Execution of Frankie Silver: This Date in History

[grimes70]

Perhaps there are a couple more "significant' events today. I'm goung with this. It was the first African-American piece of literature I remember reading and well, it's powerful in it's way.

1959 Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun became the first play by an African American woman to be produced on Broadway.

A Raisin in the Sun, drama in three acts by Lorraine Hansberry, first published and produced in 1959. The play’s title is taken from “Harlem,” a poem by Langston Hughes, which examines the question “What happens to a dream deferred? / Does it dry up / like a raisin in the sun?” This penetrating psychological study of a working-class Black family on the South Side of Chicago in the late 1940s reflected Hansberry’s own experiences of racial harassment after her prosperous family moved into a white neighborhood.

 

[donbosco]

On this day in 1956: A subcommittee of the House Un-American Activities Committee convenes in Charlotte. Two days of hearings will single out Bill McGirt, a poet working at a Winston-Salem fish market, as the state’s top communist, but he and 10 other subpoenaed witnesses refuse to testify, and little new information surfaces.

“The conclusion is inescapable,” says Rep. Edwin Willis of Louisiana, “that these people are professional agitators, expert emissaries of the Communist conspiracy planted in the Southland. Who said it couldn’t happen here?”

‘Emissaries of Communist conspiracy’ keep lips zipped – NC Miscellany


McGirt changed his name to William Inman: Inman, Will, 1923-2009 - Social Networks and Archival Context

"Will Inman was a poet, essayist, editor, and publisher. He was born William Archibald McGirt, Jr. in Wilmington, North Carolina where his father, William A. McGirt, was in the insurance and real estate business and his mother, Delia E. McGirt (maiden name Inman), was a registered nurse. He attended Duke University, graduating with an A.B in 1943. After college, Inman worked as a union organizer for tobacco workers in North Carolina before moving to New York City in the late 1950s. He served as the Vice-president of Free University of New York in the mid 1960s. He has worked as an editor and publisher of various literary journals and has had his work published in numerous anthologies and literary journals as well as in individual volumes. His weekly column, Conchsound in the Hills, was published in the Franklin, PA News-Herald in the 1960s. In addition to writing poetry, fiction, plays, and essays, Inman was also a prolific correspondent and diarist. He was active in numerous causes, including the War in Vietnam, the Civil Rights movement, gay rights, and various environmental issues. In 1956, he was questioned by the House Un-American Activities Committee as to his relationship with the Communist Party. His activism continued into the 1990s; he led writing workshops in an Arizona State Prison, as well as teaching writing to the homeless in transition."

 

[donbosco]

 

[grimes70]

Slow going this AM. Caling out @nashcounty to do the music one.

1933 U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave his first fireside chat; the radio addresses became a source of hope and security for Americans during the Great Depression and World War II.

fireside chats, series of radio addresses delivered by U.S. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1933 to 1944. Although the chats were initially meant to garner Americans’ support for Roosevelt’s New Deal policies, they eventually became a source of hope and security for all Americans. The chats were influential in reformulating the American worldview from one of despair to one of hope during a time of multiple crises, including the Great Depression and World War II. Fireside chats reinforced the importance of broadcast media and the use of common, everyday language when addressing the American people.

Roosevelt understood the importance of radio as a medium and first used it to pressure the New York state legislature during his governorship from 1928 to 1932. As president, Roosevelt set up the “informal chats” to convey the success of his policies via radio to the American people. He regarded these broadcasts as instruments of public education in national affairs as well as a way of enlisting support for his program. Fireside chats were constructed by a committee of Roosevelt’s speech writers and advisers, but Roosevelt was an integral part of the process; he often wrote the conclusions and even changed some of the text while speaking on-air. The chats were scheduled sparingly so as to maintain their importance among his other frequent radio and public addresses. They were delivered by Roosevelt from the White House, with him sitting behind a desk with multiple microphones from various radio networks.

 

[donbosco]

#OTD in 2020.

 

[donbosco]

 

[grimes70]

‘Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.’
[The quote is most likely due to writer and philosopher George Santayana, and in its original form it read, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”]



1925 The Tennessee legislature passed a bill that banned the teaching of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in the state's public schools; in a highly publicized trial, high-school teacher John T. Scopes was later convicted of breaking the law.

The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, commonly known as the Scopes trial or Scopes Monkey Trial, was an American legal case from July 10 to July 21, 1925, in which a high school teacher, John T. Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which had made it illegal to teach human evolution in any state-funded school.[1] The trial was deliberately staged in order to attract publicity to the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, where it was held. Scopes was unsure whether he had ever actually taught evolution, but he incriminated himself deliberately so the case could have a defendant.[2][3] Scopes was represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, which had offered to defend anyone accused of violating the Butler Act in an effort to challenge the law.

Scopes was found guilty and was fined $100 (equivalent to $1,800 in 2024), but the verdict was overturned on a technicality. The trial served its purpose of drawing intense national publicity, as national reporters flocked to Dayton to cover the high-profile lawyers who had agreed to represent each side. William Jennings Bryan, a three-time presidential candidate and former secretary of state, argued for the prosecution, while Clarence Darrow served as the defense attorney for Scopes. The trial publicized the fundamentalist–modernist controversy, which set modernists, who said evolution could be consistent with religion,[4] against fundamentalists, who believed the word of God as revealed in the Bible took priority over all human knowledge. The case was thus seen both as a theological contest and as a trial on whether evolution should be taught in schools. The trial became a symbol of the larger social anxieties associated with the cultural changes that characterized the decade of the 1920s in the United States, and highlighted the growing influence of mass media, being the first trial in American history to be broadcast by radio.

 

[donbosco]

 

[donbosco]

I grew up hearing the phrases, “They sent him off to Camp Butner...again.” “He belongs at Camp Butner” or, “Shush, don’t talk crazy like that, you’ll end up at Butner!” were common admonitions. Those remarks might be accompanied by mentions of “Dix Hill,” or if that worldview emanated from the western counties, of “Broughton.” African Americans went off to “Cherry” in Goldsboro. Once upon a time, these places were each associated with mental health in North Carolina. Such human challenges were mystified, often accompanied by ostracism, and generally spoken of insensitively in bygone days.

We all know, or ought to, that mental health care, defined widely, has never been well-understood or implemented. From genius to genuine distress, and everything in-between, successful coping by the state, community, family, and individual remains far from well-orchestrated or developed. We have to hope that progress will come. Medieval attitudes and practices are not that far behind us - nor even completely absent I suspect.

Camp Butner has been a lot of things. It was constructed originally in 1942 in Granville, Person, and Durham Counties as a World War II infantry training center. It was a work camp for German and Italian P.O.W.s during the war. “Today, the grounds house a variety of state and federal facilities including several mental health facilities, multiple correctional institutions, state-owned farms and a National Guard training facility.” A new addition at Butner is The Veterans Life Center — “a residential program for veterans in need of therapy, counseling, educational or life-skill development.”

One semester during my many, many years in college I took a Public Administration course taught by the Warden at the Butner Federal Correctional Institute. My class visited that lock-up and Warden Ingram led the tour. I’m pretty sure that prison wasn’t what people in Chatham were referring to when their quips featured Butner but rather facilities that dealt with substance abuse. To suffer from alcoholism in a dry and evangelically T-Totaling county brought forward many unique situations. Tar Heels laughed at Otis Campbell of Mayberry exactly because he hit so close to home. Such was the code being spoken. Warden Ingram also let us in on some internal Butner Federal code talk. It was over 40 years ago now when I made my pilgrimage so some of this is mildly historic.

It seems that at the penitentiary there were seven units and inmates were arranged in them by type of crime. In very North Carolina fashion each of those units were nicknamed after an Atlantic Coast Conference School (there were only seven in those days - good times!). The designations were clearly carefully thought-out. What I remember about that from the Warden is that the violent and vicious were in Clemson, sexual criminals went to NC State, scam artists were with Wake Forest, those who embezzled from the government were at Virginia, and those who pilfered from private enterprise were Duke. Those who committed unspeakable acts were put in Maryland, and of course drug dealers and moonshiners found their way to Carolina. There’s nothing quite like well-founded regional prison humor.

For more on the history of Mental Health Care in NC go here: Psychiatric Hospitals

#OTD (March 13) in 1937 Major General Henry Wolfe Butner died. The camp was named for him. Read here: Camp Butner’s Namesake, Henry Wolfe Butner

 

[grimes70]

Sorta big deal in the making of much of the future history of the US.

1794 American inventor Eli Whitney received a patent for the cotton gin.

cotton gin, machine for cleaning cotton of its seeds, invented in the United States by Eli Whitney in 1793. The cotton gin is an example of an invention directly called forth by an immediate demand; the mechanization of spinning in England had created a greatly expanded market for American cotton, whose production was inhibited by the slowness of manual removal of the seeds from the raw fibre. Whitney, a Massachusetts Yankee visiting a friend in the South, learned of the problem and quickly solved it. Inspired by manual brushes invented by enslaved workers, Whitney crafted a device that pulled the cotton through a set of wire teeth mounted on a revolving cylinder, the fibre passing through narrow slots in an iron breastwork too small to permit passage of the seed. The simplicity of the invention—which could be powered by people, animals, or water—caused it to be widely copied despite Whitney’s patent; it is credited with fixing cotton cultivation, virtually to the exclusion of other crops, in the U.S. South and so institutionalizing slavery.



I ' m thinking I have driven through here close to 100 times if not more on the way to the mountains or other places west. Nice little crossroads. Bet others have done that route as well.

Eli Whitney is an unincorporated community in southeastern Alamance County, North Carolina, United States. It is located at the intersection of North Carolina Highway 87, and Greensboro-Chapel Hill Road. To the south is Mandale and to the west is Snow Camp. The United States Postal Service considers Eli Whitney part of the Graham delivery area.

Eli tney gained its name from the inventor of the cotton gin, Eli Whitney. The reasoning for this was because there was once a cotton gin located in the community, but has been gone for many years now. Eli Whitney was once home to a school as well, but it too closed and was later demolished. The school's gymnasium was left standing and now serves as a community center.[

 

[donbosco]

Back in the Dry County Days the little gas station general store in ‘Eli Whitney’ was the closest legally bought beer on Sunday for us Chathamites.

 

[nycfan]

#OTD in 2020.

Had to be 2021? The whole thing was canceled the night of the UNC loss to Syracuse in 2020 …

 

[grimes70]

Et tu?

In 44 bce Roman dictator Julius Caesar was launching a series of political and social reforms when he was assassinated this day, the Ides of March, by a group of nobles, among whom were Cassius and Brutus.

The term Ides derives from the Latin word iduare (Latin: “to divide”), with the full moon serving as the division point in the middle of each month. In the ancient Roman calendar, months were divided according to the lunar cycle into three groups of days. The Ides corresponded with the rise of the full moon in the middle of the month, the Kalends corresponded with the new moon at the beginning of the month, and the Nones fell on the quarter moon phases in between. Depending on the length of the month, the Nones fell on the fifth or seventh day, the Ides on the 13th or 15th, and the Kalends on the first. The Romans honoured Jupiter, the sky god and chief deity of ancient Rome, when the full moon phase occurred (on the Ides) by holding feasts and sacrifices. Furthermore, since the new year originally began in March in the ancient calendar, the Ides of March marked the first full moon of the year, portending great significance. The Ides of March was also notable as a day for settling debts.

 

[donbosco]

This is an #OTD for March 13, 1971. I’m posting it here because I very much appreciate the folks who visit this thread.




There have been some crushing Down moments - that’s what happens when you truly care. The Highs can also be incredibly, well, high, too. “Sportsball” isn’t everyone’s ’cup of tea’ - as an academic of that I am acutely aware. Once after in the aftermath of a huge Carolina victory and the subsequent “Taking of Franklin Street” I was at a campus lecture. The subject has been long forgotten but an exchange that I overheard there will be with me forever. A “sportsball-hater,” strident and feeling confident in their stance commented with unmistakable disdain to a well-known faculty leftist’ “I can’t believe all the commotion in the streets after that ballgame the other night.” Expecting confirmation from the professor the young scholar looked expectantly, sneaking a sideways glance at me, also well-known as a “sportsball-lover.” To my eternal gratitude lefty Prof replied: “It was a great win. To see such joy and solidarity in people lifts my heart.”

This past ACC semifinal loss to Duke was a Giant Down in the Great Cycle of Joy and Solidarity. It’ll make the next Great High better. My first memory in that Ever-Lasting Roundabout came almost exactly 54 years ago - March 13, 1971 was the night that 6-3 South Carolina Gamecock Kevin Joyce went up against 6-10 Tar Heel Lee Dedmon in a jumpball with 3.5 seconds - Dedmon “missed it” and in a moment the exactness of which remains in dispute the enemy Tom Owens grabbed the tipped ball and scored a lay up - sending USC to the NCAA tournament and UNC home in defeat.

Despite averaging 12 points and 8 rebounds per game on a 26–6 (11–3 ACC) squad - one that took the championship of the consolation National Invitational Tournament - Dedmon has forever been remembered by all but the most understanding of The Faithful as the guy who lost the ACC Tournament to the hateful Gamecocks. And believe me, the enmity felt for South Carolina in those days in North Carolina arenas, dens, and taverns - even places of worship - eclipsed anything felt today between Blue, Red, or Black and Gold fanbases.

Dedmon’s Coach, Dean Smith, stood beside him as did his teammates - indeed, they pulled together and played their way to that NIT Crown - and I know at least one fan, albeit only 12 years old, who did forgive and forget, and remembers that season and that team for so much more. Steve Previs, George Karl, Bill Chamberlain, Dennis Wuycik, and Lee Dedmon. Evidence might be that there is nary a pause nor a hesitation as those names from 50 plus years past spill forth with ease. Indeed, Dave Chadwick, Donn Johnston, Kim Huband, Craig Corson, and Bill Chambers come to mind pretty easily as well. That crew of Tar Heels were my undisputed heroes in the rural, small-town, #DeepChatham County world. And so they remain as do all those young men who have donned the Sky Blue and sweated and bled for Carolina.

They’re my team every year through thick and thin. Ups and Downs, Highs and Lows. As for mistakes, a great philosopher once said…”recognize it, admit it, learn from it, forget it.”

 

[grimes70]

This is an #OTD for March 13, 1971. I’m posting it here because I very much appreciate the folks who visit this thread.




There have been some crushing Down moments - that’s what happens when you truly care. The Highs can also be incredibly, well, high, too. “Sportsball” isn’t everyone’s ’cup of tea’ - as an academic of that I am acutely aware. Once after in the aftermath of a huge Carolina victory and the subsequent “Taking of Franklin Street” I was at a campus lecture. The subject has been long forgotten but an exchange that I overheard there will be with me forever. A “sportsball-hater,” strident and feeling confident in their stance commented with unmistakable disdain to a well-known faculty leftist’ “I can’t believe all the commotion in the streets after that ballgame the other night.” Expecting confirmation from the professor the young scholar looked expectantly, sneaking a sideways glance at me, also well-known as a “sportsball-lover.” To my eternal gratitude lefty Prof replied: “It was a great win. To see such joy and solidarity in people lifts my heart.”

This past ACC semifinal loss to Duke was a Giant Down in the Great Cycle of Joy and Solidarity. It’ll make the next Great High better. My first memory in that Ever-Lasting Roundabout came almost exactly 54 years ago - March 13, 1971 was the night that 6-3 South Carolina Gamecock Kevin Joyce went up against 6-10 Tar Heel Lee Dedmon in a jumpball with 3.5 seconds - Dedmon “missed it” and in a moment the exactness of which remains in dispute the enemy Tom Owens grabbed the tipped ball and scored a lay up - sending USC to the NCAA tournament and UNC home in defeat.

Despite averaging 12 points and 8 rebounds per game on a 26–6 (11–3 ACC) squad - one that took the championship of the consolation National Invitational Tournament - Dedmon has forever been remembered by all but the most understanding of The Faithful as the guy who lost the ACC Tournament to the hateful Gamecocks. And believe me, the enmity felt for South Carolina in those days in North Carolina arenas, dens, and taverns - even places of worship - eclipsed anything felt today between Blue, Red, or Black and Gold fanbases.

Dedmon’s Coach, Dean Smith, stood beside him as did his teammates - indeed, they pulled together and played their way to that NIT Crown - and I know at least one fan, albeit only 12 years old, who did forgive and forget, and remembers that season and that team for so much more. Steve Previs, George Karl, Bill Chamberlain, Dennis Wuycik, and Lee Dedmon. Evidence might be that there is nary a pause nor a hesitation as those names from 50 plus years past spill forth with ease. Indeed, Dave Chadwick, Donn Johnston, Kim Huband, Craig Corson, and Bill Chambers come to mind pretty easily as well. That crew of Tar Heels were my undisputed heroes in the rural, small-town, #DeepChatham County world. And so they remain as do all those young men who have donned the Sky Blue and sweated and bled for Carolina.

They’re my team every year through thick and thin. Ups and Downs, Highs and Lows. As for mistakes, a great philosopher once said…”recognize it, admit it, learn from it, forget it.”

Dedmon's first cousin is one of my dorm mates with whom still get together and we text during games. Lee was a nice guy and became a school principal and superintendent in Charlotte for many years.

ETA sent that article to my friend. His response:

"I just saw Lee on Tuesday. It still bothers him. He brought it up."

And oops. Gastonia not Charlotte.

 

[donbosco]

Dedmon's first cousin is one of my dorm mates with whom still get together and we text during games. Lee was a nice guy and became a school principal and superintendent in Charlotte for many years.

ETA sent that article to my friend. His response:

"I just saw Lee on Tuesday. It still bothers him. He brought it up."

And oops. Gastonia not Charlotte.

I met Lee Dedmon in 1975 at Belmont Abbey Basketball Camp. A six-year gave him grief during a Q&A.

 

[donbosco]

When we lived in Greensboro and worked at #GuilfordCollege we all walked through the New Garden Friends Meeting House Cemetery nigh every day. There is a wide open space in the middle where there are no tombstones. It was a mini-meadow of sorts amidst the memorials. I always assumed (I know, a dangerous thing) that it was the site where soldiers, British and American, who died at The Battle of Guilford Courthouse and other related actions nearby (Battle of New Garden too) had been buried by the Quakers who tended to the wounded on both sides and ultimately buried the dead together irrespective of earthly allegiance.



I enjoyed that ‘burying grounds’ immensely, my daughter and I walked through it every morning to her Pre-Kindergarten time at ‘A Child’s Garden” and knew certain gravestones, saluting them daily. One particular monument, to a woman named Jayne Fentress Kemper Lamb was a "friend" of my daughter’s of sorts, and she spoke to her as we passed. Those were the days of princesses and Jayne clearly fit the bill.



Randall Jarrell is buried there as well and that suited me. Delilah had her princess and I had a poet. Hall of Fame catcher Rick Ferrell, and his All Star pitcher brother Wes also call New Garden their final stop on life’s circuit. Rick also played baseball and basketball at Guilford College.



The big story for today is that #OTD in 1781, quite close by to the graveyard I’ve mentioned, Continental troops (General Nathanael Greene) met British (General Lord Charles Cornwallis) at #GuilfordCourthouse. On that bloody day (March 15) Greene yielded the field (6% losses) but Cornwallis’ army was harmed far worse (27%). England soon abandoned the war in the South and Cornwallis moved north. He met Washington and the French fleet in Yorktown in September and in October he offered up his surrender and the Independence of the United States. The Battle of Guilford Courthouse—A Prelude to Yorktown.

 

[grimes70]

Loved by the French for some reason and by kids loving his shtick, his annual telethon raised a ton of money for St. Judes and muscular distrophy. Looking back some of his stufff is funny Supposedly a bit of an asshole.

Jerry Lewis (born Joseph Levitch;[a] March 16, 1926 – August 20, 2017) was an American comedian, actor, singer, filmmaker and humanitarian, famously nicknamed as "The King of Comedy". His career rose to prominence together with singer Dean Martin, billed as Martin and Lewis, in 1946. For ten years, the two did a series of sixteen buddy-comedy films, along with their televised run on The Colgate Comedy Hour, live stage performances, guest spots on other shows and a radio series.

 

[donbosco]

‪#OTD (3/16) in The 1780s Quork, a sailor from Ocracoke set out despite warnings about bad weather. He never returned. Thus, today has been remembered as Old Quork’s Day on the #OBX. Is this still celebrated? Anyone?

Sailors Beware on Old Quork’s Day ‬

 

[grimes70]

I'm no scientist but this was a game changer in the way humanity has learned the way the world works theoretically at least.

1905 Albert Einstein finishes his scientific paper detailing his quantum theory of light, a foundation of modern physics

Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory that describes the behavior of nature at and below the scale of atoms. It is the foundation of all quantum physics, which includes quantum chemistry, quantum field theory, quantum technology, and quantum information science.

Quantum mechanics can describe many systems that classical physics cannot. Classical physics can describe many aspects of nature at an ordinary (macroscopic and (optical) microscopic) scale, but is not sufficient for describing them at very small submicroscopic (atomic and subatomic) scales. Most theories in classical physics can be derived from quantum mechanics as an approximation, valid at large (macroscopic/microscopic) scale.[3]