Wednesday

Jul. 2, 1997

Summer in the South

by Paul Laurence Dunbar

WEDNESDAY 7/2

Today's Reading:"Summer in the South" by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906), from THE GARDEN THRIVES, published by Harper Perennial (1996).

At noon today, we'll be halfway through 1997, with 182 Π days having elapsed.

It was on this day in1976 that North and South Vietnam were reunified after 22 years, following the fall of Saigon the previous April.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law on this day in 1964 by President Lyndon Johnson; the controversial legislation, proposed by President John F. Kennedy, inspired one the of the longest debates in Senate history.

Sixty-one year old novelist Ernest Hemingway, committed suicide on this day in 1961 at his home in Ketchum, Idaho.

It's the birthday of civil rights activist Medgar Evers, in Decatur, Mississippi, in 1925; his murder in 1963 became a rallying call for the civil rights movement.

Pioneer radio talk show host Barry Gray, credited with creating the talk show format, was born on this day in Red Lion, New Jersey, in 1916.

It's the birthday of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, remembered for BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION in which he ruled that racial discrimination in public schools was unconstitutional; he was born in Baltimore in 1908.

It's the birthday of theatre director Sir Tyrone Guthrie, born in Turnbridge Wells, England, on this day in 1900.

It's the birthday of photographer Andre Kertesz, known for his pictures of Paris during the 1920s and 30s, born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1894.

It's the birthday of the German novelist and poet Hermann Hesse, born in Calw, Germany, in 1877.

It was on this day in 1822, that Denmark Vesey was executed in Charleston, South Carolina, for planning what would have been a massive revolt of slaves in the United States.

English cleric Thomas Cranmer, one of the chief authors of THE ENGLISH BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER, was born on this day in 1489.

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®

 

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