Lucy Stone James Meredith
August 13, 1818. Lucy Stone was born in West Brookfield, MA. Stone became a prominent American abolitionist and leader in suffragist and other women’s rights movements in the 19th century. Stone was the first recorded American woman to retain her own last name after marriage. Stone advocated married women’s access to property rights and to divorce. In 1866 Stone helped found the American Equal Rights Association (AERA), a union of woman’s rights and abolition supporters. When AERA refused to support constitutional changes that did not at the same time enfranchise women, Stone, her husband Henry B. Blackwell, Julia Ward Howe and others founded the rival American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). AWSA was dedicated to achieving women’s suffrage, especially through state-level legislation, while refusing to undermine achievements in African-American civil rights. A biography of Stone is available at: www.anb.org/articles/15/15-00663.html
August 14, 1935. The Social Security Act (H.R. 7260, Public Law No. 271, 74th Congress) became effective when President Franklin Roosevelt signed the bill into law, creating a government pension system for the retired. Unfortunately, due to the Act’s restrictive definition of employment, most women and minorities were excluded from the benefits of unemployment insurance and old age pensions.
August 15, 1917. Archbishop Oscar Romero was born in Ciudad Barrios, a town in the mountainous east of El Salvador. In February 1977, Oscar Romero became archbishop of San Salvador. Traditionally, the church had been complicit in the aims of the state and military to privilege the wealthy and powerful while the majority of the population remained in abject poverty. Romero spoke out against poverty, social injustice, assassinations and torture. Romero criticized the United States for giving aid to the military junta government and wrote to President Jimmy Carter in February 1980, warning that increased US military aid would "undoubtedly sharpen the injustice and the repression inflicted on the organized people, whose struggle has often been for their most basic human rights.” Carter, concerned that El Salvador would become "another Nicaragua" ignored Romero’s pleas and continued military aid to the Salvadoran government. On March 24, 1980, while celebrating the Eucharist, Archbishop Romero was shot and killed at the altar by a death squad assassin. Shortly before he was murdered, Romero said: "It is my hope that my blood will be the seed of freedom and the sign that hope will soon be reality."
August 18, 1963. James Meredith becomes the first black person to graduate from the University of Mississippi. In 1961 Meredith applied to the University of Mississippi and was rejected on racial grounds. The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) brought a suit in federal courts, which eventually granted Meredith the right to enroll. When he arrived he was turned away by the university authorities and by the governor of Mississippi. The administration relented in the face of an injunction for contempt, but a white mob stopped Meredith from entering the university. After a riot in which two people were killed and 375 were wounded, President Kennedy sent 3,000 troops to restore order and allow Mr. Meredith to register as a student. In June 1966 Meredith organized and led the March Against Fear from Memphis, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi to encourage blacks to register and vote after passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. After entering Mississippi, Meredith was shot and wounded but he rejoined the march before it reached Jackson. During the march, 4,000 black Mississippians registered to vote. See http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/special/mlk/king/photogalleries/66-68/02.html for the Pulitzer Prize winning photo of the injured Meredith. Meredith attended law school at Columbia University and earned an LL.B (law degree) in 1968. Meredith’s autobiography ‘Three Years in Mississippi’ is available at www.jamesmeredithbooks.com/books_ThreeYears.cfm
Archbishop Romero
