Thursday, November 02, 2006

Today in Black History

November 2nd


1903
Business and civic leader, Maggie L Walker, opens the St Luke Penny Savings Bank in Richmond, VA,



Background
Maggie Lena Walker (July 15, 1867-December 15, 1934) was an American teacher, businesswoman, and banker. She was the first woman to charter a bank in the United States. As a leader her successes and vision offered tangible improvements in the way of life for African Americans and women. Disabled by paralysis and limited to a wheelchair later in life, she also became an example for persons with disabilities. Her restored and furnished home in the historic Jackson Ward neighborhood of Richmond, Virginia is a National Historic Site operated by the National Park Service.


1875
Democrats suppressed Black vote by fraud and violence and carried Mississippi election. "The Mississippi Plan" staged riots, political assassinations, massacres and social and economic intimidation was used later to overthrow Reconstruction governments in South Carolina and Louisiana.





Background


The Mississippi Plan of 1875 was devised by the Democratic Party to violently overthrow the Republican Party by organized violence in order to redeem the state of Mississippi. The Mississippi Plan was also adopted by Democrats in South Carolina and Louisiana.
Following the end of the American Civil War, blacks found themselves emancipated from the bonds of slavery, and, with the passing of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1870, were allowed to vote. The consequences of this were far-reaching and almost immediate. Blacks flooded the polls, and in Mississippi's 1874 election the Republican Party carried a 30,000 majority in what had been, in pre-Civil War years, a Democrat stronghold.

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