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This Date in History | Archibald Henderson, G.B. Shaw, and Mark Twain

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#OTD in 1809 NC’s First Jewish legislator, Jacob Henry, gave a memorable speech on religious freedom. Elected by Beaufort/Carteret County, NC’s 1776 Constitution ruled that ‘Protestants Only’ could hold office. Representative Hugh Mills of Rockingham County formally objected (Catholics were also constitutionally barred and that would cause dispute and debate in the 1830s). So eloquent was his defense that he retained his seat. First Jewish Legislator Delivers Speech on Religious Liberty

Nevertheless, the restriction was not removed from the state’s constitution until 1868.

Below are some excerpts from Henry’s historic speech — they express with precision and eloquence the highest aspirations of our democratic republican ideals and show the wisdom of separation of church and state.

“If a man fulfils the duties of that religion, which his education or his conscience has pointed to him as the true one, no one, I hold, in this land of liberty has a right to arraign him at the bar of any inquisition - And the day I trust is long past when principles merely speculative were propagated by force, when the sincere and pious were made victims, and the light-minded bribed into hypocrites.”

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“[That] intolerance in matters of faith, had been from the earliest ages of the world, the severest torments by which mankind could be afflicted; and that governments were only concerned about the actions and conduct of man, and not his speculative notions. Who among us feels himself so exalted above his fellows, as to have a right to dictate to them his mode of belief? Shall this free country try set an example of persecution, which, even the returning reason of enslaved Europe would not submit to? Will you bind the conscience in chains, and fasten conviction upon the mind, in spite of the conclusions of reason, and of those ties and habitudes which are blended with every pulsation of the heart? Are you prepared to plunge at once from the sublime heights of moral legislation, into the dark and gloomy caverns of superstitious ignorance? Will you drive from your shores and from the shelter of your constitutions, all who do not lay their oblations on the same altar, observe the same ritual, and subscribe to the same dogmas? If so, which amongst the various sects into which we are divided, shall be the favored one?” ~ Jacob Henry, Representative of Carteret County, North Carolina House of Commons.

The full text of Henry’s speech: Speech of Jacob Henry
 
“December 6, 1961. 63 years ago today, Syracuse running back Ernie Davis became the first black player to win the Heisman Trophy. A few weeks later, Davis signed with the Cleveland Browns, where he joined his Syracuse predecessor Jim Brown, whom he greatly admired. Sadly, they never got to take the field together. Davis was diagnosed with leukemia, never played a snap, and died the following year at age 23.”
 
1969 Violence at the Altamont rock festival in Livermore, California, climaxed during the Rolling Stones' appearance when a concertgoer was fatally stabbed by a member of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang, which had been hired as security.

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www.dncr.nc.gov

London Years of Sweet Baby James

On December 6, 1968, James Taylor released his first and self-titled album.Released by Apple Records, the album featured “Carolina in My Mind,” one of the Taylor’s most recognized songs. Taylor recorded the album between July and October 1968 at Trident Studios in London. The Beatles were...
www.dncr.nc.gov www.dncr.nc.gov
 
Larry Bird (born December 7, 1956, West Baden, Indiana, U.S.) is an American basketball player who led the Boston Celtics to three National Basketball Association (NBA) championships (1981, 1984, and 1986) and is considered one of the greatest pure shooters of all time.
 
grimes70 said:
On this day in 1533, the three-year-old who became Ivan the Terrible was proclaimed grand prince of Moscow upon the death of his father, Grand Prince Vasily III, with his mother ruling in Ivan's name until her death in 1538.
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So did Ivan take over in 1538 at age 8?
 
Don’t forget what happened 83 years ago today at Pearl Harbor. If you ever get a chance to go to Pearl Harbor please take it. Visiting the USS Arizona memorial is very emotional. Knowing the remains of 922 young American servicemen are entombed in the ship beneath your feet is quite the experience. You can look down and see the ship. Everything left above water after she sunk was removed. Only a small part of one gun turret is slightly above water. About 500 yards to the left of the memorial is the USS Missouri.
 
Patb78 said:
Don’t forget what happened 83 years ago today at Pearl Harbor. If you ever get a chance to go to Pearl Harbor please take it. Visiting the USS Arizona memorial is very emotional. Knowing the remains of 922 young American servicemen are entombed in the ship beneath your feet is quite the experience. You can look down and see the ship. Everything left above water after she sunk was removed. Only a small part of one gun turret is slightly above water. About 500 yards to the left of the memorial is the USS Missouri.
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Ambrose Bierce: "War is God's way of teaching Americans geography."

Not long after the Pearl Harbor attack was announced, it was also announced that Japan had attacked the Philippines. Because my mother was born and lived in the Philippines until she was about 12 (her father was in the Colonial Constabulary and her mother was a teacher), folks in my small town would approach her to say how furious they were at FDR for allowing the Japanese invasion fleet to pass through the Panama Canal to attack the Philippines.

My mother was baffled by this non sequitur. Her mother had to explain to her these folks didn't know much about geography. All they knew about the Philippines was that they had something to with the Spanish American War. And all they knew about the Spanish American War was that it involved Cuba. And Cuba was in the Caribbean Sea. Ergo: the Phillippines were also in the Caribbean Sea. My mother and grandmother eventually had to use a globe to prove that the Japanese could get from Japan to the Phillippines without receiving FDR's permission to go through the Panama Canal.
 
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05C40 said:
Ambrose Pierce: "War is God's way of teaching Americans geography."

Not long after the Pearl Harbor attack was announced, it was also announced that Japan had attacked the Philippines. Because my mother was born and lived in the Philippines until she was about 12 (her father was in the Colonial Constabulary and her mother was a teacher), folks in my small town would approach her to say how furious they were at FDR for allowing the Japanese invasion fleet to pass through the Panama Canal to attack the Philippines.

My mother was baffled by this non sequitur. Her mother had to explain to her these folks didn't know much about geography. All they knew about the Philippines was that they had something to with the Spanish American War. And all they knew about the Spanish American War was that it involved Cuba. And Cuba was in the Caribbean Sea. Ergo: the Phillippines were also in the Caribbean Sea. My mother and grandmother eventually had to use a globe to prove that the Japanese could get from Japan to the Phillippines without receiving FDR's permission to go through the Panama Canal.
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Thanks for sharing. Sounds like something that would happen today.
 
IMG_6081.jpegSpeaking of Bierce and Geography.

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#OTD (December 7) in 1970, groundbreaking began for B. Everett Jordan Lake. I was a kid but aware that something was up. Through the fall and early winter months of 1968 and into January of 1969 (I was 11 years old) my parents, me in tow, traveled from #DeepChatham to Raleigh several times a week to visit with my dying Grampa at Rex Hospital. I guess the road we took was a version of Highway 64 which still runs east-west through the heart of the Piedmont.



As we made that drive I eavesdropped on my parents. Knowing that “Little ‘pitchers’ have big ears’ (pitcher=picture in the dialect) deployed a clever tactic - to avoid the inevitable embarrassment that a curious and often boisterous child - like me - might repeat the names of the subjects of their church, family, and community conversations they used the name ‘Jacob Marshall’ in the place of any and all locals they mentioned. — ‘Jacob Marshall’ was drinking again and wrecked his tractor, ‘Jacob Marshall’ and his wife are on the outs again, you just KNOW that ‘Jacob Marshall’ is gonna get fired down at the planer this time for sure…and so on. I have to admit that I thought that ‘Mr. Marshall’ was downright remarkable and badly desired to at least someday get a glimpse of this scoundrel. But I never did and it only dawned on me much later in life the true function of this mythological figure.



Sometimes though Momma and Deddy were quiet and the radio played a basketball game or the news brought Vietnam or Nixon or the Cold War to my mind — Faraway Places With Strange Sounding Names — as Mark Twain wrote, “God created war so that Americans would learn geography.” I clearly remember the distinctive voice of Paul Harvey and “the rest of the story.” Even then I knew his points were not shared in my family but in those days voices on the Right weren’t loony so to listen could be good for thought.



I clearly remember staring out the car window at the kudzu-covered countryside and pondering the adult topic of the flooding to come and the creation of the mysterious lake. I had gathered that a good deal of the land through which we were traveling on those Raleigh-bound trips would soon be underwater. In those days kudzu worried me a good deal - spying the plant’s relentlessness in consuming the barns and even homes along that road it was hard to imagine a future for humanity that wasn’t lived beneath a canopy of viney, clingy, aromatic house-eating leaves.



Thomas Wolfe supposedly wrote that winter came along every year to beat back the kudzu and save The South from being hopelessly buried. I understand now that the kudzu along that road, soon to be the bottom of Jordan Lake, was indeed winning because the abandonment and displacement of people had begun. No fighting the vine - or the Army Corps of Engineers for that matter - The Flood was coming.



Indeed, the inundation had a purpose — the goal was to control the rivers and streams in The Cape Fear Basin. Today, recreation is a major offshoot of the project (the lake was full by ‘82). The vast majority of The Jordan lies in Chatham County. Some home places were fairly well emptied out first to be sure and graveyards were excavated (at the expense of the descendants) - kudzu didn’t take everything. They say that archaeologists dug into sites soon to be submerged. The Flooders, I have read, were not much help as generations-old family farms and communities were lost and anger and resentment still exists. In the end, 11 year old apocalyptic forebodings as we ran the the Tar Heel night were not so far off. Archaeology Work at Future Jordan Lake
 
Kept up with the deconstruction/construction over the years. Might have been gone for a year and come back to see hiw much more land was cleared. Then watched as it slowly filled up with water. Remember one morning watching the sun rise as we were hanging at what was Mt Sinai Rd but now mostly underwater. Then years later boating in that same spot with the same girl.

Shame they didn't include hydro-electric. I remember there was a bit of controvery over it. I'm thinking they didn't think there would be a consistent enough flow to allow for it.

Created a vast new water supply. All those large $ developements now along what was once a wonderfully little dirt thoroughfare known as Big Woods Rd. Unfortunately this has led to the most capitalistic of ends - Chatham Park - 8500 acres of developement. More trees gone. But hey, you can buy a house in the Astoria subdivision there. A Disney storyland community. Jiminy Cickets!

And yes, you can't stop progress can you.
 
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#OTD (12/9) in 1958 Robert Welch of Chowan County North Carolina founded the John Birch Society. The organization was named for a ‘missionary’ killed by Chinese Communists - the circumstances of which are cloudy as they occurred during the days of the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II in China as greatly complicating the narrative, Birch was also an undercover US Army Air Forces Intelligence Officer and OSS operative.

Raised up in Hertford, N. C., Robert Welch eventually came to believe that ‘Reds’ were everywhere-For example, he accused Presidents Truman and Eisenhower of being party members. Welch’s paranoid style haunts what passes for political discourse even today, often poisoning our attempts at progressive dialogue. When a modern conservative proclaims with vigor that “America is not a democracy! It is a republic!” they are working from the “Bircher” script. Of course the US is not a democracy in the purest sense but rather an aspirational ideal as framed by the better angels of our Constitutional Democratic Republic. Historically Bircher obfuscation has been their main play in covertly and overtly asserting the supremacy of State’s Rights as a way to nullify the advances of the Civil and Equal Rights Movements of the past 60 plus years.

Rich from candy trade (yep - THAT Welch) his millions financed his fanatical crusade. A child prodigy, Welch entered UNC at 12 years old and was a graduate of the Class of 1916. He went on to attend the US Naval Academy and Harvard. From its founding in 1958, Welch closely controlled the John Birch Society which at its apex counted 100,000 members, until his death in 1985. The JBS was anti-United Nations because as an organization it represented global collectivism and international cooperation with communists and socialists. The JBS campaigned vigorously for the impeachment of Chief Justice Earl Warren for his support for the Supreme Court’s pro-Civil Rights decisions. Welch and company seem to have genuinely believed that 60+% of the employees of the Federal Government were Communists. The JBS led the targeting of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a Leftist enemy of America. Welch was clearly a harbinger of today’s trumpist GOP lunacy, radical extremism, and dirty politics. That Tar Heels in the Center and on the Left have been in a battle with the despotism of the likes of Jesse Helms, Madison Cawthorn, Virginia Foxx and the constant anti-progress, anti-intellect, and regressive actions of our state General Assembly is bound up in the same ways of seeing that birthed Welch’s twisted worldview.

“…Trumpism is not a reversion to an older, more gothic form of conservatism but an apotheosis decades in the making. Trump may have been our country’s first post-truth president. But the post-truth environment of conspiracy we are living in today has been a long time coming. We owe it in part to the truth-optional habits on the right that Robert Welch and the Birch Society exemplified—and in part to the same Republican elites who were complicit every step of the way." The John Birch Society Never Left

So a Chowan County candy baron bears much of the blame for the steady development of the truthless worldview that plagues our nation and threatens so acutely the very foundation of the system that has, for just shy of 250 years, been the developing dream of egalitarianism and human and civil rights. Welch passed on in 1985, he was 86, but his ideas are stronger than ever. With 2024 behind us and an uncertain future ahead it remains to be seen if the Bircher Ideal will ultimately win out.

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And just to affirm the John Birch Society roots...here is Chatham County's own Charlie Daniels, early in his career before he actually went Birchish Right-Wing, singing his first 'hit,' "Uneasy Rider," in which these lyrics appear:
"I'm a faithfull follower of Brother John Burch
And I belong to the Antioch Baptist Church
And I ain't even got a garage you can call home and ask my wife."

And there is indeed an Antioch Baptist Church in very #DeepestChatham.

https://youtu.be/Yd-3T2kNxTQ?si=wjNi5uCXpE5CMSwF&t=1
 
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