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Siege of Vicksburg: Ordinary Union Soldiers and Generals Grant and Sherman Recount the Struggle
Civil War Memories

Siege of Vicksburg: Ordinary Union Soldiers and Generals Grant and Sherman Recount the Struggle

Bruce Strom 0

General Grant remembers: “The North had become very much discouraged. Many strong Union men believed that the war must prove a failure. The elections of 1862 had gone against the party which was for the prosecution of the war to save the Union if it took the last man and the last dollar. Voluntary enlistments had ceased through the greater part of the North, and the draft had been adopted to fill up the ranks. It was my judgment at the time that to make a backward movement from Vicksburg to Memphis, would be interpreted, by many of those yet full of hope for preservation of the Union, as a defeat, and that the draft would be resisted, desertions ensue, and the power to capture and punish deserters lost. There was nothing left to be done but to go forward to a decisive victory.” […]

Underground Railroad: Henry Box Brown, Who Escaped From Slavery Via Mail Express
Civil War Memories

Underground Railroad: Henry Box Brown, Who Escaped From Slavery Via Mail Express

Bruce Strom 0

How did Henry Box Brown escape from slavery? Simple, in 1849 he “had himself boxed up and forwarded to Philadelphia direct by express.” The box was “made to fit him most comfortably,” it was “two feet eight inches deep, two feet wide, and three feet long.” With him were “one bladder of water and a few small biscuits,” with but one hole for breathing.
After he “entered his box, it was safely nailed up and hooped with five hickory hoops and was addressed” by a friend to William Johnson in Philadelphia marked, “This side up with care.” The box was transported right side up, but for many miles it was transported upside down, which “had him on his head for miles.” This box went from steamboat to wagon to railroad, the delivery time was a little more than a day. […]

NAACP Attorneys Thurgood Marshall and Charles Houston Challenge Jim Crow in the Courts
Civil Rights

NAACP Attorneys Thurgood Marshall and Charles Houston Challenge Jim Crow in the Courts

Bruce Strom 0

Chief Justice Fred Vinson scheduled oral arguments for December 1952, but the justices were hopelessly fractured, Vinson did not want to abandon Plessy. A second round of oral arguments were scheduled for December 1953, but Chief Justice Fred Vinson died of a heart attack in September. After attending his funeral, Justice Felix Frankfurter quipped to a friend, “This is the first indication I have ever had that there is a god.”
President Eisenhower appointed long-time Republican Earl Warren as Chief Justice, he later said this was his life’s “biggest damn fool mistake.” Earl Warren convinced his fellow justices that this needed to be a unanimous decision. Warren said this, summarizing the court’s opinion, “Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other tangible factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does.” […]

Presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson, Civil Rights, Great Society, and Vietnam War
Civil Rights

Presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson, Civil Rights, Great Society, and Vietnam War

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Addressing Congress, LBJ proclaimed: “No memorial or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy’s memory more that the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long.” “We have talked about civil rights for one hundred years or more. It is time now to write the next chapter and write it in the books of law.”
LBJ continued, “Let us put an end to the teaching and the preaching of hate and evil and violence. Let us turn away from the fanatics of the far left and the far right, from the apostles of bitterness and bigotry, from those defiant of law and those who pour venom into our nation’s bloodstream.” […]

Lyndon Baines Johnson, Youth, Schooling, and Rise to Power
Civil Rights

Lyndon Baines Johnson: Youth, Schooling, and Rise to Power

Bruce Strom 2

Lyndon wrote in the school paper: “What you accomplish in life depends almost completely upon what you make yourself do.” “Perfect concentration and a great desire will bring a person success in any field of work he chooses. The very first thing one should do is to train the mind to concentrate upon the essentials and discard the frivolous and unimportant.” […]

Martin Luther King, Summary of Biography by David Levering Lewis
Civil Rights

Martin Luther King, Summary of Biography by David Levering Lewis

Bruce Strom 1

Today we will reflect on the life of Martin Luther King as told by David Levering Lewis in his classic biography. Martin Luther King sincerely sought to follow Mahatma Gandhi’s example by staging nonviolent protests, even when provoked. Many local jurisdictions made protesting illegal, often hundreds of protesters were arrested. […]

Martin Luther King, Bloody Struggles in Mississippi and Selma, Lewis’ Biography
Civil Rights

Martin Luther King, Bloody Struggles in Mississippi and Selma, Lewis’ Biography Chapters 8-9

Bruce Strom 0

After the Selma march, Martin Luther King delivered another rousing speech. “They told us we wouldn’t get here. And there were those who said we would only get her over their dead bodies, but all the world together knows that we are here and that we are standing” in “Alabama saying, ‘Ain’t goin’ let nobody turn us around.’” “Our whole campaign in Alabama has been centered around the right to vote.” “The threat of the free exercise of the ballot by the Negro and white masses alike resulted in establishing a segregated society. They segregated Southern money from the poor whites; they segregated Southern churches from Christianity; they segregated Southern minds from honest thinking, and they segregated the Negro from everything.” […]

Martin Luther King, I Have a Dream Speech, March on Washington DC, Biography
Civil Rights

Martin Luther King, I Have a Dream Speech, March on Washington DC, Biography Chapter 8

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MLK’s I Have a Dream Speech begins: “Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.” […]

Martin Luther King, Birmingham, Nonviolent Protests v Bombs and Brutality
Civil Rights

Martin Luther King, Birmingham, Nonviolent Protests v Bombs and Brutality, Biography Chapter 7

Bruce Strom 2

In September 1963, a black church in Birmingham was dynamited, killing four young girls and injuring several dozen others. Addressing the nation on television, President Kennedy proclaimed, “This nation is committed to a course of domestic justice and tranquility.” “If these cruel and tragic events can awaken that city and state, if they can awaken this entire nation,” “then it is not too late for all concerned to unite in steps toward peaceful progress before more lives are lost.” But no whites attended the funeral services of these four young black girls. […]