat in the New York State Assembly in 1965. In 1968, she was elected to Congress, where she served seven terms. In 1972, she waged her historic campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, a quest chronicled in the award-winning 2005 documentary Shirley Chisholm ’72: Unbought and Unbossed, directed and produced by African-American filmmaker Shola Lynch. Chisholm died on January 1, 2005.
On February 19th 1942 Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066
World War Two – Japanese Internment Camps in the USA
State representatives put pressure on President Roosevelt to take action against th
ose of Japanese descent living in the US.
On February 19th 1942 Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. Under the terms of the Order, some 120,000 people of Japanese descent living in the US were removed from their homes and placed in internment camps. The US justified their action by claiming that there was a danger of those of Japanese descent spying for the Japanese. However more than two thirds of those interned were American citizens and half of them were children. None had ever shown disloyalty to the nation. In some cases family members were separated and put in different camps. During the entire war only ten people were convicted of spying for Japan and these were all Caucasian.
Life in the camps was hard. Internees had only been allowed to bring with then a few possessions. In many cases they had been given just 48 hours to evacuate their homes. Consequently they were easy prey for fortune hunters who offered them far less than the market prices for the goods they could not take with them.
“It was really cruel and harsh. To pack and evacuate in forty-eight hours was an impossibility. Seeing mothers completely bewildered with children crying from want and peddlers taking advantage and offering prices next to robbery made me feel like murdering those responsible without the slightest compunction in my heart.” Joseph Yoshisuke Kurihara speaking of the Terminal Island evacuation.
They were housed in barracks and had to use communal areas for washing, laundry and eating. It was an emotional time for all. “I remember the soldiers marching us to the Army tank and I looked at their rifles and I was just terrified because I could see this long knife at the end . . . I thought I was imagining it as an adult much later . . . I thought it couldn’t have been bayonets because we were just little kids.” from “Children of the Camps”
Some internees died from inadequate medical care and the high level of emotional stress they suffered. Those taken to camps in desert areas had to cope with extremes of temperature.
The camps were guarded by military personnel and those who disobeyed the rules, or who were deemed to be troublesome were sent to the Tule Lake facility located in the North California Cascade Mountains. In 1943 those who refused to take the loyalty oath were sent to Tula Lake and the camp was renamed a segregation centre.
In 1943 all internees over the age of seventeen were given a loyalty test. They were asked two questions:
1. Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty wherever ordered? (Females were asked if they were willing to volunteer for the Army Nurse Corps or Women’s Army Corps.)
2. Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any or all attack by foreign or domestic forces and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, to any other foreign government, power or organization?
In December 1944 Public Proclamation number 21, which became effective in January 1945, allowed internees to return to their homes. The effects of internment affected all those involved. Some saw the camps as concentration camps and a violation of the writ of Habeas Corpus, others though, saw internment as a necessary result of Pearl Harbor. At the end of the war some remained in the US and rebuilt their lives, others though were unforgiving and returned to Japan.
historyonthenet.com
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1807 – Aaron Burr arrested for alledged treason
February 19
Aaron Burr, a former U.S. vice president, is arrested in Alabama on charges of plotting to annex Spanish territory in Louisiana and Mexico to be used toward the establishment of an independent republic. In November 1800, in an election conducted before the presidential and …read more
READ MORE: Aaron Burr’s Political Legacy Died in the Duel with Alexander Hamilton
Citation Information
Article Title
Aaron Burr arrested for alleged treason
AuthorHistory.com Editors
Website Name
HISTORY
URL
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/aaron-burr-arrested-for-treason
Access Date
February 19, 2023
Publisher
A&E Television Networks
Last Updated
February 18, 2020
Original Published Date
February 9, 2010
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1953 – The State of Georgia approved the first literature censorship board in the U.S. Newspapers were excluded from the new legislation
Georgia launched its first major campaign against obscene literature in 1953, when the General Assembly unanimously voted to establish the Georgia Literature Commission. The onset of the paperback book revolution in the years after World War II (1941-45), the rising popularity of adult magazines, and the introduction of Playboy magazine in the United States led the legislature to create the commission, consisting of three members who would meet monthly to investigate literature that they suspected to be “detrimental to the morals of the citizens of Georgia.” If the commission determined something to be obscene, it had the power to inhibit distribution by notifying the distributor and then, thirty days later, recommending prosecution by the proper prosecuting attorney. Governor Herman Talmadge appointed Atlanta minister James P. Wesberry, Royston newspaper publisher Hubert L. Dyar, and Greensboro theater owner William R. Boswell to serve four-year terms.
For the complete article … georgiaencylopedia.org
Source: Lisby, Gregory. “Georgia Literature Commission.” New Georgia Encyclopedia, last modified Mar 18, 2013. https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/georgia-literature-commission/
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In Memory of Julian Bond ~ speaks 8/2013
Thousands are in Washington, D.C. to re-create something so powerful and so vivid that it still plays on loop in my mind. They’re here for the 50th anniversary of the 1963 civil rights March on Washington.
We are returning amidst a newly reinvigorated fight for civil rights that has grown rapidly to include lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans.
After all, LGBT rights are civil rights.
No parallel between movements is exact. But like race, our sexuality and gender identity aren’t preferences. They are immutable, unchangeable – and the constitution protects us all against discrimination based on immutable differences.
Today, we are fighting for jobs, for economic opportunity, for a level playing field free of inequality and of discrimination. It’s the same fight our LGBT brothers and sisters are waging – and together we have formed a national constituency for civil rights.
And while we haven’t fully secured Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s most remarkable dream, we are getting closer every single day.
Julian Bond with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and more recently at an HRC event.
In August 1963, I was the Communications Director for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), led at the time by John Lewis, the march’s youngest speaker that day.
A gay black man by the name of Bayard Rustin was one of the chief organizers – an early embodiment of the unity and commonality that bonded the movement for LGBT equality with the fight for equal treatment of African-Americans.
In his honor, HRC will help lead a commemoration of Bayard’s incredible contributions to the civil rights movement on Monday. And it was recently announced that President Obama will posthumously award Rustin the Presidential Medal of Freedom – the highest civilian award in the United States.
Fifty years later, I can still feel the power of that noble, August day. Its weight is what drove me for years – from founding the Southern Poverty Law Center, to overseeing the NAACP as Chairman, not to mention the ten terms I served as a member of the Georgia legislature. And later, that exact same commitment to achieving equal rights is what convinced me to stand with the Human Rights Campaign in endorsing marriage equality.
Together we have marched millions of miles to land on the right side of history, and today we stand firmly planted, hoping only that more will join us, one by one, until everyone in this nation is truly free and equal. I know you are with the marchers today – in spirit and in solidarity – and I hope you’ll follow the news coverage of today’s powerful events.
Thank you for being part of the historic struggle for civil rights.
Sincerely,
Julian Bond Chairman Emeritus, NAACP
Be a Seed for Change 
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