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Juneteenth
On
June 19, 1964, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was approved
after surviving an 83-day filibuster in the United States
Senate. (NY Times/AP headlines)
Roy
Wilkins/Arlington National Cemetery/June 19, 1963:
Medgar Evers believed in his country. It now remains to
be seen whether his country believes in him.
On this date in
1862, slavery was outlawed in the Territory of Nevada and
other U.S. territories (see below); in 1865, three years
after Lincoln issued the legally invalid Emancipation
Proclamation, African Americans in Texas were told, incorrectly,
that the proclamation had freed the slaves, the day becoming
known among blacks as Juneteenth; in 1865,
the first of several meetings called to organize to support
"equal rights before the Law to all the Colored Citizens
of the State of Nevada" was held in Virginia City;
in 1963, assassinated civil rights leader Medgar
Evers was buried in Arlington National Cemetery; in
1964, after they voted for the cloture motion that ended
the filibuster against the 1964 civil rights bill and
guaranteed its approval, senators Edward Kennedy
and Birch Bayh with Marvella Bayh and Kennedy
aide Edward Moss took a small private plane from
D.C. to West Springfield, Massachusetts, for the Massachusetts
Democratic Convention and the plane crashed enroute, killing
pilot Ed Zinny and Moss and breaking Kennedy's back
(the Bayhs got him out of the plane in case it caught fire
and then went for help); in 1967, Jack Edward Cossins
of Henderson, Nevada, died in Gia Dinh Province, Vietnam
(panel 22e/row 0100 of the Vietnam wall); in 1970, Pvt.
Mark Crouse of Yerington, Nevada, was wounded in action
in Cambodia with a foot injury and shrapnel in the back
and arm; in 2004, a marker was dedicated in Virginia
City commemorating African Americans on the Comstock near
the site of the Boston Saloon, an African American owned
business of the 1860s that was the subject of a 1999 dig
by archeologist Kelly Dixon.
CHAP.
CXI. An Act to secure Freedom to all Persons within the
Territories of the United States.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives
of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That
from and after the passage of this act there shall be neither
slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the Territories
of the United States now existing, or which may at any time
hereafter be formed or acquired by the United States, otherwise
than in punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have
been duly convicted. APPROVED, June 19, 1862.
Courtesy
of longtime Nevada reporter Dennis Myers' daily almanac.
Copyright © 2009 Dennis Myers
Used by permission.
All rights reserved.
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Commemorating
the beginning of our second century
Dropout
numbers troubling
According
to a data profile compiled by the Washoe County School District, in
2006 the African-American graduation rate nearly reached 50 percent.
By last year it had dropped to a third.
Reno News & Review/ 6-11-2009
Reno-Sparks
NAACP Branch No. 1112 hosted a press conference and reception commemorating
the centennial of the national organization's founding on Feb. 12,
1909. The event took place on Thursday, Feb. 12, 2009, at the Second
Baptist Church, Montello and Carville in Reno.
President
Lonnie Feemster's 2009 State of the Branch Report
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