In February of 2020 I focused on a months worth of racial injustice from the Equal Justice Institute’s calendar. Every morning I would post an animation based on what happened that corresponding day in history.
Click through the gallery to see the dates and events that correspond with each animation.
Feb 01 - Today in 1965, MLK and over 200 others were arrested after marching for voting rights.
Feb 02 - Today in 1866, Frederick Douglass led a delegation to meet Andrew Jackson to advocate for a black vote.
Feb 03 - Today in 1965, Autherine Lucy attended classes as the first black student at University of Alabama. She was suspended fays later as white students and residents rioted in protest.
Feb 04 - Today in 1946, Alabama began convict leasing by leasing an entire state penitentiary and it’s inmates to a private businessman. Forcing mostly black prisoners to work in hard and dangerous conditions for no pay.
Feb 05 - Today in 1917, Congress voted to pass the Asiatic Barred Zone act. Meant to prevent “undesirables” from immigrating to the U.S. It curbed migration from Asian, Mexican and Mediterranean people but not northern and western European immigrants. It remained law for 35 years.
Feb 06 - Today in 1902, Thomas Brown (19) was seized from a jail cell. The mob of 200 hung him from a tree on the lawn of the Jessamine County courthouse in Nicholasville, Kentucky. Thomas never had the chance to stand trial for an alleged “assault”, and no one was ever prosecuted for his murder.
Feb 07 - Today in 1904, Luther Holbert and an unidentified woman were tortured, mutilated and burned alive in front of 600 picnicking white spectators in Doddsville, Mississippi. According to an eyewitness account the event was described as festive. The audience enjoying deviled eggs, lemonade and whiskey.
Feb 08 - Today in 1968, white state troopers fired into a mostly black crowd of students killing 3 and wounding 28. The students were protesting a local “whites only” bowling alley.
Feb 09 - Today in 1960, a bomb explodes at the home of Carlotta Walls. She was the youngest of nine black students who integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, three years prior. Walls, her mother, and sister were home but no one was injured.
Feb 10 - Today, in 1915, The Birth of a Nation premieres this week in Los Angeles; with white supremacist themes and white actors in blackface, the hit film celebrating the KKK is screened in the White House by President Woodrow Wilson.
Feb 11 - Today in 1978, members of the American Indian Movement begin “The Longest Walk,” a five-month walk from Alcatraz Island to Washington, D.C., to protest anti-American Indian legislation pending in Congress.
Feb 12 - Today in 1901, Delaware ratifies the 13th amendment, which abolishes slavery. The state had original rejected it in 1865.
Feb 13 - Today in 1960, Nashville students launch sit in demonstrations to demand an end to racial segregation at lunch counters. Fisk University student Diane Nash emerges as a leader and joins the Freedom Rides in 1961.
Feb 14 - Today in 1945, an all-white grand jury refuses to indict six white men accused of raping Mrs. Recy Taylor in Abbeville, Alabama; They are never prosecuted.
Feb 15 - Today in 1804, New Jersey passes the gradual emancipation act; becoming the last northern state to abolish slavery.
Feb 28 - Today in 1942, a mob of more than 1000 white people riots outside public housing project in Detroit, Michigan, to prevent black families from moving in.
Feb 16 - Today in 1847, Missouri outlaws education of black people and bans immigration of free black people into the state.
Feb 17 - Today in 1947, in Greenville, South Caroline, a mob of white men lynches Willie Earl. Slashing chunks of flesh from his body before blasting him with a shotgun; 31 men charged with the murder are later acquitted.
Feb 18 - Today in 1965, Jimmie Lee Jackson, a 26-year-old black man, is shot by a white officer. Police attacked a peaceful civil rights protest in Marion, Alabama; Jackson died eight days later.
Feb 19 - Today in 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066. Leading to the forced internment of 120,000 men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry living in the western U.S.
Feb 20 - Today in 1915, the Panama-Pacific International Exposition opens in San Francisco.Showcasing advances in racial eugenics and efforts to sterilize and selectively breed people of color for race betterment.
Feb 21 - Today in 1965, a grand jury in Montgomery, Alabama, indicts more than 85 bus boycott leaders and charges them with violating a statute the barred boycotts without just cause.
Feb 22 - Today in 1898, after Frazier Baker is appointed postmaster if Lake City, South Carolina, enraged local white people burn his home, fatally shoot him and his infant daughter, and wound his wife and other children.
Feb 23 - Today in 1965, mourners begin visiting a Harlem funeral home to view body of assassinated black activist Malcolm X; over the next five days thousands pay their respects.
Feb 24 - Today in 1965, Kentucky refuses to ratify Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery and does not do so until 1976.
Feb 25 - Today in 1886, an anti-Chinese convention in Boise Idaho starts a movement, often violent, against Chinese immigrants. Chinese share of Idaho’s population decreases from one-third in 1870 to nearly zero by 1910.
Feb 26 - Today in 1886, an anti-Chinese convention in Boise Idaho starts a movement, often violent, against Chinese immigrants. Chinese share of Idaho’s population decreases from one-third in 1870 to nearly zero by 1910.
Feb 27 - Today in 2013, Alabama officials argue before U.S. Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder that Voting Rights Act of 1965’s protections are no longer needed to prevent discrimination; on June 25th, the Court agrees.
Feb 29 - Today in 1960, Alabama Governor John Patterson warns Alabama State University students that someone will likely be killed if someone continue demonstrations against segregation.