"The web of our lives is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together." - William Shakespeare

Happy President's Day! A day where everything closes except sales and schools . . . and most other working places, but forget about going to the post office or the bank, you'll have to wait for tomorrow for that. Anyway, from MSN, 20 Things You Didn't Know About US Presidents, check it out, some of the facts are amusing. Wow, President's Day and a rather weird/odd one for me (read one post below). But anyway, are you ready to learn? **Update: shiny has some history about President's, or should it be Presidents', Day. Go read for yourself . . . and btw, MindSay is bring a punk about letting me add this update which ends . . . now**

Here we GO!

 

Black History Part 21: TImeline (cont'd)

1960       Feb. 1 (Greensboro, N.C.) Four black students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College begin a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter. Although they are refused service, they are allowed to stay at the counter. The event triggers many similar nonviolent protests throughout the South. Six months later the original four protesters are served lunch at the same Woolworth's counter. Student sit-ins would be effective throughout the Deep South in integrating parks, swimming pools, theaters, libraries, and other public facilities.

April (Raleigh, N.C.) The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is founded at Shaw University, providing young blacks with a place in the civil rights movement. The SNCC later grows into a more radical organization, especially under the leadership of Stokely Carmichael (1966–1967).

1961       May 4 The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) begins sending student volunteers on bus trips to test the implementation of new laws prohibiting segregation in interstate travel facilities. One of the first two groups of "freedom riders," as they are called, encounters its first problem two weeks later, when a mob in Alabama sets the riders' bus on fire. The program continues, and by the end of the summer 1,000 volunteers, black and white, have participated.

Oct. 1 James Meredith becomes the first black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi. Violence and riots surrounding the incident cause President Kennedy to send 5,000 federal troops.

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African-American Quote: (Muhammad Ali is a very interesting man.)

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African-American of Importance:

George Washington Carver

educator, scientist
Born: 1864
Birthplace: Diamond Grove, Mo.

After a university in Kansas refused to admit him because he was African American, George Washington Carver attended Simpson College before transferring to Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts (now Iowa State University), from which he earned a B.S. degree in agricultural science, and an M.S. degree in 1896. Carver's fame is closely associated with Tuskegee University (then Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute), of which he became the director of agricultural research in 1896, and where he remained until his death in 1943. Carver revolutionized southern agriculture by introducing peanut, soybean, and sweet potato production to replenish nitrogen in the soil, which had been largely depleted by cotton growth. When southern farmers grew peanuts and soybeans and found a limited market for them, Carver set to work developing commercial applications for them, creating more than 300 peanut-based products, including milk, cheese, flour, ink, dyes, wood stains, soap, and cosmetics. In addition he developed 118 sweet potato-based products, including vinegar, molasses, rubber, ink, and postage stamp glue. Shortly before his death in 1940, Carver donated his entire savings to Tuskegee to found the Carver Research Foundation, for research in agriculture.

Died: 1/5/1943
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And now, a President:

William Howard Taft

Born: 9/15/1857
Birthplace: Cincinnati, Ohio

William Howard Taft was born in Cincinnati on Sept. 15, 1857. A Yale graduate, he entered Ohio Republican politics in the 1880s. In 1886 he married Helen Herron. From 1887 to 1890, he served on the Ohio Superior Court; 1890–92, as solicitor general of the United States; 1892–1900, on the federal circuit court. In 1900 McKinley appointed him president of the Philippine Commission and in 1901 governor general. Taft had great success in pacifying the Filipinos, solving the problem of the church lands, improving economic conditions, and establishing limited self-government. His period as secretary of war (1904–08) further demonstrated his capacity as administrator and conciliator, and he was Roosevelt's hand-picked successor in 1908. In the election, he polled 321 electoral votes to 162 for William Jennings Bryan, who was running for the presidency for the third time.

Though he carried on many of Roosevelt's policies, Taft got into increasing trouble with the progressive wing of the party and displayed mounting irritability and indecision. After his defeat in 1912, he became professor of constitutional law at Yale. In 1921 he was appointed chief justice of the United States Supreme Court. He died in Washington, DC, on March 8, 1930.

See also Encyclopedia: William Howard Taft.

Died: 3/8/1930
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And that's the lesson for the day. Have a great President's Day!