On This Day – “High Court Rules Abortions Legal the First 3 Months”

On Jan. 22, 1973, the Supreme Court overruled all state laws that prohibited or restricted a woman’s right to obtain an abortion during her first three months of pregnancy. The vote was 7 to 2.

In a historic resolution of a fiercely controversial issue, the Court drafted a new set of national guidelines that would result in broadly liberalized anti-abortion laws in 46 states but would not abolish restrictions altogether.

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On This Day – “Obama Elected President as Racial Barrier Falls “

On November 4, 2008, Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States, sweeping away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease as the country chose him as it’s first black chief executive.

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On This Day – “25,000 Go to Alabama’s Capitol”

On March 25, 1965, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led 25,000 marchers to the state capitol in Montgomery, Ala., to protest the denial of voting rights to blacks.

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On This Day – “Decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott Case”

On March 6, 1857, in its Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court held that Scott, a slave, could not sue for his freedom in a federal court.

The opinion of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott Case was delivered by Chief Justice Taney. It was a full and elaborate statement of the views of the Court. They have decided the following important points:

First – Negroes, whether slaves or free, that is, men of the African race, are not citizens of the United States by the Constitution.

Second – The Ordinance of 1787 had no independent constitutional force or legal effect subsequently to the adoption of the Constitution, and could not operate of itself to confer freedom or citizenship within the Northwest Territory on negroes not citizens by the Constitution.

Third – The provisions of the Act of 1820, commonly called the Missouri Compromise, in so far as it undertook to exclude negro slavery from, and communicate freedom and citizenship to, negroes in the northern part of the Louisiana cession, was a Legislative act exceeding the powers of Congress, and void, and of no legal effect to that end.

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New York Times Front Page – “Obama’s Night”

The New York edition of today’s New York Times announcing President Barack Obama’s re-election.

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On This Day – “Abraham Lincoln Probably Elected President by a Majority of the Entire Popular Vote”

On Nov. 6, 1860, former Illinois congressman Abraham Lincoln defeated three other candidates for the U.S. presidency.
“The election, so far as the City and State of New-York are concerned, will probably stand, hereafter as one of the most remarkable in the political contests of the country; marked, as it is, by far the heaviest popular vote ever cast in the City, and by the sweeping, and almost uniform, Republican majorities in the country.”

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On This Day – “Obama Elected President as Racial Barrier Falls “

On Nov. 4, 2008, Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States, as the country chose him as it’s first black chief executive.

Mr. Obama, 47, a first-term senator from Illinois, defeated Senator John McCain of Arizona, 72, a former prisoner of war who was making his second bid for the presidency.

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On This Day – “2 Black Power Advocates Ousted From Olympics”

On Oct. 18, 1968, the United States Olympic Committee suspended two black athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, for giving a “black power” salute as a protest during a victory ceremony in Mexico City.

“The two Negro sprinters were told by Douglas F. Roby, the president of the committee, that they must leave the Olympic Village. Their credentials also were taken away, which made it mandatory for them to leave Mexico within 48 hours.”(Source)

On This Day – Martin Luther King Wins Nobel Prize For Peace

On Oct. 14, 1964, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

“The 35-year-old civil rights leader is the youngest winner of the prize that Dr. Alfred Nobel instituted since the first was awarded in 1901.

The prize honors acts ‘for the furtherance of brotherhood among men and to the abolishment or reduction of standing armies and for the extension of these purposes.’

Dr. King said that “every penny” of the prize money, which amounts to about $54,000, would be given to the civil rights movement.”

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On This Day – Che Guevara Killed

On Oct. 9, 1967, Ernesto Che Guevara, the Latin American revolutionary leader, was killed in a clash between guerrillas and Bolivian troops in southeastern Bolivia while attempting to incite revolution.
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On This Day – Thurgood Marshall Became First Negro To Sit On The High Court

On Oct. 2, 1967, Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, becoming the first black to serve on the high court.

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On This Day – “All Slaves in States in Rebellion on the First of January Next to be Free”

On Sept. 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all slaves in rebel states should be free as of Jan. 1, 1863.

That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all person held as slaves within any State, or any designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever, free;

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