MARCH 20 –1852 Stowe publishes Uncle Tom’s Cabin; 1965 LBJ warns Governor Wallace; 1854 Republican Party founded; 2017 David Rockefeller, world’s oldest billionaire, dies
MARCH 20
MAR 20 2017 – RIP David Rockefeller Sr, world’s oldest billionaire, age 101. Chairman and CEO of Chase Manhattan, or “David’s Bank” as it was called during the 1970s The last surviving grandchild of Standard Oil founder John D. Rockefeller. And what a diplomat he was! Back in 1979, David Rockefeller and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger convinced President Carter to allow the recently deposed shah of Iran into the the U.S. to treat his cancer which led to the Iran Hostage Crisis. He had two brothers in politics, Nelson Rockefeller, governor of New York and vice president for a brief period, and Winthrop Rockefeller who was governor of Arkansas. At the time of his death in March 2017, David was worth 3.3B.
1852-HARRIET Beecher Stow’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is published. The anti-slavery book sold 300,000 in its first three month of release. It was so popular that when Harriet met President Abraham Lincoln in 1862 at the start of the Civil War he said to her, so this is the little lady that started this great war. Stow, who was a teacher at the Hartford Female Seminary as well as an active abolitionist, featured the character of Uncle Tom, a long suffering lack slave around whom the stories of other characters revolve. The sentimental novel depicts the reality of slavery while also asserting that Christian love can overcome something as destructive as enslavement of fellow human beings.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the second best selling book of the entire 19th century, second only to the Bible. It has been credited with helping fuel the abolitionist cause in the 1860s. One million copies were sold in Great Britain, by the way. According to Ernest Everon in “Some thoughts AnentDickens and Novel Writing” rom the Ladies Companion and Monthly Magazine in London 1855 called Uncle Tom’s Cabin the most popoular novel of our day. More than 100 years later…
1965 Landslide Lyndon
Good ol LBJ told the Governor of Alabama Geroge Wallace to expect a not so nice visit from the Alabama National Guard so there can be a peaceful civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery. The black community just wanted to be able to vote like white people. On march 7 1965, a group of 600 protesters marched on the capital city of Montgomery to demand their civil liberties and protest the earlier killing of a black man Jimmie Lee Jackson, by a state trooper. The marchers were brutally attacked by local law enforcement using billy clubs and tear gas. This was being broadcast to the nation and America was outraged. Martin Luther King Jr organized another march two days later, and was given judicial approval to carry it out on March 18. But Governor Wallace, a known anti-integrationist, didn’t want to spend any state funds on protecting the demonstrations, and in fact told President Johnson to send federal troops instead of the Alabama National Guard.
This enraged Light Bulb Lyndon, so he called on the federal and state troops, to ensure the safety of 50,000 marchers through a 54 mile trek to the capital building where King gave his How Long Not Long speech. The clash between President Johnson and Governor Wilson is noted as being a turning point in the civil rights era, and five months later Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, which Johnson proudly signed into law on August 6, 1965.
1854-Republican Party founded.
The northern states founded this party by anti-slavery activists, modernizers, ex-Whigs, and ex-Free Soilers. It quickly became the main opposition partyh to the dominant Democratic Party and the semi popular Know Nothing Partty. What fueled the organization of the party mainly was the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise by which slavery was kept out of Kansas. The Northern Replublicans saw the expansion of slavery as a great evil. The first public meeting where the name Republican was suggested for a new anti-slavery party was held on this day in 1854 in a schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin. The name was partyly chosen to pay tribute to Thomas Jefferson’s Republican Party.
MUSIC NEWS:
1982-I Love Rock N Roll became the number one song on the pop charts. From Philadelphia came Joan Marie Larkin, better known to us as Joan Jett with her band The Blackhearts. That mean bitch made Pat Benetar look like Little Red Riding Hood.