This Date in History | Limb Replacement Program

[donbosco]

And of course, #OTD in 1954.





#OTD (May 17, 1954) in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the US Supreme Court voted unanimously that “Segregation of students in public schools violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, because separate facilities are inherently unequal.”

Imagine - a UNANIMOUS decision. Imagine today’s SCOTUS rendering such a verdict. A SCOTUS that makes of a president a king above the law would not - could not - bring such justice. So watch the trump administration’s case now before the court challenging birthright citizenship. Why? Because striking that down would give courts leeway to narrow the scope of other clauses in the Constitution and most specifically in the 14th Amendment — like Equal Protection and Due Process ((See 5th Amendment too) — by redefining, i.e., shrinking, who is “entitled” to those protections. States or Congress could be the arbiter of citizenship in a post-birthright citizenship United States. A core promise of the 14th Amendment is that all people are equal under the law but weakening would strike at every group that has relied on the 14th Amendment for protection—racial minorities, women, LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, the disabled… All would find their rights under threat.

Right here. Right now. We are living Niemöller’s quotation? “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.”

 

[donbosco]

BTW, that's Nettie Hunt and her daughter Nikie in the photograph:

Digital History

 

[Zoo_View]

17th May #TheDayInHistory

#OTD (May 17) in 1957, Dr #MartinLutherKingJr, delivered his “Give Us the Ballot” speech during the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom demonstration in front of the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, DC.

#MLK said, "Give us the ballot, and we will no longer have to worry the federal government about our basic rights. Give us the ballot, and we will no longer plead to the federal government for passage of an anti-lynching law; we will by the power of our vote write the law on the statute books of the South and bring an end to the dastardly acts of the hooded perpetrators of violence.

Give us the ballot, and we will transform the salient misdeeds of bloodthirsty mobs into the calculated good deeds of orderly citizens. Give us the ballot, and we will fill our legislative halls with men of goodwill and send to the sacred halls of Congress men who will not sign a “Southern Manifesto” because of their devotion to the manifesto of justice..."

Martin Luther King was a bit overly optimistic in his “Give Us the Ballot” speech 68 years ago.

 

[donbosco]

Fast, loud cars, slightly jacked up with ‘Mag’ Wheels & White Letter Tires were a fact of life in 1970s North Carolina. The parking lots of 1-A and 2-A small town and crossroads high schools across the state were a combo Pitstop and Gun Shop in those days. Souped up Impalas and TransAms and gun-rack fitted pick ups made up a big part of the lifestyle of a significant chunk of the local folk, the first category mainly young men and the second spanning generations.

That sparsely populated landscape was dotted by small asphalt islands and oases centered on sacred gasoline rather than the traditional water that served the night-time hours. Illegal beer made up the other venerated liquid — gas and spirits — a country cocktail and not one without its associated tragedies.

Crossroads that bore historically buried names like #Bonlee or #Bennett, #HarpersCrossroads or #BearCreek and sported not much more than a filling station/country store — no incorporation but maybe a sign — attracted cliques and halfway-gangs that gathered after-midnight and Southern Rock anthems like ‘Green Grass and High Tides’ and ‘Midnight Rider’ filled the late late evening air. By ‘74 CB Radios added to the fuss and fuzz and tied together the rural racers and revelers in “Smokey” thwarting networks that nicely foreshadowed our cell and text-connected world of today.

And boys and young men did race. Indeed, I knew more than one girl that tore up the road too.

It is a wonder more didn’t die on those narrow, shoulderless roads. A few did and a lot more ended up sideways in cornfields and cow pastures. Down home daredevils were heroes in their herd and the triumphs of NASCAR greats like Petty, Allison, Earnhardt, and Yarborough were good backdrop for the all-important local pecking order. And The Look was as important as the Speed. Car Culture was a life for some and The Race was bigger than State-Carolina for quite a few.

#OTD (May 18) in 1947, 10,000 saw #FontyFlock win the 1st race held at North Wilkesboro Speedway @Nwilkesboroswy. Dubbed ‘The House That Junior Built,’ the 5/8 Mile Oval Stadium grew to hold 60K by the last NASCAR race there in ‘96 (won by Jeff Gordon). Moonshine Connections Abound. North Wilkesboro and the Roots of NASCAR

 

[donbosco]

On This Day in 1959 "Kansas City" hit Number One on the Pop Charts. It was performed by Wilbert Harrison (1929-1994) of Charlotte. The Video of "Kansas City" sets Harrison up as the coolest of the cool.




Really interesting audience pan at the t 1:26 mark.

“Kansas City”






Harrison's 1969 semi-hit, “Let’s Work Together” (Later released by “Canned Heat” -- There's a good chance that you've heard their version)


His Remarkable Momma’s obit

Article clipped from The Charlotte Observer

 

[donbosco]

Matewan is a coal town in West Virginia where in 1920 workers battled the company for their rights. John Sayles made a film about that struggle. “Matewan Massacre. May 19th, 1920. On the morning of the 19th day of May, 1920, Albert C. Felts, who was connected with the Baldwin-Felts Detectives, Incorporated, and who was also a deputy sheriff of Mingo County, West Virginia, with twelve other men went to Matewan to evict about half a dozen men who were unlawfully holding possession of some houses belonging to the Stone Mountain Coal Corporation. These miners had been repeatedly legally notified to surrender possession of the premises occupied by them, but had refused to do so. Under the direction of Mr. Felts, the household effects of these men were carefully and peaceably removed....” These actions led to the ‘Battle of Blair Mountain,’ “the largest armed labor uprising in U.S. history.” The dynamic of White West Virginian, African Americans from Alabama, and immigrant Italian, miners finding a common foe is accurate.

John Sayles made a film about these events. Just below is the trailer.





Some content on the events: Matewan Massacre (U.S. National Park Service)


Hazel Dickens (RIP) sang in Sayles' film.





"During Matewan"The 1912-13 events at Paint & Cabin Creek are known as the first of the Coal Mine Wars of West Virginia. There was a march of 5,000 miners in 1919. Then the Matewan Massacre in 1920 led to the shooting of Chief Hatfield. The only movie made about this was filmed in 1987 by John Sayles. Finally with the help of Mother Jones and Bill Blizzard, apx. 15,000 armed miners attacked apx. 1,500 Company thugs, State Police, & 2,000 U.S. Military units in the Battle of Blair Mountain. The "RedNeck Army" (named for red cloth around their neck) surrendered when the U.S. Air Force threatened to bomb them.In 2005, the West Virginia Archives and History Commission voted unanimously to recommend to the National Park Service that 1,600 acres of Blair Mountain be included on the National Register.Coal mining companies and nearby landowners promptly sued to overturn the nomination. The Sierra Club moved to join the suit, and in May 2006 a West Virginia judge granted the Club's participation. That same month, the National Trust for Historic Preservation placed the Blair Mountain battlefield on its list of America's 11 Most Endangered Places. The United Mine Workers union also came out in support of the National Register listing because of its importance to the labor movement.

 

[donbosco]

The entire movie is on youtube

 

[mpaer]

I am presently reading The Devil is Here in These Hills, by James Green
It is a rather detailed history of all the slaughter surrounding the Coal strikes in these times Coal company trains with Gatlan Guns mowing down campgrounds of coal miner families...Governor and the POTUS ignoring it at many levels
I am not sure I will finish it........

 

[mpaer]

A few years ago my good buddy from Wva took me Trout "feeshin" on Paint Creek

 

[donbosco]

I am presently reading The Devil is Here in These Hills, by James Green
It is a rather detailed history of all the slaughter surrounding the Coal strikes in these times Coal company trains with Gatlan Guns mowing down campgrounds of coal miner families...Governor and the POTUS ignoring it at many levels
I am not sure I will finish it........

Biplanes Over Blair: Calling in the Air Force for the Mine Wars​

Biplanes Over Blair: Calling in the Air Force for the Mine Wars - expatalachians

A crowd of onlookers in Charleston, West Virginia gazed upward as the first series of black dots appeared on the horizon on September 2, 1921. As the dots crept closer, they became biplanes roaring toward the makeshift air strip in Kanawha City, then a small community on the eastern outskirts of...

expatalachians.com

 

[05C40]

I once worked at a power plant that used the same access road as a coal mining operation (one surface mine and one strip mine.) When the miners went on strike, the strikers set up a picket line on the access road near where it interesected the main road. I would pull up to picket line, roll down the window and say, "I work at the power plant." Then I would be asked, "Are you salary or hourly?" And I would respond, "Salary." Then he would say, "OK, go on through," followed by my first name. This was always with someone who I usually interacted with several times on a weekly basis. Everytime that happened, I thought, well there's five minutes of my life I'm never getting back.

 

[donbosco]

 

[donbosco]

#OTD in 1861 North Carolina became the last state to secede and join the Confederacy. They changed the flag too.



They did not remove the date of secession until 1885.

 

[Patb78]

“Ice cream man he’s a hillbilly fan,
Got 78’s by Hank Snow.” -Jimmy Buffett

 

[donbosco]

Stephens, John "Chicken" Walter​

Date: 1994
By; Trelease, Allen W.

14 Oct. 1834–21 May 1870​

A 2009 photograph of the Caswell County Courthouse, Yanceyville where John Walter Stephens was murdered. Image from Flickr user Natalie Maynor.
John Walter Stephens, Republican state senator from Caswell County assassinated by the Ku Klux Klan, was born near Bruce's Cross-roads, Guilford County, the son of Absalom and Letitia Stephens. As a child he moved to Wentworth and later to Leaksville, Rockingham County, where his father, a tailor, died about 1848. John received only the most rudimentary education and went into the harness-making business in Wentworth. In 1857 he married Nannie E. Walters (or Nancy Waters); she died two years later, leaving an infant daughter. In 1860 he married Martha Frances Groom, of Wentworth, who also gave birth to a daughter. An active Methodist, Stephens was an agent for the American Bible and Tract Society for a year or so. Then he became a tobacco trader, moving to Yorkville (now York), S.C.

When the Civil War broke out, Stephens went to Greensboro and for a time served as a press agent commandeering horses for the Confederate army. He avoided military service until near the end of the war, by which time he had returned to Wentworth and resumed the tobacco trade. Following his army service he got into a quarrel with a neighbor over two of the latter's chickens, which had strayed onto his property. After spending a night in jail for killing the chickens, Stephens retaliated by caning the neighbor and then shooting two by-standers who tried to interfere. Thus originated the slurring political epithet, "Chicken" Stephens, by which Democrats referred to him in later years.

In 1866 Stephens moved to Yanceyville, Caswell County, where he continued in the tobacco business. Subsequently he served as an agent of the Freedmen's Bureau and became an active member of the Union League and the Republican party. In these capacities he associated frequently and freely with local blacks, who outnumbered whites in Caswell, and they accorded him a position of political leadership. As a result he was elected to the state senate in 1868 over Bedford Brown, a former U.S. senator and an elder statesman. Stephens came to be hated by the white community as a racial and political renegade, and no accusations of incendiarism or perfidy were too extravagant to win credence. He was socially ostracized and expelled from the Methodist church. As a result of repeated threats, he insured his life, fortified his house, and took to carrying three pistols on his person.

In truth, Stephens threw his influence on the side of political and racial moderation. He consistently advised blacks against physical retaliation following white terrorist attacks. In May 1870, while observing a Democratic county convention at the courthouse, he was lured to his death by Frank Wiley, a former Democratic sheriff whom Stephens was urging to accept the Republican nomination for reelection. By prearrangement with other waiting Klansmen, Wiley persuaded Stephens to leave the court-room and accompany him downstairs to a small room, where the others quickly overpowered and stabbed him to death, leaving the body on a woodpile to be discovered the next day. The details of the murder were not revealed for sixty-five years, but Klan involvement was suspected from the outset. It was in response to this crime that Governor William W. Holden called out the militia under Colonel George W. Kirk, leading in turn to Holden's impeachment and removal from office by a Democratic legislature.

Stephens, John "Chicken" Walter

www.ncpedia.org

 

[donbosco]

I loved the reruns of Broderick Crawford’s ‘Highway Patrol’ when I was a kid but I didn’t really want to meet him or any of his cohort. I only recollect my Deddy being ‘pulled’ once and he did not receive a citation. I’ve always been convinced that the ‘Amran Temple’ front plate on our Mercury sedan had something to do with that. I, on the other hand, had only just gotten my license when I had my first Smokey encounter. Topping a hill on Old 421 heading back to Bonlee from Siler City one August afternoon in 1974 I met the Trooper. He tracked me at 73 mph. No doubt I was going to exceed that on the crest’s downside. It was the kind of dumbness that tends to envelope a 16 year old boy. I was grounded and the State took its pound of flesh as well as Judge Don Lee Paschal made sure. Deddy made me go to court and stand before the judge where I got a severe ‘talking to’ as well. I’m pretty sure there was some conspiracy there between Deddy and the judge.

We all knew that the Highway Patrol was not something to be trifled with and any encounter spelled trouble. Still does. Little did I truly understand how dangerous a law enforcement stop could be. For a white boy like me, or middle class white folks like my parents, the danger was nigh on to zero, but for young men and women of color the percentage chance of being ‘stopped’ or even simply ‘noticed’ for deadly mayhem skyrocketed.

To be sure, while guns have always been ubiquitous in places like #DeepChatham, the proliferation of ‘easy-to-use’ firearms has raised the hazard level across the board. Everyone, most definitely law enforcement, is on edge - personal Doomsday Clocks for so many are now set at 11:55 pm. Guns have taken a dominant place in society. There is a barbarism afoot that challenges the very meaning of civilization. I’m not saying that violence is new or even historically particularly characteristic of the United States - global narratives of the past and present attest to humanity’s penchant for brutality.

In ‘Democracy in America’ — an 1830s survey of life in this country written by the traveling Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville — he found that all across the land persuasion was a practiced habit. That persuasion was born of an agreement on our national starting point. Today that founding and the thinking around it has become the very seed of our polarization and abandonment of persuasion. That happened once before in the mid-eighteenth century over the definition of the breadth and depth of human-ness — and greed and prejudice drove us into Civil War. Today practically all of the principles once agreed upon at least nominally are contested and persuasion is dead. So-called “originalísim” has doomed us to self-serving prophetic divination in the name of filthy lucre over even the simplest awareness of our common welfare. Public Health literally suffers. And violence grows. And guns and shootings, one-on-one and mass, plague us, one-and-all.

Todays violence calls me back to my youth and the nightly reporting on the war in Vietnam. The reporters were often brought to us mid-firefight and we at home were not spared the carnage. Those stark images helped to end that fool’s errand (note that the public no longer gets that type of story ‘back home’ — thus, war without end). I had hoped that the cell phone’s omnipresent camera might do the same with the violence, especially the kind that has always made the police stop deadly for so many. Perhaps it has - one has to imagine in a world where persuasion no longer has a place just how bad things <could> be. I cast no aspersions on any specific individuals in law enforcement, though doubtless some are deserving, but rather a kleptocracy that has taken on aspects of an idiocracy.

When, 96 years ago, a Highway Patrol was established to guard and police the roads of North Carolina, things weren’t perfect on those byways and backroads and racial and class-based violence was a fact - guns were even abundant though not nearly in models as deadly as today - but some degree of persuasion did seem to be hanging on. Unfortunately the quality that de Tocqueville detected as so fundamental appears to have evaporated in the face of the heat and glare of greed-driven violence.

#OTD (May 20) in 1929, 67 men reported to the 1st State Highway Patrol training camp in #MoreheadCity-27 were chosen-3 each for 9 Districts with 9 Lieutenants commanding each. In July the 36 Troopers, plus statewide chief, Charles Farmer, toured 1028 miles of the state-Beaufort to Asheville to Raleigh to raise support/awareness. https://www.ncdcr.gov/.../highway-patrol-outfitted-in...

 

[donbosco]

‪#OTD (May 23) in 1975 Loretta Mary Aiken aka Moms Mabley, of Brevard #WNC died. Comedic Genius who broke down barriers, tackling race, sex, & gender w/dbl entendres. She visited often and at times, lived in, Asheville. https://www.ncdcr.gov/blog/2017/01/23/moms-mabley-boundary-breaking-comedian-brevard‬

 

[donbosco]

She also had a big hit song…

 

[donbosco]

NC folk finding success in NYC Theater! This is an intriguing story of a young woman from The Tar Heel State who moved to the City and found work for The Theater Guild. #OTD (May 24) in 1923 Moore County, & #Asheville’s, Lula Vollmer’s ‘Sun Up,’ opened on Broadway. She was a graduate of Asheville College, Class of 1918 (not UNCA) —‘ Sun Up’ depicted Appalachia, moonshine, isolation, and suspicion of government. Vollmer is 2nd only to Paul Green among Tar Heel playwrights for NYC productions. Dramatist Lula Vollmer, Acclaimed for “Sun-up” Much more at THIS LINK: LULA VOLLMER’S SUN-UP

 

[05C40]

I loved the reruns of Broderick Crawford’s ‘Highway Patrol’ when I was a kid but I didn’t really want to meet him or any of his cohort. I only recollect my Deddy being ‘pulled’ once and he did not receive a citation. I’ve always been convinced that the ‘Amran Temple’ front plate on our Mercury sedan had something to do with that. I, on the other hand, had only just gotten my license when I had my first Smokey encounter. Topping a hill on Old 421 heading back to Bonlee from Siler City one August afternoon in 1974 I met the Trooper. He tracked me at 73 mph. No doubt I was going to exceed that on the crest’s downside. It was the kind of dumbness that tends to envelope a 16 year old boy. I was grounded and the State took its pound of flesh as well as Judge Don Lee Paschal made sure. Deddy made me go to court and stand before the judge where I got a severe ‘talking to’ as well. I’m pretty sure there was some conspiracy there between Deddy and the judge.

We all knew that the Highway Patrol was not something to be trifled with and any encounter spelled trouble. Still does. Little did I truly understand how dangerous a law enforcement stop could be. For a white boy like me, or middle class white folks like my parents, the danger was nigh on to zero, but for young men and women of color the percentage chance of being ‘stopped’ or even simply ‘noticed’ for deadly mayhem skyrocketed.

To be sure, while guns have always been ubiquitous in places like #DeepChatham, the proliferation of ‘easy-to-use’ firearms has raised the hazard level across the board. Everyone, most definitely law enforcement, is on edge - personal Doomsday Clocks for so many are now set at 11:55 pm. Guns have taken a dominant place in society. There is a barbarism afoot that challenges the very meaning of civilization. I’m not saying that violence is new or even historically particularly characteristic of the United States - global narratives of the past and present attest to humanity’s penchant for brutality.

In ‘Democracy in America’ — an 1830s survey of life in this country written by the traveling Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville — he found that all across the land persuasion was a practiced habit. That persuasion was born of an agreement on our national starting point. Today that founding and the thinking around it has become the very seed of our polarization and abandonment of persuasion. That happened once before in the mid-eighteenth century over the definition of the breadth and depth of human-ness — and greed and prejudice drove us into Civil War. Today practically all of the principles once agreed upon at least nominally are contested and persuasion is dead. So-called “originalísim” has doomed us to self-serving prophetic divination in the name of filthy lucre over even the simplest awareness of our common welfare. Public Health literally suffers. And violence grows. And guns and shootings, one-on-one and mass, plague us, one-and-all.

Todays violence calls me back to my youth and the nightly reporting on the war in Vietnam. The reporters were often brought to us mid-firefight and we at home were not spared the carnage. Those stark images helped to end that fool’s errand (note that the public no longer gets that type of story ‘back home’ — thus, war without end). I had hoped that the cell phone’s omnipresent camera might do the same with the violence, especially the kind that has always made the police stop deadly for so many. Perhaps it has - one has to imagine in a world where persuasion no longer has a place just how bad things <could> be. I cast no aspersions on any specific individuals in law enforcement, though doubtless some are deserving, but rather a kleptocracy that has taken on aspects of an idiocracy.

When, 96 years ago, a Highway Patrol was established to guard and police the roads of North Carolina, things weren’t perfect on those byways and backroads and racial and class-based violence was a fact - guns were even abundant though not nearly in models as deadly as today - but some degree of persuasion did seem to be hanging on. Unfortunately the quality that de Tocqueville detected as so fundamental appears to have evaporated in the face of the heat and glare of greed-driven violence.

#OTD (May 20) in 1929, 67 men reported to the 1st State Highway Patrol training camp in #MoreheadCity-27 were chosen-3 each for 9 Districts with 9 Lieutenants commanding each. In July the 36 Troopers, plus statewide chief, Charles Farmer, toured 1028 miles of the state-Beaufort to Asheville to Raleigh to raise support/awareness. https://www.ncdcr.gov/.../highway-patrol-outfitted-in...

My first speeding ticket was in Kansas. Sometimes while in college I had a short break either just after school ended but before my summer job started or just before school started but after my summer job ended. In these breaks I would call up some relative and ask if I could spend a few days with them. Then I would contact a service in Raleigh that delivered people's cars to them when they moved. There was always one going to near where I wanted to go. All I had to do was pay for half the gas and drop the car off at the owner's house. The owner would reimburse me for his half of the gas. And do the reverse on the way back. When I got the speeding ticket, the trooper made me put fine amount and court costs, in cash, in an envelope and mail it to the courthouse. That night I wrote a letter to the same address admitting I was spending, admitting that I had been lulled into a sense of serenity by the endless beauty of Kansas plains, profusely apologized for my regrettable lapse in attention, and complimenting the state trooper for his professionalism and courtesy. By the time I got back home there was letter waiting for me that contained a check refunding my fine and court costs, in full. I would not advise this tactic for anything more serious than a speeding ticket.