MID-SOUTH MEMORIES
25 years ago — 1993
WASHINGTON — Black and white Americans by the tens of thousands assembled Wednesday in a show of support for the nation’s poor and heard Martin Luther King’s widow accuse the government of abandoning his dream of 1963. Dressed in black, standing where he stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial five years ago, Mrs. Corretta King declared “racism, poverty and war” had combined to make matters worse for black poor and white poor alike. But her shouted words, drowned out occasionally by jet planes taking off from National Airport across the Potomac, were still not as bitter as those of the speeches preceding hers. They accused the United States of lying to itself about the equality of Negroes, of wasting its energies in an “immoral” war and of keeping its poor “depressed, oppressed and repressed.”
50 years ago — 1968
TULSA, Okla. — Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller of New York will formally offer the Senate seat left vacant by the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy to New York Mayor Lindsay within a few days, Rockefeller sources reported here Saturday. Lindsay has reportedly not made up his mind whether to accept. Some of his advisers favor his taking the appointment and believe he will. Others are not so sure.
75 years ago — 1943
WASHINGTON — Speaking out against the use of coercion to weld national unity, the Supreme Court yesterday ruled that states cannot compel school children to salute the American Flag. The case appealed involved religious objections of some Jehovah’s Witnesses in West Virginia. The ruling reversed a decision in a similar case made by the high court in 1940.
100 years ago — 1918
Railroad lines operating out of Memphis have been authorized by the United States railroad administration to spend $108,563,430 for additions and improvements this year. Included in the huge wartime improvements budget are $67,000 for completion of the Arkansas approach to the Harahan Bridge and $5,000 for improvements at Union Station.
125 years ago — 1893
There are 51,000 breweries in the world, and the United States is in third place with 2,300. In annual per capita consumption, the United States is seventh, with 27 quarts. It occurs to us that a good many are getting more than their share.