Events - Month View

#OnThisDay, President Ulysses S. Grant, signed the Civil Rights Act (CRA) of 1875. The CRA was enacted during the Reconstruction era in response to civil rights violations against African Americans. The act provided for equal treatment in public accommodations and transportation. It also outlawing race-based discrimination in jury service.

Over the ensuing years, African Americans began suing businesses that denied them access to segregated facilities. On Oct 15, 1883, the Supreme Court of the US (SCOTUS) heard a group of five cases (known as the Civil Rights Cases), and in an 8-1 decision, struck down the CRA of 1875 as unconstitutional.
Timeline:

-- 1866 Johnson vetos CRA of 1866, but veto is overridden by Congress (define citizenship and guaranteed citizens equal protection)

-- 1875 Grant signs CRA of 1875 (guaranteed African Americans equal treatment in public accommodations, public transportation, and prohibited their exclusion from jury service)

-- 1883 SCOTUS rules 7-1 that CRA of 1875 is unconstitutional

-- 1957 Eisenhower signs CRA of 1957 (forms the Civil Rights Commission)

-- 1960 Eisenhower signs CRA of 1960 (guaranteed qualified voters the right to register to vote

-- 1964 Johnson signs CRA of 1964 (prohibited discrimination in public accommodations and employment)

-- 1968 Johnson signs CRA of 1968 (guaranteed equal housing opportunities)

-- 1991 Bush signs the CRA of 1991 (expanded the rights of women and disabled persons)


Resource:
-- US House of Rep: https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1851-1900/The-Civil-Rights-Act-of-1875
-- Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/civil-rights-act/legal-events-timeline.html
-- Grant‘s Memoirs: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4367/4367-h/4367-h.htm

Women‘s History Month celebrates the everyday contributions of women across the world to events in history and contemporary society. It is celebrated during March in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, in connection with International Women‘s Day on March 8th. Women‘s History Month traces its origins to the United States, where it was first designated in 1987. Since then the tradition has spread to other countries around the world.

The "Woman Suffrage Procession" was the first suffragist parade in Washington, DC. Organized by the suffragist Alice Paul for the National American Woman Suffrage Association, it saw thousands of suffragists marching down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC on Monday, March 3, 1913. Presaging the circumstances surrounding the 2017 Women‘s March just over 100 years later, the 1913 event was scheduled on the day before President Woodrow Wilson‘s inauguration to "march in a spirit of protest against the present political organization of society, from which women are excluded," as the official program stated. While studying in England, Paul had heard the British suffragist Christabel Pankhurst speak and joined the Women‘s Social and Political Union, being jailed a number of times in the process. She returned to the US in 1910 and continued to campaign for women‘s rights leading to the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.

Advocate of women‘s rights.
In February 1912 Brackenridge was elected president of the newly organized San Antonio Equal Franchise Society. The formation of this society stimulated interest throughout the state, and delegates from seven Texas cities met in San Antonio and organized the Texas Woman Suffrage Association in April 1913. Eleanor Brackenridge held the office of president for one year and then became honorary president.
https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fbr04

March 7, 1965: In the Selma to Montgomery March, around 600 civil rights marchers walk to Selma, Alabama to Montgomery—the state’s capital—in protest of black voter suppression. Local police block and brutally attack them. After successfully fighting in court for their right to march, Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders lead two more marches and finally reach Montgomery on March 25.

Join us in commemorating the birthday of Anna Murray Douglass born in 1813. Anna was the wife of Frederick Douglas, but more than that, she was a participant in the activities necessary to ensure voting rights for all Americans.

Learn more:
-- @SmithsonianMagazine: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/hidden-history-anna-murray-douglass-180968324/
-- @USAToday:https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/07/06/frederick-douglass-first-wife-anna-murray-made-his-work-possible/5382922002/
-- @librarycongress: https://www.loc.gov/item/mfd.02007/

International Women‘s Day traces its origins to the women‘s rights movement of the early 20th century, having been first proposed by German campaigner Clara Zetkin at an international conference in Copenhagen. The day is a celebration of the social, economic, political and cultural achievements of women worldwide. The annual campaign calls for gender parity and raises funds to support initiatives towards this goal.

Harriet Tubman (1822-1913) was never far from the struggle for equal rights and human liberation throughout her long life, from the work on the Underground Railroad for which she is famous, to her later years as an activist in the women‘s suffrage movement in the early 20th century. Born into slavery in Dorchester County, Maryland, Tubman escaped to Philadelphia in 1849 before immediately returning to rescue her family. Tubman would make some 13 return trips to the South to liberate family, friends, and relatives - at great personal risk to herself - guiding them to freedom in the northern United States and British North America (present-day Canada) using a clandestine network of anti-slavery activists and safe houses to facilitate the journey. Tubman later helped the abolitionist John Brown recruit troops for his 1859 raid on Harper‘s Ferry, and helped lead multiple attacks on Confederate plantations and infrastructure during the Civil War. Toward the end of her life, Tubman joined the campaign for women‘s suffrage. With the struggle against slavery still in living memory, Tubman moved audiences around the country with tales of her heroic actions before and after the Civil War, offering these sacrifices as evidence and living proof that women deserved the same rights as men.

#OnThisDay in 1918, the Texas House (during the 36 legislative sessions) passed HB-105 by a vote of 83-34. The bill granted women the right to vote in (white) Texas Primaries.

The bill was passed by the Texas Senate on March 21, 1918 by a vote of 18-4.
Governor William P. Hobby signed the bill into law on March 26, 1918.

Learn more:
-- https://lrl.texas.gov/whatsNew/client/index.cfm/2018/3/20/Votes-for-Women-The-100th-Anniversary-of-Texas-Womens-Suffrage

Bayard Rustin (1912-1987) was an American civil rights activist who worked as an influential organizer and behind-the-scenes adviser to many causes throughout the civil rights era. Rustin began his organizing career working alongside fellow activist A. Philip Randolph on the March on Washington Movement in the early 1940s, which campaigned for the desegregation of the US armed forces. Rustin later played a central organizing role in other key civil rights actions such as the Freedom Rides and the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where Martin Luther King - whom Rustin had schooled on methods of non-violence and helped elevate to his leadership position in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference - gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. Rustin continued his career as an activist following the passage of civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s, promoting the unionization of African American workers and working internationally to aid war refugees from Vietnam and Cambodia while raising awareness to the ongoing plight of Jews living in the Soviet Union. A gay man who chose to play a supporting role in the Civil Rights Movement due to public criticisms of his homosexuality, Rustin spent his final years working on behalf of LGBT causes during the 1980s.

Join us in commemorating the birthday of Minnie Fisher Cunningham born in 1882. Minnie was the first Executive Secretary of the League of Women Voters. The Texas native was also the first female pharmacy student at the University of Texas and the first woman to run for the Texas Senate. Members of the Minnie Fisher Cunningham Society continue empowering voters and defending democracy into the future by naming the League in their wills for a bequest.

Learn More:

-- LWV: https://my.lwv.org/texas/leave-legacy-minnie-fisher-cunningham-society

-- Suffrage Petition: https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/tx-woman-suffrage-petition

--TSHA: https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/cunningham-minnie-fisher

-- PBS: https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/shows/2015/12/19/43918/texas-originals-minnie-fisher-cunningham/

#OnThisDay in 1918, the Texas Senate (during the 36 legislative sessions) passed HB-105 by a vote of 18-4. The bill granted women the right to vote in (white) Texas Primaries.

The bill was firsts passed in the TX House on March 15, 1918 by a vote of 84-34.
Governor William P. Hobby signed the bill into law on March 26, 1918.

Learn more:
-- https://lrl.texas.gov/whatsNew/client/index.cfm/2018/3/20/Votes-for-Women-The-100th-Anniversary-of-Texas-Womens-Suffrage

The 21st of March is the anniversary of events in 1960 when police opened fire and killed 69 people at a peaceful demonstration against apartheid laws in Sharpeville, South Africa. The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed an annual observation of the day in 1966.

"We must all work harder to repair the fissures and polarization that are so prevalent in our societies today. We must nurture mutual understanding and invest in making diversity a success. And we must counter and reject political figures who exploit differences for electoral gain." — UN Secretary-General António Guterres”

Learn more:

-- About End Racial Discrimination Day: https://www.un.org/en/observances/end-racism-day

-- History of the League and the UN: https://www.lwv.org/sites/default/files/The%2520League%2520and%2520the%2520United%2520Nations.pdf

-- Role of the UN Observer: https://www.lwv.org/sites/default/files/2019-12/LWVUS%20United%20Nations%20Observer%20Role.pdf

-- Contact the UN Observers at unobserver@lwv.org.


Also World Poetry Day: https://www.un.org/en/events/poetryday/

#OnThisDay in 1972, Congress passed the ERA, but it remains 1 state short of ratification.

#OnThis day in 1971, the 26th Amendment was passed by Congress. This amendment was enacted in response to Vietnam War protests, which argued that soldiers who were old enough to fight for their country should be granted the right to vote.‘

The amendment was passed by Congress (proposed to the states) on March 23, 1971, and ratified on July 1, 1971.

Resources:
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/amendments-11-27