“Pages of history” features excerpts from The News Journal archives including the Wilmington Morning News, The Morning News and the Evening Journal.
Aug. 29, 1963, Wilmington Morning News
200,000 jam March for Freedom; Dr. King’s speech highlights rally
WASHINGTON – More than 200,000 Black and white friends yesterday staged a giant, orderly “march for jobs and freedom” – a demonstration they hoped would lead to a breakthrough on all civil rights.
In balmy 84-degree weather and a friendly breeze, the hosts walked from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial, enshrining the marble statue of the man who freed the slaves 100 years ago.
Softly, as they went, they chanted the familiar civil rights hymn: “Deep in my heart, I do believe…some day we shall overcome.”
And a forest of placards moved with them. Some placards struck a religious note: “God of wisdom, God of power, can America deny freedom in this hour?” Others were more down-to-earth and slangy: “No U.S. dough to help Jim Crow!”
The estimate of more than 200,000 participants came from the Washington chief of police, Robert V. Murray. He made the assessment in mid-afternoon and added: “Up to now it’s been a very orderly crowd, a very orderly gathering.”
…..At the memorial, they heard many speeches, many songs and spirituals. They heard speakers demand passage of President Kennedy’s civil rights bill – and much more.
Of all the speeches…the one that drew the strongest applause was made by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who said:
“I still have a dream, a dream deeply rooted in the American dream – one day this nation will rise up and live up to its creed, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ I have a dream that one day in Alabama little black boys and little black girls will be able to go hand in hand together with little white boys and little white girls as brothers and sisters. This is the faith that I will take down to the South – that out of this mountain of despair, I can find a soul of brotherhood.”…
Aug. 30, 2005, The News Journal
Hurricane Katrina: ‘Devastating hit’
Announcing itself with shrieking, 145-mph winds, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast just outside New Orleans on Monday, submerging entire neighborhoods up to their roofs, swamping Mississippi’s beachfront casinos and killing at least 55 people.
Jim Pollard, spokesman for the Harrison County, Mississippi emergency operations center, said 50 people were killed in his county, with the bulk of the deaths at an apartment complex in Biloxi. Three other people were killed by falling trees in Mississippi and two died in a traffic accident in Alabama, authorities said.
For New Orleans – a dangerously vulnerable city because it sits mostly below sea level in a bowl-shaped depression – it was not the apocalyptic storm forecasters had feared. But it was plenty bad, in New Orleans and elsewhere along the coast, where scores of people had to be rescued from rooftops and attics as the floodwaters rose around them. An untold number of other people were feared dead in flooded neighborhoods, many of which could not be reached by rescuers because of high water….
RECENT COASTAL STORM NEWS:Access to Dewey Beach closed after storm causes ‘dangerous conditions’
Aug. 31, 1967, The Morning News
Thurgood Marshall gets nod in Senate for Supreme Court
WASHINGTON – Thurgood Marshall, the first black nominated to the Supreme Court, won solid Senate confirmation yesterday, 77 days after President Johnson named him to the high tribunal.
The vote was 69 to 11 with all of the opponents being from the Deep South except Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W. Va. All 11 are Democrats except Republican Strom Thurmond of South Carolina….
After the vote, Marshall declared, “I am greatly honored.”
“Let me take this opportunity,” his statement said, “to affirm my deep faith in this nation and its people, and to pledge that I shall be ever mindful of my obligation to the Constitution and to the goal of equal justice under law.”
The senators who opposed Marshall said they did so because he is an “ultra liberal” and “a judicial activist” in his constitutional philosophy. But supporters said they are confident Marshall will make a great justice on the basis of his record as U.S. solicitor general, his current job, and a U.S. circuit judge before that.
After the vote, Senate Democratic Leader Mike Mansfield of Montana said, “This is a shining hour for Mr. Marshall, President Johnson, the Senate and the United States of America.”…
CATCH UP ON HISTORY:The News Journal archives, week of June 5
Sept. 1, 1997, The News Journal
Death of a princess: World mourns loss of Diana
LONDON – Prince Charles brought Princess Diana home for the last time Sunday [Aug. 31], escorting the body of his “English rose” back to the land where their storybook romance ended in sorrow and scandal, a nation now plunged into grief and outrage over a stunning final tragedy.
A jet carrying the somber prince and the coffin bearing his ex-wife’s remains landed outside London 16 hours after Diana died from injuries suffered when her automobile, chased by photographers, crashed in a Paris traffic tunnel….
Reach reporter Ben Mace at rmace@gannett.com.
