Standing Up, Always
Plus, any furniture historians in the house?
Welcome back to the This Day In Esoteric Political History newsletter. Each week, a member of our team (or a friend of the show) gathers together bits of America’s past and attempts to find a throughline that might add a little understanding to our current moment.
Here’s what happened over the week ahead in American political history…
January 16
1919: The North End neighborhood of Boston is digging out from under 2.3 million gallons of molasses, which flooded city streets after a storage tank burst
1920: The League of Nations holds its first council meeting in Paris
2001: President Bill Clinton awards Theodore Roosevelt a posthumous Medal of Honor for his leadership during the Spanish–American War
2020: The impeachment trial of President Donald Trump begins in the U.S. Senate, marking only the third such trial in U.S. history
January 17
1961: President Dwight Eisenhower warns against the growing power and influence of the "military–industrial complex" in his farewell address
1989: A gunman kills five students and injures two dozen before killing himself at Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, Calif. It is one of the worst school shootings to date
1998: The story of Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky breaks, leading to a major scandal and subsequent impeachment trial
2001: The company pets.com undergoes the process of liquidating its assets, after just 18 months in existence
January 18
1980: A group of Texas oil billionaires scheme to drive up the worldwide price of silver. This would culminate in a few months later on what came to be known as “Silver Thursday,” when their speculation collapsed and sent worldwide markets into chaos
1990: Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry is arrested for drug possession in an FBI sting
1993: Martin Luther King Jr. Day is officially observed in all 50 U.S. states for the first time, following years of advocacy.
January 19
1870: A political cartoon by Thomas Mast depicts a donkey to represent southern Democrats. Around this same time, Nast also starts to use the elephant for Republicans
1977: President Gerald Ford pardons Iva Toguri D'Aquino, AKA "Tokyo Rose," who was accused of being a Japanese propagandist during WWII
2004: Howard Dean's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination suffers a setback after his overly enthusiastic speech, known as the "Dean scream"
January 20
1967: Lurleen Wallace took office as the Governor of Alabama, only the third female governor in United States history
1981: Ronald Reagan is inaugurated as the 40th President of the United States. On the same day, Iran releases 52 American hostages, ending a 444-day crisis
1986: Martin Luther King Jr. Day is celebrated as a federal holiday for the first time
January 21
1861 : Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis gave a farewell address in the Senate, announcing that his state (along with several others) would be seceding from the United States.
1977: President Jimmy Carter pardons Vietnam War-era draft evaders, offering amnesty to thousands who evaded or resisted the draft.
2010: The Supreme Court, in Citizens United vs. FEC, rules that the government cannot restrict political spending by corporations and unions
2017: Millions participate in the Women’s March around the world
January 22
1958: Near Maxton, North Carolina, a KKK rally is broken up by a group of armed members of the Lumbee tribe
1973: The Supreme Court, in the landmark case Roe v. Wade, effectively legalizes abortion across the United States on the grounds of a person’s rights to privacy
In which we take the above collection of events and find themes, throughlines, rabbit holes and more. This week it’s Kellie Carter Jackson’s turn at the typewriter.
One of my favorite episodes that we have covered on the podcast has to be the Battle of Hayes Pond near Maxton, NC, where a KKK rally was broken up by a group of armed members of the Lumbee Tribe in 1958. I love when people stand up to injustice, that’s like my favorite song! And I loved how cowardly the klan responded when they realized that they were out numbered and out gunned. The scene is laughable. When the klan’s leader and grand wizard, James W. "Catfish" Cole, saw that they were no match for the Lumbee Tribe, he took off into the woods in terror, leaving behind his wife Carolyn and their three children. When Carolyn attempted to drive off, her car got stuck in a ditch. According to the Lumbee people, their men helped her push the car out of the ditch.
Standing up against injustice doesn’t always require an army or arms. It can be demanding that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday become a national holiday. In 1993, twenty-five years after his death, Martin Luther King Jr. Day was officially observed in all 50 U.S. states for the first time. The campaign to create the holiday took years of persuasion. I cannot think of the movement without music, and I cannot think of MLK day without thinking about Stevie Wonder’s tribute that became the official “Black Happy Birthday” song. Before there was a King holiday, there was a song.
Solidarity, music, and a symbolic fit are some of the major ingredients to good protest! For example, who can forget the iconic pink knitted “pu**y” hats made when millions of women marched globally in 2017 advocating for women's rights and various other causes, the day after President Donald Trump's inauguration (more to come on this moment on the show soon!). When it comes to demanding justice, nothing is superficial. Even the things that are considered performative can be powerful and effect change. In fact, the only thing that looks ridiculous are klan members attempting to stake claim to a land that never belonged to them.
More Esoterica
Jacob here, to admit defeat. We got a great note from listener Jake, suggesting a show on “the topic of the United States' 1940-1941 Cotton Mattress Program.” There has not been “a single podcast brave enough to tackle it,” he wrote.
Well, Jake, we tried. I had great fun reading about New Deal era America’s attempt to boost the “cotton belt” by purchasing vast quantities of surplus cotton and sending it to rural families so they could make their own beds. Many communities were still sleeping on straw or feathers.
Anyway, we ultimately decided there isn’t quite enough there for a full episode of the show. At least not yet. If anyone out there is looking for a research project, I’d say there’s some fertile ground to cover here. And if you do explore, let us know—maybe we’ll even have you on to discuss what you found!
In the meantime, enjoy these couple images from our hunt….
P.S. Please keep the topic suggestions coming. We love nothing more than a good rabbit hole.
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