On this day in 1961, Berry Gordy finally signed the Supremes to a contract. The ‘Great Girls Group’ comprised of Florence Ballard, Mary Wilson, and Diana Ross. Later, the group was recast as Diana Ross and the Supremes; over the years several others replaced the original members.
Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. was the first African American Greek-lettered organization. It was formed on the campus of Howard University on this day in 1908.
On this day in 1970, Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, the nearby crypt holding King’s remains, and his boyhood home became part of the newly created Martin Luther King, Jr, Center for Nonviolent Change.
The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on this day in 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. He was the unquestioned leader of the Civil Rights movement, and the conscience of the nation.
“But even more, all types of conniving methods are still being used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters. The denial of this sacred right is a tragic betrayal of the highest mandates of our democratic tradition. And so, our most urgent request to the president of the United States and every member of Congress is to give us the right to vote. Give us the ballot, and we will no longer have to worry the federal government about our basic rights. Give us the ballot and we will no longer plead to the federal government for passage of an anti-lynching law; we will by the power of our vote write the law on the statute books of the South and bring an end to the dastardly acts of the hooded perpetrators of violence. Give us the ballot, and we will transform the salient misdeeds of bloodthirsty mobs into the calculated good deeds of orderly citizens. Give us the ballot, and we will fill our legislative halls with men of goodwill and send to the sacred halls of Congresmen who will not sign a "Southern Manifesto" because of their devotion to the manifesto of justice. Give us the ballot, and we will place judges on the benches of the south who will do justly and love mercy, and we will place at the head of the southern states governors who have felt not only the tang of the human, but the glow of the Divine. Give us the ballot, and we will quietly and nonviolently, without rancor or bitterness, implement the Supreme Court's decision of May seventeenth, 1954.
MLK, Jr, 1957
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