August 14, 1910

Jefferson, Alabama

Church/Religious-Activity, Temperance Movement, Prohibition, african americans, Race Relations

A flyer stating “Colored Citizens Mass Meeting” describes the movement of African-American pastors to change the view of the “Negro Race.”. The flyer describes the place and time that congregations would meet and the objectives of the meeting. The meeting was called in an attempt to “protest against colored women visiting barrooms and barroom premises [and] also against children visiting...

October 26, 1921

Jefferson, Alabama

Race Relations, african americans

On October 26, 1921 President Warren G. Harding visited Birmingham, Alabama.  The Magic City was celebrating its semi centennial - fifty years of being a city in the New South. It was a city without a typical Southern past.  Founded in 1871, Birmingham was a model city at this time – railroads, blast furnaces and steel mills marked its landscape.  It was a bustling industrial giant; and, it was...

January 1, 1900 to January 1, 1919

Montgomery, Alabama

Prohibition, Race Relations, Temperance Movement, african americans

In the early decades of the 20th century the Alabama Anti-Saloon League published a brief flyer outlining the group’s proposals. The flyer is titled “The Alabama Anti-Saloon League” and outlines four goals: “First- To federate the Churches, Sunday Schools, Temperance Societies and other moral forces of the State in a conservative, persistent, and determined movement against the saloon; “Second-...

February 14, 1885

SHELBY, Tennessee

african americans, circumstantial evidence, courts

In early 1885 an African American named McKeever went hunting in Memphis, Tennessee, in the same location as a white hunter who was later found dead.  Based on extremely circumstantial evidence, McKeever was put on trial for first degree murder in February 1885.  The jury deliberated for two days before they decided to convict McKeever. The circumstantial evidence that the jury considered and based...

January 31, 1865

Washington City, District of Columbia

Education for blacks, Abolition, Law, Slavery, african americans

While most northern newspapers were printing articles celebrating the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, the Daily National Intelligencer published a sobering editorial that focused on the challenges still facing the nation.  This editorial, printed on February 1, 1865 in response to the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment by Congress, recognized the great accomplishment but also pointed out that...

January 27, 1856 to January 28, 1856

HAMILTON, Ohio

Law, Women, Slavery, african americans

Deemed “a tale of horror” by The Cincinnati Enquirer, Margaret Garner, a fugitive slave, took the life of her child in order to save her from a life of slavery.  This is the story that Cincinnati woke up to on the morning of January 29, 1856.  Two nights earlier, sixteen slaves had escaped from Kentucky into Ohio, eight of whom included Garner and her family.  According to The Cincinnati Enquirer,...

1967

Jefferson, Alabama

Labor Unions, Race Relations, Civil Rights, african americans

“The union wasn’t right by us,” was how James Manley summed up his experiences as an African American union member during an interview conducted by the Sloss Furnace Association. In 1984 Manley sat down in an interview with the goal of recording his thoughts on his career at Sloss Furnaces, a pig-iron producing blast furnace in Birmingham, Alabama. Manley spoke of being laid off in 1967 for no...

October 19, 1932

Montgomery, Alabama

Race Relations, Government, Crime/Violence, african americans

The Communist Party was infiltrating Birmingham, Alabama and the National Guard was beginning to worry. On October 19, 1932, Second Lieutenant Ralph Hurst wrote to his commanding officer Brigadier General J.C. Parsons about the “Communist Agitation” in Birmingham. The International Labor Defense had recently moved its Southern headquarters to Birmingham and there had been trouble ever since. According...

January, 1864 to 1864

FRANKLIN, Tennessee

Race Relations, african americans, Civil War, Slavery

In the midst of the Civil War, one woman remained behind the scenes of the battlefield documenting the war and experiencing the fighting first hand.  Belle Edmondson kept a diary from January to November of 1864 in which she detailed occurrences in West Tennessee such as the Union and Confederate battles, tragic accidents of friends, visitations by friends and family, travel to various southern cities,...

1865 to 1877

LEXINGTON, South Carolina

Emancipation, african americans

James Johnson, a 79 year old ex-slave from Columbia, South Carolina, stated in his narrative that he “[felt] and [knew] dat de years after de war was worser than befo’”.  The Emancipation Proclamation and the Union’s victory in the war secured the freedom of slaves, but with a society plagued by Jim Crow Laws and segregation, ex-slaves were far from liberated. Slaves paid the price for their...