All Posts Tagged With: "civil rights"
Doc of the Day: Executive Order 10730
On September 24, 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued Executive Order 10730, thereby sending federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, where unruly crowds had prevented the desegregation of all-white Central High School. Not since the period of Reconstruction after the Civil War had federal troops gone to the South to maintain law and order. Many [...]
24Sep2008 | mdblogger | 0 comments | Continued
Chester Pach on Eisenhower and the Little Rock school crisis
Sometimes presidents take actions that surprise just about everybody, including themselves, and a good example is President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s decision fifty-one years ago to issue Executive Order 10730. Within hours after Eisenhower approved this document on September 24, 1957, U.S. Army troops arrived in Little Rock, Arkansas, to stop the violence that had prevented [...]
23Sep2008 | mdblogger | 1 comment | Continued
Doc of the Day: Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Exposition address
On September 18, 1895, Booker T. Washington delivered his Atlanta Exposition address during the opening ceremonies of the Cotton States and International Exposition. The address, which ran a little over ten minutes, propelled the previously unknown principal of Tuskegee Institute, a small black college in rural Alabama, into the national spotlight. By almost any measure, [...]
18Sep2008 | mdblogger | 0 comments | Continued
Doc of the Day: Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech
On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech in front of some 250,000 people at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Delegations of civil rights supporters from cities across the United States joined together for this massive one-day protest. They had been summoned by the veteran [...]
28Aug2008 | mdblogger | 2 comments | Continued
Joan E. Cashin on LBJ and race
In August we observe the anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965. The bill, one of the greatest achievements of LBJ’s term, is celebrated for making the suffrage a reality for millions of black voters.
Many people were surprised that Johnson turned out to be so progressive on the issue [...]
Charles L. Zelden on the Voting Rights Act of 1965
August 6 is the 43rd anniversary of the signing into law of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Designed to combat race-based (and as later amended, ethnic-based) discrimination in voting, the act has proven to be one of the most successful pieces of civil rights legislation ever adopted. In fact, one can argue that the [...]
6Aug2008 | mdblogger | 0 comments | Continued
Doc of the Day: Voting Rights Act of 1965
On August 6, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law. The act employed various measures and procedures to restore suffrage to excluded minority voters in the South and later in the nation as a whole. In doing this, the Voting Rights Act permitted, and even required, the federal government to [...]
6Aug2008 | mdblogger | 0 comments | Continued
Scott A.G.M. Crawford on Eisenhower and Civil Rights
In the article I wrote about Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell address for Milestone Documents in American History, I made the observation that Eisenhower’s presidency saw “very limited progress with respect to civil rights.” A cautionary tale: this comment needs revisiting. Last Christmas I visited Little Rock, Arkansas, and was exposed to the saga of what [...]
28Jul2008 | mdblogger | 0 comments | Continued
Doc of the Day: Executive Order 9981
On July 26, 1948, President Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9981. The purpose of the order was twofold. One purpose was to declare that it would be the policy of the United States to provide equality of opportunity for members of the armed forces without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin. In this [...]
26Jul2008 | mdblogger | 0 comments | Continued
Doc of the Day: July 11
On July 11, 1905, the Niagara Movement was inaugurated. On that day, twenty-nine African Americans, including W. E. B. Du Bois, met in Fort Erie, Ontario, for three days to organize the Niagara Movement. Their Declaration of Principles outlined a new civil rights agenda. The gathering in Fort Erie pointedly excluded the most prominent African [...]
11Jul2008 | mdblogger | 0 comments | Continued