"IN SELMA, IT SEEMS LIKE EVERYTHING & NOTHING HAS CHANGED"

VIOLENCE IN SELMA LEADS TO VOTING RIGHTS ACT

Selma, Alabama (JFK+50) On March 7, 1965, 600 marchers demonstrating for voting rights were brutally attacked with clubs and tear gas by state and local police here in Selma.  After crossing Edmund Pettus* Bridge, the group, led by John Lewis of SNCC and Rev. Hosea Williams of SCLC were confronted by authorities.

17 marchers were injured and  hospitalized.  Leaders of the march said that despite the attacks, more marches would follow.  Of the 15,000 blacks in Dallas County** only 130 were registered to vote.  Bloody Sunday was a key event leading to passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

On February 11, 2015, the House of Representatives passed a resolution awarding the Congressional Gold Medal "to the foot soldiers of the 1965 voting rights movement in Selma."  Ari Berman writes that in Selma, civil rights history is everywhere.  Its streets are named after civil rights activists.

*Edmund Pettus was a general in the Confederate army & leader of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan.

**In 2014, Dallas County (80% African-American) was the poorest county in the state of Alabama.  More than 40% of its residents lived below the poverty line.  Ari Berman writes...."In Selma, it feels like everything and nothing has changed."

SOURCE

"Fifty Years After Bloody Sunday in Selma, Everything and Nothing Has Changed," by Ari Berman, The Nation, February 25, 2015, www.thenation.com/

"Five things to know about Bloody Sunday this weekend," by the editors of USA Today, March 7, 2015,  www.usatoday.com/

Bloody Sunday

Selma, Alabama (1965)

By Kevin Saff

at en.wikipedia

HIROSHIMA

ATOMIC BOMB BLASTED HIROSHIMA AUGUST 6 1945

Hiroshima, Japan (JFK+50) Sixty-nine years ago today, August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima.

The development of the atomic bomb came as a result of the Manhattan Project initiated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt who died on April 12, 1945 leaving the final decision on using the atomic weapon with his successor.

It was estimated that the radius of total destruction extended 1 mile with 69% of the city's buildings destroyed. 70,000 to 80,000 people were killed with 170,000 more injured.

President Harry S Truman issued the following statement in his announcement of the use of the atomic bomb on Japan:

"If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like which has never been seen on this earth."

Hiroshima Peace Bell

by Surgeonsmate
en.wikipedia.com

COCONUT MESSAGE SAVED THE DAY FOR JFK

Naru Island (JFK+50) Seventy-one years ago today, August 6, 1943, Lt. John F. Kennedy paddled back to his men on Olasana in a dugout canoe.  Barney Ross, who remained asleep, swam over later.

JFK, according to Robert Donovan, decided to send the two friendly natives, Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana, with a message to the PT Base.

Without paper or a writing instrument, Lt. Kennedy...

 "picked up a coconut and had Biuku quarter it."

JFK then...

"took his sheath knife and on a polished quarter of the coconut he inscribed the following message to the PT base commander:

'NAURO ISL - COMMANDER - NATIVE KNOWS POSIT - HE CAN PILOT - 11 ALIVE - NEED SMALL BOAT- KENNEDY'"

JFK had the coconut encased in plastic.  It was displayed on his desk in the Oval Office at the White House.  Today it can be seen at the JFK Library.

Dave Powers, Presidential assistant and later curator, said that it was the most important object in the library because without it, all the rest would have never been possible.

JFK's Coconut Message Paperweight

JFK Library Photo

The natives hastened to Rendova Harbor 38 miles distant with the coconut message...soon help would finally be on the way to the survivors of PT109.

SOURCE

"PT 109, John F. Kennedy in WWII," by Robert J. Donovan, McGraw-Hill Publishers, New York, 1961, 2001.




VOTING RIGHTS ACT SIGNED INTO LAW BY LBJ 

Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law 49 years ago today, August 6, 1965.

The Voting Rights Act prohibits discriminatory voting practices which had been adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests, as a prerequisite to voting.

Attending the signing ceremony were civil rights leaders and activists including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks.

By the end of 1965, 250,000 new black voters had been registered, one-third by federal examiners.

SOURCE

www.ourdocuments.gov

LBJ Congratulates Civil Rights Leaders

Signing of the Voting Rights Act

Photo by Yoichi R. Okamoto