Showing posts with label senator. Show all posts
Showing posts with label senator. Show all posts

February 25 - First Black U.S. Senator

    Posted on February 25, 2022


This is an update of my post published on February 25, 2011:




On this date in 1870, Hiram Rhodes Revels became the first Black person to serve in the U.S. Congress, representing Mississippi as its Senator for two years during Reconstruction.

You may wonder why he served only two years, when Senate seats are held for six years. Well, Revels was sworn in to serve out the unexpired term of Jefferson Davis, who had quit the Senate when Mississippi and other Southern states broke away from the United States. Davis ended up being the president of the so-called Confederate States of America.



Amazing, but true...

To this day, only ten other African Americans, besides for Revels, have ever served in the U.S. Senate! Can you name any of them?* (Hint: below are two of them.)



By the way, Revels was never a slave. He was born free in North Carolina, and he became a minister who went to seminary and college. He preached in Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Tennessee, Missouri, Kansas, and Maryland, and he helped set up schools for Black children. He was a chaplain in the Union army and helped raise two Black regiments during the Civil War, and he took part in the battle of Vicksburg in Mississippi.

* The other ten Black U.S. Senators were/are:

Blanche Bruce – R – Mississippi 1875-1881 (former slave)

Edward Brooke III – R – Massachusetts 1967-1979

Carol Braun – D – Illinois 1993-1999

Barack Obama – D – Illinois 2005-2008

Roland Burris – D – Illinois 2009-2010

Tim Scott - D - South Carolina 2013-current
 
William "Mo" Cowan - D - Massachusetts 2013
During the 5-1/2 months that Mo Cowan served alongside Tim Scott, this was the FIRST TIME EVER than there was more than one Black Senator at the same time!

Corey Booker - D - New Jersey 2013-current

Kamala Harris - D - California 2017-2021

Raphael Warnock - D - Georgia 2021-current



Barack Obama and Kamala Harris are surely the two most
famous Black Senators in U.S. history, since they went on to
become the first Black President and Vice-President,
respectively.


 

Also on this date:





























 




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February 22 - Happy Birthday, George Washington AND Ted Kennedy

 Posted on February 22, 2021

This is an update of my post published on February 22, 2010:




On this day in 1732, George Washington was born in Virginia.

Washington worked as a surveyor and a planter, as a young man, before he became involved with the military. You may know that he eventually led the Continental Army against the British in the American Revolutionary War. You probably know that, after the United States became a country, Washington served as the nation's first president under the Constitution.

But you may not know these facts:


  • Washington was NOT the first president of the United States of America. Before the Constitution had been written, the new nation had been organized under the Articles of Confederation. This document was signed in 1781, and Congress (which included George Washington) elected John Hanson to be the first president.


Hanson served a one-year term, and there were six other U.S. presidents under the Articles, before the Constitution was written and ratified.
That's why I said that George Washington was the “first president under the Constitution.”

  • The Electoral College elected Washington unanimously in both 1789 and in the 1792 election. He's the only U.S. president to have received 100% of the vote.



  • The Precedent President – Washington very deliberately set precedent—that is, acted in a way that would serve as a good example to future presidents—in his brand-new job as president. For example, he wanted to turn down the large (for the time) salary of $25,000 a year, but he didn't want future presidents to have to be wealthy enough to work for free, so he changed his position. He refused to run for a third term as president—and that customary policy of only serving for two terms lasted for many years and is now codified in the Constitution. Washington wouldn't allow kingly titles or trappings, preferring a simple “Mr. President” over flowery honorifics.

And EXACTLY 200 years later...


On this day in 1932, Edward Moore Kennedy – known as Ted – was born
in Massachusetts.

He was one of the younger brothers in an extraordinarily influential and important family. You probably know that two of his brothers—John F. Kennedy, who became U.S. President, and Robert F. Kennedy, who became U.S. Attorney General and presidential candidate—were assassinated. You might also know that Ted Kennedy served as senator for Massachusetts for 47 years. He died in August, 2009.

You may not know these facts:
  • As a child Ted Kennedy lived, not just in MA, but also in Florida, New York, and London. He went to 10 different schools by the time he was 11.

  • His brother John, who was his godfather, wanted him to be named George Washington Kennedy because of the shared birthday.

  • Ted Kennedy climbed the Matterhorn while in the Military Peace Corps, stationed in Europe.



Did Washington chop down a cherry tree?

More importantly, did he confess the act to his father, saying, “I cannot tell a lie”?



Almost certainly not. This story was written—and, scholars say, invented—by a pastor and book seller named Mason Locke Weems. He first printed his biography of George Washington in 1800; this first biography of the first president was entitled Life of George Washington; with Curious Anecdotes, Equally Honorable to Himself, and Exemplary to His Young Countrymen.

Do a Washington word search puzzle from Ducksters. Or do you prefer jigsaw puzzles?

Read the book George Washington's Teeth, by Deborah Chandra and Madeleine Comora. Here are some resources that go along with the book.



Watch a YouTube video about Washington.

Speaking of YouTube videos, you gotta see this one: “From Washington to Obama in less than 4 minutes!”

Check out some of Ted Kennedy's Words
  • “For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”
 
  • “My brother need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.” (About Robert F. Kennedy)
 
  • “...[W]hen John Kennedy called [for] going to the moon, he didn't say, 'It's too far to get there. We shouldn't even try.' Our people answered his call and rose to the challenge, and today an American flag still marks the surface of the moon.”



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