MID-SOUTH MEMORIES
25 years ago — 1993
WASHINGTON — The White House began positioning president Clinton Wednesday to retreat from his promise to lift the band completely on homosexuals in the military. “I think he recognizes that it’s very difficult, that there is not support from Congress for a complete lifting of the band,” White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers said. White House officials said they were awaiting recommendations from Defense Secretary Les Aspin, who has been struggling to produce a compromise between Clinton’s promise and intense opposition from the Pentagon and Congress to lifting the ban.
50 years ago — 1968
WASHINGTON — The permit for the poor people’s Resurrection City expired at 8 p.m. Sunday. The National Park Service ordered the camp vacated, but its residents made no move to leave. The Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, leader of the poor people’s campaign vowed anew that his followers would remain in the encampment with or without a permit until Congress and the administration moved to help the hungry and needy. As expected, the government made no immediate move to evacuate the camp, which has a thousand or so residents living in plywood shanties near the Lincoln Memorial.
75 years ago — 1943
NASHVILLE — The state board of education yesterday set in motion the machinery to get Memphis State College reinstated on the accredited list of the Southern Association of Secondary Schools and Colleges. The school lost its accreditation last year because of “irregularities” in the keeping of records and “unsound” administrative practices.
100 years ago — 1918
NASHVILLE — This city is suffering from an ice shortage due to the growing population and to the increasing demands of the powder plant. The winter’s reserve was used up in May and current production is inadequate. The food administration has ordered no ice cream or soft drinks sold on Sundays.
125 years ago — 1893
J.E. Beasley of Memphis won $1,000 in gold yesterday for his design of a fireproof cotton warehouse. The prize was presented to him in Atlanta at a convention of the German American Insurance Co., which sponsored the design contest. For three years cotton men and insurance companies have fought over fire insurance rates.